Whether you are an experienced Altiris Inventory user, or you are new to the Notification Server infrastructure, this article reveals the basics for Inventory Solution version 7, to be released in the last quarter of this year. See screenshots of the primary screens, with highlights for the major changes to this core Solution. Also learn where Inventory resides in the new Symantec Console as of September 10th, and how this version of Inventory differs from its predecessor.

Introduction

Inventory Solution has had a major overhaul for the 7.0 Notification Server infrastructure. While the basic data is the same, the methods and organization of the data has changed. Those who are familiar with Inventory Solution will understand the basic categorization, but beyond that data has been condensed and filtered to provide a more concise group of commonly sought data for Windows Computers. But note that for all intents and purposes Inventory Solution is now cross-platform. For this article we'll only discuss the Windows portion of it.

Inventory Agent

In the 6.x timeframe the "Inventory Agent" was actually a package, or in other words a group of files. These files provided EXEs that collected the inventory. In 7 we have a true subagent, or plug-in as they are now referred to. This single DLL incorporates all the internal components of Inventory, including Machine, Software, and Operating System data.

The main agent is found and configured at this location in the Console, under Settings > Agents/Plug-ins > All Agents/Plug-ins > browse through the left-hand tree through Discovery and Inventory > Windows. Select the Policy 'Inventory Plug-in for Windows Install. The new screen for the policy (this is not deployed using a standard Task Server task, but through a policy via the Altiris Agent) contains what you'd normally expect from a Notification Server policy, as shown in this screenshot:

Click to view.

This policy has the familiar feel of policies from the 6.x infrastructure. A few noted improvements:

• Repair Program for the Agent available (see the dropdown next to Program name)
• New NS 7 Target mechanism for choosing what computers receive it
• Time zone flexibility for agent or server times within scheduling, including coordinating using UTC

Inventory Tasks

In 7 Inventory executes based off of Task Server. As such the tasks are kept within the repository for Jobs and Tasks for Task Server. There are more than one type of Inventory Task, including the familiar full and delta inventories known previously. New task types are also introduced, as detailed below.

Main Inventory Tasks

The tasks that are familiarly labeled to those of 6.x are contained within the following section of the Console. In the Symantec Console, browse from Manage > Jobs and Tasks > and from the left-hand tree browse through System Jobs and Tasks (Not the Inventory Solution folder, as you might assume) > Discovery and Inventory > Inventory. The five default tasks are located here, labeled:

• Collect Delta Hardware Inventory Task
• Collect Delta OS Configuration Inventory Task
• Collect Delta Software Inventory Task
• Collect Full Inventory Task
• Detailed File Inventory Task Type

See the following screenshot for a view of the task:

Click to view.

The top box of the task provides you easy access for selecting or deselecting what data you want to capture. Note that all platforms are represented here. The entries within the tree are labeled intuitively, to provide a label for the type of inventory captured by the checkbox.

Clicking the advanced button (also pictured above) you are provided two main options, that of Software Scan Settings (this will only appear if Software Inventory is checked on the previous window) and Run Options.

Software Scan Settings

You're provided with three main settings, that of Drives, Folders, and Files, as shown in this screenshot:

Click to view.

Similar to the AeXAPEdit.exe utility, this tab provides the ability to fine-tune your software scan, much like the APEdit utility did for version 6.x. Some of the features include:

• New ability to include or exclude based on drive type, namely Local drives, Network drives, and Removable drives
• The ability to include or exclude drives based on drive letter as known previously
• The ability to control the settings per platform
• A more robust software rule utility under the Files tab to fine-tune the way software is captured

Run Options

Under this tab you find much of the options typically found within a standard 6.x Policy. See the following screenshot for the options:

Click to view.

Added to this version of Inventory is the ability to enable full trace logging. We also provide the ability to give the Inventory process a lower or higher priority, affecting when and how much resources can be utilities on the client. The following options are described below:

• Enable verbose client logging - This enables full trace logging for all Inventory components, logged to the agent.log (or if on the NS, a.log). This is extremely useful when troubleshooting issues with Inventory Solution.
• Set inventory process priority: - This option changes how much resources are utilized when Inventory is running. The priorities are broken down as follows in CPU utilization:
  • Low - 10% Max CPU utilization
  • Normal - 25% Max CPU utilization
  • High - 50% Max CPU utilization
  • Very high - 75% Max CPU utilization
• Two other options that can positively affect performance are the Override process priority to key off of how many files are processed (the less files or more milliseconds uses less resources), and the ability to Evenly distribute sending inventory over X hours. The number placed here will stagger when inventory crosses the network and is processed by the Notification Server, helping to avoid busy or overloaded times on the NS and within the network.

Detailed File Inventory

A new feature of Inventory 7 is the way file details are captured and sent to the Notification Server. The first time systems run Software Inventory, they will only capture 3 pieces of information from a file:

• File name
• File path
• Modified Date

The rest of the typical data, namely the header information, is not captured. This is where the Task located at Manage > Jobs and Tasks > and from the left-hand tree browse through System Jobs and Tasks (Not the Inventory Solution folder, as you might assume) > Discovery and Inventory > Inventory comes in to play. The task name is Detailed File Inventory Task Type. This task runs within NS and the CMDB only, meaning that it does not run on client systems. The Server will see what files were captured from all managed systems, and then search through the database to find which machines represent the full breadth of software. These systems then are marked to become the sources for this file data.

The next time that Software Inventory runs on those selected systems, the Software scan will capture the full details for the files. In this way the size of the data transmitted to the Notification Server for all machines is significantly reduced, and the amount of resources required to load software data is also significantly reduced. By using a normalized structure, when the selected systems send up the full details for the files, that data is automatically associated with all systems that have those files present.

The early Beta builds did not have a default schedule for this task, but this will be automatically scheduled and enabled when Notification Server and the Client Management Suite are released to the general public.

Application Management

The product formerly known as Application Management now resides within Inventory Solution and the Software Management Framework. For Inventory's part, we now provide the functionality for setting file and registry baselines. This screenshot shows the two tasks available from Application Management that is now a part of Inventory:

Click to view.

Inventory Reports

Previously Inventory possessed hundreds of reports between the different platforms. In an effort to be more efficient, the reports have been condensed to a much lower number, while still providing most of the same functionality. One example is a Software Report found under Reports > All Reports > browse in the left-hand tree through Discovery and Inventory > Inventory > Cross-Platform > Software/Applications > General Software > Audit Software Search report. See this screenshot for a view of the report:

Click to view.

This allows great versatility in finding what computers have what software. A good estimated dozen previous reports in the 6.x timeframe were replaced using this one. In the same manner other reports have been combined to give a great versatility to a lower number of reports.

Conclusion

This is a quick peek at the up and coming release of Inventory Solution 7.0. Please note that the UI may change from this presentation to the actual release based on late feedback from the beta cycles, etc.