Comprehensive Report on Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) Features

This report provides a detailed overview of the Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP), a proprietary layer 2 Cisco network protocol used for discovering connections between Cisco devices. It discusses the protocol's functionality, including how it shares information such as OS version and IP address between directly connected devices. The report highlights the benefits of CDP, such as real-time transport protocol support and its utility as a diagnostic tool for troubleshooting network issues. It also addresses the security risks associated with CDP, noting that it provides detailed system information and cannot be used with hardware from other vendors. The analysis concludes that CDP helps companies maintain an up-to-date inventory of devices and assists in layer 2 discovery of physical connections, ultimately improving network topology and performance. Desklib offers similar solved assignments and study resources for students.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cisco Discovery Protocol............................................................................................................2
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

Cisco Discovery Protocol
Generally, most network have various routers and switches in order to make management
of the network easy to run. In this, network maps are used that determine the type of device
present in a network along with devices that are connected to each other. So, Cisco Discovery
Protocol (CDP) is a proprietary layer 2 Cisco network protocol that runs on Cisco devices only
and aids in discovering such connections with networks. In 1994, the term was developed by
Keith McCloghrie and Dino Farinacci, which is run on a network layer. Moreover, it also defines
how the data is to be formatted for transmission and detects errors so that data on high layers can
be formatted correctly during broadcast (Zaw and Kyaw, 2020). Hence, it is to be identified that
CDP is used to share information to other directly connected Cisco equipment which includes
OS version and IP address. Further, it is also used in efficiently inspecting devices without
inspecting them physically. With the help of CDP, users can see the commands that further allow
them to view information of connected devices like local – remote ports, hostname, device
platforms etc. In addition to this, when CDP messages are received from an adjacent Cisco
device, then they are not redirected to any other device but it forwarded to those devices which
are directly connected to it. Thus, each device stores the message received from neighbor devices
in a table that can be viewed by the user by allowing the CDP neighbor command.
CDP runs on all media which support subnetwork access protocol (SAP) that mainly
includes local area networks and Asynchronous Transfer Mode where protocol run over the data
link layer. That is why, these two systems support different network layer protocols and learn
from each other (Alenezi and et.al., 2020). There are many benefits of CDP associated with
service providers, which includes the real time transport protocol that allows the use of different
network layer protocols in order to discover devices. It also enables the discovery of IP addresses
of misconfigured routers and is used as a diagnostic tool as it aids troubleshooting devices when
there is an issue identified related to network. Further, the messages of CDP are also generated at
every 60 second that helps to convey the message accurately. On the contrary note, CDP has
moderate security risk because it provides detailed information about a system of network like
software version, hardware etc. Further, it cannot work for hardware from other vendors because
it does not allow users to remotely access a device on a network (What is Cisco Discovery
Protocol? 2022). Another disadvantage of using CDP is such that other configuration process id

and troubleshooting connectivity cannot be used for discovery of protocol and this is considered
as a critical process.
Overall, it can be stated that with the help of CDP, companies keep an up-to-date
inventory of all the devices that assist in layer 2 discovery of physical connections in order to
gain a more granular view of network topology. Further, Cisco devices can also send CDP
messages to different destination addresses like 01:00:0C:CC:CC:CC. This in turn reflected that
in order to convey the message to each connected equipment and helps to generate a better
outcome (Cisco Discovery Protocol (CPD), 2022). Thus, it has been analyzed that it assists to
identify the end point devices and provides an ability to exchange the information between
endpoint and switch. Therefore, connecting device through CPD assist to increase the
connectivity and also help in sharing the information from each other. That is why, top
organizations use it in order to improve performance as well as connectivity in network
protocols.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Zaw, Z. M. and Kyaw, T., 2020. Performance Analysis Of Network Protocol Attacks Using Evil
Foca. International Journal Of All Research Writings. 3(1). pp.15-20.
Alenezi, F. A. and et.al., 2020, August. Tadpole: Traffic-aware discovery protocol for software-
defined wireless and mobile networks. In 2020 29th International Conference on
Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN) (pp. 1-9). IEEE.
Online
Cisco Discovery Protocol (CPD). 2022. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.omnisecu.com/cisco-certified-network-associate-ccna/what-is-cisco-
discovery-protocol-cdp.php>.
What is Cisco Discovery Protocol? 2022. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.whatsupgold.com/blog/what-is-cisco-discovery-protocol-cdp>.