DCIM — physical infrastructure¶
DCIM (Data Center Infrastructure Management) is where you record the physical world: the gear in your racks, the ports on that gear, and the cables between them. IPAM tracks addresses; DCIM tracks the things those addresses live on.
If you're new here, this is the order things are usually built in:
Manufacturer → Device type → Device → Interfaces → Cables
(Cisco) (C9300-48P) (sw-01) (Gi1/0/1…) (sw-01 ⇄ sw-02)
The building blocks¶
| You want to… | Go to | Page |
|---|---|---|
| Add a switch, firewall, server… | Devices | Devices |
| Model a switch stack (StackWise, VC, VSF) | Virtual chassis | Virtual chassis |
| Define a hardware model once, reuse it | Device types / catalog | Device catalog |
| Lay out a rack and mount gear in it | Racks | Racks |
| Add ports to a device | Interfaces | Interfaces |
| Model LAGs, sub-interfaces, loopbacks | Virtual interfaces | Virtual & aggregate interfaces |
| Put an IP on an interface | IP assignment | Assigning IP addresses |
| Connect two ports with a cable | Cabling | Cabling & connections |
How the pieces fit together¶
- A device is one physical box. It always has a name and usually a device type (which says what model it is) and a site (where it lives).
- A device type is the reusable template — "Cisco Catalyst 9300, 1U, these rack images." You create it once; every device of that model points at it.
- Interfaces are the ports on a device. They can hold IP addresses and terminate cables.
- Racks give devices a physical home — a position and a front/rear face — and draw an elevation so you can see what's mounted where.
- Cables connect ports together and can be traced end-to-end, even through patch panels.
Nothing is pre-filled
Danbyte ships no sample manufacturers, device types, or statuses — you define exactly the ones your network uses. That keeps the catalog clean and specific to you. See Tags & custom fields for adding your own fields to any of these objects.