DELL N3000 User Manual

Discovering Network Devices

This chapter describes the Industry Standard Discovery Protocol (ISDP) 

feature and the Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) feature, including 

LLDP for Media Endpoint Devices (LLDP-MED).
The topics covered in this chapter include:

• Device Discovery Overview
• Default IDSP and LLDP Values
• Configuring ISDP and LLDP (Web)
• Configuring ISDP and LLDP (CLI)
• Device Discovery Configuration Examples

The switch software includes two different device discovery protocols: IDSP 

and LLDP. These protocols allow the switch to broadcast information about 

itself and to learn information about neighboring devices.

The Industry Standard Discovery Protocol (ISDP) is a proprietary Layer 2 

network protocol that inter-operates with Cisco devices running the Cisco 

Discovery Protocol (CDP). ISDP is used to share information between 

neighboring devices. The switch software participates in the CDP protocol 

and is able to both discover and be discovered by other CDP-supporting 

devices.

LLDP is a standardized discovery protocol defined by IEEE 802.1AB. It allows 

stations residing on an 802 LAN to advertise major capabilities physical 

descriptions, and management information to physically adjacent devices 

allowing a network management system (NMS) to access and display this 

information.