Keeping track of ever-growing, and ever-changing, customer networks can be overwhelming for any IT support provider; but successfully doing so is the key to IT support planning, proactive maintenance, and security. This is where a Network Discovery tool comes in handy. It delivers a complete picture of your customer networks by identifying its components and creating an inventory, with detailed information on each network device.
Atera's Network Discovery goes even further. It pinpoints your opportunities to offer customer upgrades—and earn more in the process. This unique feature automatically zeroes in on all your upgrade opportunities, saving you the massive time and effort required to do so manually. We put the ball in your court, giving you the tools to effectively and proactively support your customers and grow your business. For these reasons, Atera’s Network Discovery is nothing short of an IT support, x-ray vision, super tool.
Network Discovery is an add-on service and costs $29 per month, billed annually, or $39 per month, billed monthly, on top of Atera's general subscription cost. A 14-day, free trial is available for existing customers to explore the product, while trialers can use it free, for up to 30 days. If your current Atera billing is monthly, Network Discovery must also be billed monthly.
Keeping track of your customers’ networks has never been easier with Atera’s Network Discovery. Learn about:
- Using Network Discovery
- Network Discovery Opportunities
- Network Discovery Results
- Network Discovery History
- Optimal Network Settings
Network Discovery finds devices connected to a network. It scans the entire network, identifies its components, and creates an inventory—with detailed information on each network device. To use Network Discovery, you'll need an Atera agent installed on your customer's domain controller (DC). That is the agent that will perform the scan. Additionally, please see the recommended network settings for optimal Network Discovery results. It's recommended to scan your customer's network periodically to keep current on any possible changes/additions.
To use Network Discovery:
1. From the side panel, click Network Discovery.
The Network Discovery page appears.
2. Select the Customer Name and Agent Name from the dropdown menus, and click Discover.
A form, requesting domain controller info, appears.
3. Enter the username and password for the domain controller, and click Discover.
The network discovery scan begins, and may take a few minutes.
Results appear.
The Network Discovery results can be exported (downloaded) as an Excel file.
Note: Multiple scans on different customers/agents can be run simultaneously, with a notification appearing when the results are in.
Network Discovery Opportunities
Atera's unique Network Discovery tool gives you x-ray vision to discover ways to proactively support and protect your customers, all while earning more in the process. It continuously updates you about new upsell opportunities, to benefit your customers, as well as your bottom line. These opportunities include:
- Newly added workstations/servers (Yep, it's time to install an agent and update software, security, and billing.)
- Unmonitored SNMP devices (It’s time to add to Atera monitoring.)
- An aging OS on workstations/servers (Time to upgrade that Operating System.)
- Aging storage disks (It may be time to replace those HDD/SSD storage disks.)
- Bad sectors on storage disks (Don’t take chances with your customers’ data. It’s time to replace those disks.)
- Installed HDD storage disks (It’s a great opportunity to offer an SSD upgrade.)
Opportunities Table Properties
This section explains how you can see your customer opportunities.
To see your opportunities:
1. Do a Network Discovery scan, following the instructions above (Using Network Discovery).
Once you've scanned a particular customer's network, automatic scans will continue to run in the background, at regular intervals, continuously finding and alerting you to new opportunities.
2. Click the Opportunities tab.
The total number, and monetary value, of all customer opportunities, appear at the top. The number and value of opportunities by individual customer appear next to each customer name. You can sort your customers by Most Opportunities, New Opportunities, and Customers A-Z, by clicking the dropdown menu on the right.
Note: The 'Opportunities' monetary value displayed is an aggregate of typical IT support service fees charged per upgrade action (based on Atera customer surveys):
| Opportunities | Opportunity Value |
| Newly added workstations/servers | $720 ($60 per device/per month x 12 months) |
| Aging OS on workstations/servers | $100 ($70 for an hour of work + $30 markup) |
| Installed HDD storage disks | $40 (average price of $200 + 20% markup) |
| Aging storage disks | $40 (average price of $200 + 20% markup) |
| Bad sectors on storage disks | $40 (average price of $200 + 20% markup) |
3. Click on a customer to see the opportunities available.
Note: New opportunities appear with a red dot. An opportunity will remain 'new' for 30 days from the time it was discovered.
4. Click on a specific opportunity to see details on devices that match the criteria.
You can also access your opportunities from within a customer
To access:
From Customers (on the side panel), click the monetary amount on the specific customer.
This will take you to your opportunities.
Atera enables you to perform on-the-spot, upgrade actions on certain opportunities, so you can instantly perform the necessary actions, and take care of business.
On opportunity, Newly added workstations/servers, you can remotely deploy and install the Atera agent on one, some, or all of your customer devices, right from within Network Discovery.
Note: Agents can be installed on online devices only.
To deploy and install agents:
1. From within Network Discovery, click the Opportunities tab.
2. Click the specific customer.
3. Click the Newly added workstations/servers opportunity type.
The list of devices appears.
4. Select the device(s) on which you wish to install an agent, and click Install agent(s).
Note: After clicking Install agent, you'll receive a notification about the success (or failure) of the installation, no matter where you are in the app.
From within opportunity Unmonitored SNMP devices, you can add SNMP devices to Atera monitoring.
To add:
1. From within Network Discovery Opportunities, click the specific customer.
The customer opportunities appear.
2. Click the Unmonitored SNMP devices opportunity type.
The unmonitored SNMP devices appear.
3. Check the box(es) on any device you wish to monitor or edit.
4. Select the appropriate Monitoring Agent(s) from the dropdown menu. The domain controller is set as the default, but you can choose from a list of all the agents.
Note: Much of the column information can be edited:
Device Names can be edited by clicking on a device name and typing a new one.
Device Types can be edited by clicking a device type and selecting from the dropdown menu.
5. Click Add device(s) to confirm monitoring setup and/or save changes to your selected device(s)
Note: You must click the Add device(s) button to save any changes made to selected devices. Failure to do so will result in changes not being saved.
Opportunities Table Properties
You can search, filter, hide, and restore the opportunities, as well as an export (download) the table.
You can search for a device by typing the parameters in the field, underneath the column headings.
You can filter and reorder the device table columns by clicking on the 
icon, next to any column.
Hide and Restore Opportunities
After offering customer upgrades, you may wish to hide these opportunities from the list.
To hide opportunities:
Check the box next to the device(s) you wish to hide, and click Done deal!
You can view these hidden/completed opportunities by clicking on Completed Opportunities, from the dropdown menu (at the top of the page).
You can also restore these opportunities back to the list.
To restore opportunities:
Check the box next to the device(s) you wish to restore, and click Restore
You can also export (download) as a PDF or Excel file, by clicking Export, at the top, right of the page. If you've rearranged or filtered the data, that is how it will be exported.
The customer network information, pulled up by the network discovery scan, is broken down into multiple sections.
General Details
The General Details section includes the:
- Domain Name
- Domain Controller
- Customer Name
- Network Name
- Default Gateway
- Public IP
Graphs
The Graphs section includes the following interactive graphs:
- Device Types
- Workstation/Server Status
- OS Editions and Versions
- Storage
- OS Aging ('New' is 1-51 months old, 'Aging' is 52-59 months, and 'Upgrade me!' is 60+ months old)
Notes:
- An 'Unreachable' status for Workstation/Server and OS Aging graphs indicates a communication failure between Atera and the agent. This status can appear for many reasons (e.g., Firewall or antivirus blocking, active directory issues, etc.), and does not necessarily indicate that the device is offline.
- Clicking on a graph legend removes the parameter from the graph (or adds it back in).
Devices
The Devices section consists of three categories of tables:
- Workstation/Server
- SNMP
- Storage
The Workstation/Server category displays detailed information such as:
- Status (Online - WMI port reachable, Ping - pingable (but WMI port unreachable), Unreachable - not reachable at all)
- Device Name
- Device Type
- OS Platform
- OS Edition
- OS Version
- OS Build
- Office Version and Build
- Last Login
- Installation Date (Windows only)
- OS Age (windows only)
- Virtual System
- Installed Agent
- System Memory
- IP Address
- MAC Address
- FTP (21/TCP)
- HTTP (80/TCP)
- HTTPS (443/TCP)
- RDP (3389/TCP)
- DNS (53/TCP)
- SSH (22/TCP)
Workstation/Server Ports: The ports listed above indicate whether open (green) or closed (gray). A 'potential risk' (red) is indicated when:
- an RDP or FTP port is open on a server
- an RDP port is open on a workstation (Windows and Mac)
The SNMP category displays detailed information such as:
- Device Name
- Device Type
- Manufacturer
- Model
- Serial Number
- Installation Date
- Device Age (Months)
- IP Address
- MAC Address
- HTTP (80/TCP)
- HTTP (8080/TCP)
- HTTPS (443/TCP)
- SSH (22/TCP)
SNMP Ports: The ports listed above indicate whether open (green) or closed (gray). A 'potential risk' (red) is indicated when:
- an SSH port is open on a router or a switch
- an HTTP and SSH port is open on a camera
The Storage category displays detailed information such as:
- Device Name
- Disk Type
- Manufacturer
- Model
- Serial Number
- Partitions
- Media Type
- Interface
- Total Disk Capacity
- Disk Used
- Disk Available
- Bad sectors + disk usage
'Devices' Table Properties
Within the tables, you can pin, arrange, resize, autosize, remove, or reset columns, as well as set up an advanced data filter. These options are found within the 
menu, which appears when you hover over any column.
To resize a column: Simply drag the outer edge of the column.
A log is recorded of all successful network discovery scans. You can click on a past scan
to view the customer network information, current as of that time.
To view a past network discovery scan:
Click the Network Discovery History dropdown menu, and select a log. The customer network information (current, as of that time) appears.
We recommend proactively configuring your target networks with the following network settings, for optimum Network Discovery results. If you already tried Network Discovery but had trouble connecting, or with retrieving device information, please review the checklist below.
Checklist for Domain Environments
This checklist details the recommended network settings for Windows domain environments. Share this with your IT Administrator and request that they configure your network's domain controller as follows:
GPO Configuration for Windows Firewall (Inbound Rules)
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Allow Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) service to operate through Windows
This includes the following rules:
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Allow Remote Registry to operate through Windows Firewall |
Domain Configuration
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Allow ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) to operate through Windows Firewall Note: ICMP requests are used to detect active devices to scan. |
GPO Configuration for Windows Services
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Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) |
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Windows Update Service |
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Remote Registry |
Third-Party Firewalls
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Make sure third-party firewalls are disabled or configured similarly to Windows Firewall (see above) |
SNMP Checklist (for retrieval of SNMP devices and monitoring setup)
- Ensure Remote Registry can operate through Windows Firewall, and that third-party firewalls are disabled or configured similarly to Windows Firewall
- Ensure the desired monitoring agent is online
- Ensure the SNMP device hostname/IP address is correct
- Ensure the ports are open