Device Types
Device types are required before adding Equipment within Powercode.
Why do I need Device Types?
Device Types serve multiple purposes in Powercode:
- They are the most granular item used to specify an Equipment item’s make and model on accounts and in reporting.
- They are used to automatically associate network probes and network notifiers with an Equipment item.
- They are used to control whether or not an Equipment is rate limited and whether or not bandwidth usage to that Equipment item is counted against the customer usage.
- They are used to determine whether or not the Equipment item is a burst parent and whether it has Procera Shaping Rules associated with it as a burst parent.
- They are used to determine which real time monitoring tool to use for an Equipment item.
- They are used to determine what the default status check is for an Equipment item.
At the most specific Device Types designate one specific Equipment make and model. In contrast the Generic SNMP Enabled Router Device Type is set up to handle infrastructure routers your team does not care to set up custom monitoring for, and Customer Owned Equipment Device Type can be used for customer equipment you can not reach or do not care to customize monitoring for.
For example: a built-in Powercode device type is Cambium Canopy Subscriber Module. It can be used as is with the default Cambium specific monitoring tools. But if you intend to treat 900MHz SMs and 2.4GHz SMs differently, you could could instead create separate Device Types for each.
Adding a Device Type
Device Types can be added under Items -> Devices -> Device Types.
Device type Fields:
- Name: A descriptive name of the device type.
- Category: The device category a type falls into.
- Monitoring Tool: Powercode has many built-in real time monitoring tools. If one of these tools should be used for this device type, select it here.
- Rate Limit: Should this device be rate limited and should bandwidth usage to this device count against the customers usage? Generally, if this device type is used to specify the management interface of a device on a customer account (for example, if you use this with the management IP on a radio or a router) you will want to set this to No. Otherwise, any traffic destined for that management IP (e.g. firmware updates) will be counted against the customer usage.
- Default Status Check: What should the default status check be for this device?
- Update Existing Devices: If you check this box when editing a device type, all existing devices will have their status check updated to the selected option.
- Send to Mobile App: The mobile app is currently in development. This checkbox indicates whether or not the device type will show up in the mobile app, once it is available.
- Procera Shaping Rules: If you select shaping rules here, all children of a device of this type will have these rules applied to them.
- Attachments: If you upload some images here, then when viewing equipment of this type, these images will be available. This is mostly as a troubleshooting aid.