Introduction
Since the announcement of our Data Inventory Solution, the feature request for building Network Topology & Maps has always been a hot topic.
We even discovered that a community member who works for Nokia wrote a blog post showing how he used our data to build a topology with a simple Python script.
In Q4-2025, we started working on making this a built-in feature.
So here the journey begins, and in this post I’ll take you along with us.
The challenge
We started with a market research and quickly discovered that almost all existing solutions rely on a static data model, where they use common protocols like LLDP and CDP to figure out the path in the network.
Slurp’it, however, uses a modern Open Data Model, where you can define what data you want to collect.
So in short, our challenge became:
1. How can we build topology maps on an Open Data Model where the customer has full control over the planning and fields?
2. We support 150+ vendors, how can we ensure topology will work on all of them, even when CDP & LLDP are not available?
3. How do we limit the topology scope? We have no data or device limits, but building a full topology on everything could easily crash a user’s browser.
These questions are the foundation of our design approach.
Automagic vs Full Controll
With the Automagic approach, the system builds a topology for you automatically. Most solutions on the market offer this today, but they don’t scale well. When data changes or when certain information, such as LLDP or CDP, is unavailable for security reasons, the platform can no longer generate an accurate topology map.
This leads to situations where topologies can’t be built at all, or the number of support tickets and feature requests skyrockets as customers ask for changes to accommodate their networks.
That’s why we decided to give users full control over how their topology is built. Of course, we’ll provide blueprints that work for roughly 95% of environments. But when they don’t, you’ll have the flexibility to adjust and refine the topology so it reflects your network exactly the way you need.
Meet the Slurp’it Topology Builder
It’s still work in progress, but we will show you the current status. We are building a Topology Manager where you can define what Data you would like to combine to build your perfect Topology.
