Iconography plays a crucial role in creating a seamless and intuitive user experience across multiple products. For network engineers managing multiple tools and platforms, consistent iconography is crucial for efficiency and usability. A standardized visual language across different network management and monitoring systems reduces cognitive load, enhances recognition, and streamlines workflows.

Exploring Dynamic Iconography in IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps (CP4AIOps)

In this blog, we explore how dynamic iconography is implemented within CP4AIOps, focusing on two key aspects:

1. Consistent iconography between the Network Fault Management tool (IBM Network Manager – ITNM) and the Unified Operations Console i.e., CP4AIOps
2. Dynamic icon assignment based on underlying resource attributes

Lets talk about first approach i.e., Achieving Consistent Iconography Across ITNM and CP4AIOps

Within ITNM, the out-of-the-box iconography includes around 30 predefined icons used to classify discovered network devices—such as Routers, Switches, Firewalls, gNodeB, eNodeB, NetworkDevice and more. By aligning these device classifications and their respective icons with those in the CP4AIOps Unified Console, we ensure a seamless and intuitive user experience across tools. This consistency helps users instantly recognize device types, regardless of which interface they’re working in.

If you have devices currently classified as ‘NetworkDevice’, there may be an opportunity for more precise classification. Refer to the Product documentation to identify specific device subtypes and update their classifications to better reflect their roles within the network.

To use this feature, ensure you are running IBM Network Manager (ITNM) Fix Pack 18 or later, and Cloud Pak for AIOps (CP4AIOps) version 4.9 or above. Once version prerequisites are met, the next step is to create and run the ITNM-Observer job.

It is recommended to configure the following within the ITNM-Observer job, under ‘Additional parameters (optional)’:

Add 'Host' as a resource to ITNM Chassis resources = false 

This setting prevents the default behavior where all devices from ITNM are additionally associated with the generic entityType ‘Host’. When set to false, devices will be classified strictly based on ITNM’s native classification (e.g., Router, Switch, etc.) and include corresponding vendor model details. If this parameter is not set to false, you will see devices classified both by their specific type and additionally as ‘Host’, which may lead to redundancy or misrepresentation.

Below is a representation of a Firewall device within Cloud Pak for AIOps, correctly classified without the additional 'Host' association.

After the topology is loaded, creating resource groups to support various use cases becomes significantly easier. You can efficiently search and filter devices by category, such as listing all Routers or Firewalls.

For example, to retrieve all Routers and Firewalls, use the following query: entityTypes=Router OR entityTypes=Firewall 

This allows for more precise targeting and management of infrastructure components based on their classified types.

Now, lets talk about 2nd approach i.e., Dynamic icon assignment based on underlying resource attributes.

This method can be applied for the Topology coming from IBM Network Performance Tool such as SevOne and in-fact any Observer data, as its not tool-specific.

Let's say you have devices in your transport domain—such as DSLAMs and GPON OLTs (Optical Line Terminals)—and you want to assign custom icons based on their entityType values instead of using the default icon. You can achieve this by writing a JavaScript that dynamically maps based on entityType values to new icons. In this case, OLT and DSLAM would be custom icons that you've manually added to the system.

For e.g.,

if ( asmProperties?.entityTypes.includes('Alcatel73xx')) 
 {
  return 'OLT';
 }
if ( asmProperties?.entityTypes.includes('AlcatelISAM')) 
 {
  return 'DSLAM';
 }
return 'NetworkDevice';

Below are two example devices rendered with custom icons using a JavaScript function, instead of relying on the default icon assignment:

P.S. Refer to this technote and follow the listed steps to ensure ITNM is compliant before integrating topology with CP4AIOps.