Host Inventory setup overview
Note that some steps typically are required only as part of the initial configuration and rarely require additional maintenance. For the purpose of this document, these initial steps are treated as requirements:
Note:
Each step is summarized in this section. To access detailed descriptions, click the links for each step. The buttons at the bottom of the window----are described in the following section.
Prior to discovering hosts, a data collector policy must be configured. You can use an existing policy--for example, a data collector policy that has been created for Storage Array data collection--or create a new data collector policy.
See Configure / Search the host Inventory.
Using the Host Inventory window, you can search for hosts in the inventory; or you can set up configurations in preparation for discovering and configuring hosts.
See Configure and edit host probes.
Many of the probes may not be applicable to your enterprise. It is essential that you identify the probes that are relevant to your hosts.
See Manage credentials.
Configure user IDs and passwords for authentication when the data collector is accessing hosts.
See Manage WMI proxy.
A WMI Proxy is required to collect data from Windows hosts. Use this option to define one or more WMI Proxies.
See Manage paths.
Configure the paths that data collectors will use to execute commands on hosts.
Data Collectors require read-only access to execute non-intrusive commands on hosts. It is strongly recommended that a separate login account used strictly for IT Analytics be established and using Active Directory for Windows systems and the sudo command for Linux systems, restrict the commands that IT Analytics can issue. To accommodate this security approach, you can optionally specify access control commands like sudo, sesudo, or pbrun.
See Host Access Privileges, Sudo Commands, Ports, and WMI Proxy Requirements.
See Configure host Discovery policies to populate the host Inventory.
Host Discovery attempts to find hosts and populate your IT Analytics host inventory. Create Host Discovery Policies that use the credentials, WMI proxies, and paths that you configured.
See Validate host connectivity.
Host validation must take into account host access for a wide variety of conditions and environments. As the discovery process accesses hosts, informative messages will provide clues to connectivity issues. In addition, devices that don't belong in a host inventory--for example, printers in the IP address range that you specified--may have been discovered and need to be hidden or removed from the inventory.
See Host Inventory setup overview.
To facilitate data collection troubleshooting, you can create log requests and be notified when the logs are available. These logs can also be transferred to support for additional analysis.