Viewing System Topology

The system topology displays the network of equipment and subsystems, and how these are connected within this specific system.

Example:

EQ1 to EQ10 are part of a system called Bottling Machine and are displayed in the topology according to their connections.

The topology feature allows you to:

View how your digital assets are connected.
Drilldown to individual equipment or subssytem to get detailed information on the equipment or susbsystem itself as well as how interfaces and ports are connected.
Visually identify newly added equipment, removed equipment and – in general – equipment where there was a discrepancy when comparing the reference structure and the actual structure.

Prerequisites:

You have created a system.
You must have the SYSTEM_EDIT or SYSTEM_DELETE roles assigned to configure and manage the topology.
You must have – at least – the SYSTEM_READ role assigned to view the topology, and – at least – the EQUIPMENT_READ role assigned to view the Equipment Details, the Connection Details as well as to navigate to the Equipment object page.

Procedure

Use the delivered System APIs (/systems(systemId)/topologyConfiguration, and /systems(systemId)/topologyConnections to initially post data to the topology of a system.

For more details, see the Systems API in API Tutorial for SAP Asset Intelligence Network .
1. First use the /systems(systemId)/topologyConfiguration API to load the interface and port information for your pieces of equipment.
2. Then use the /systems(systemId)/topologyConnections API to create the connections between the configured interfaces and ports of your loaded pieces of equipment.
  Note
  - Ports communicated in the configuration API call are considered active, any ports that were defined in a previous configuration API call, but have removed ports in a subsequent configuration API call are considered inactive.
    
    Example:
    
    configuration API call 1 communicates: Interface 1 – Port 1 and Port 2 (i.e. Port 1 and Port 2 are considered active);
    
    configuration API call 2 communicates: Interface 1 – Port 1 (i.e. Port 1 is considered active, and Port 2 is now considered inactive)
Go to the Systems app and open the system into which you loaded the topology data.
Select the Topology tab to view the topology after initial load.
1. View the Connection Details by clicking on a connection line between 2 pieces of equipment.
  This will show you:
  - the Equipment ID and Equipment Short Description
  - the interface and port information for each of the connected pieces of equipment for the selected connection
2. Open the detailed information in the side panel by clicking on an equipment in the topology.
  This will show you:
  - the Equipment ID and Equipment Short Description
  - Equipment Status
  - Manufacturer
  - Path information of parent objects of the Equipment
  - List of all interfaces and all (that is, connected as well as disconnected) ports for each interface for the selected equipment.
    
    Note
    
    By clicking on the Equipment links in the side panel you open the Equipment Details quick view where you can get additional information for the selected equipment.
    
    You can also navigate to the Equipment object page from quick view (via Display Equipment Details).
Save Initial Reference Structure.

Click Save as Reference to save the actual loaded structure as reference structure, that is, this saved topology structure will be considered as planned structure until you save a new reference structure.
Comparison of Reference Structure with Actual Structure.

The next time you upload the actual data via the /topologyConfiguration and actual /topologyConnection APIs, this actual structure will be compared to the reference (= planned) structure and changes will be visualized in the topology display.

As general information, you will see either Actual is same as planned (if there was no change to the network since the last upload) or Actual is different from planned (if there was a change to the network since the last upload).
For the latter, you will get additional information on the changes directly in the topology visualization:
- All new equipment (= equipment that is not in the planned/reference topology, but in the actual topology) and their connections are displayed in green.
- All removed equipment (= equipment that is in the planned/reference topology, but not in the actual topology) are displayed in red.
Save new Reference Structure.

Click Save as Reference to save the actual structure as new reference structure.

You can save a planned topology for future reference using the Save as Reference button. The API always refer to the actual topology. The APIs always compare an actual topology with a planned/reference topology that was saved as reference and display the differences between the two topologies. The following legends are used to depict the differences:

All the new equipment and their networks are displayed in green.
All the equipment in the planned/reference topology that are removed in the actual are displayed in red.