Discovery and Inventory Group

Inventory Prerequisites

The following items must be met in order for Inventory to function properly. Sometimes it is the lack or inaccuracy of inventory that may alert you to problems with some of these required items. I’ve included a list of typical symptoms when an item is not functioning properly or is not in good health.

1. Symantec Management Agent installed and working – Obviously, however sometimes it is not known if an agent is unhealthy or not.
   • Symptoms: Inventory not being received or updated from a client. 
   • Problems: includes bad install of the Symantrec Management Agent, the Client Task Agent is not functional, COM objects are not properly registered, corrupted install
   • Tests: Try sending basic inventory, making a config request, and running another solution policy or task to see if the Client Task Agent is running. If there are errors, search the errors in the knowledgebase to see how to resolve it.
2. Inventory Plug-in Installed – Another obvious one, but it does need to be validated.
   • Symptoms: Inventory Policy enabled, Symantec Management Agent working properly, Client not running Inventory when the Task History is checked in the agent interface.
   • Problems: Filter not updated to install the Agent, Plug-in uninstalled and has not run the install again, Install or Upgrade policies disabled after an upgrade.
   • Tests: Check to ensure the policy is enabled, check the filter targeted computers to see if the problem system needs the plug-in. Ensure that the current Symantec Management Agent has been installed as the filter depends on the current version.
     
3. Inventory License valid – Systems that send in inventory when licenses are exceeded and they do not claim a node will have their inventory thrown out. Expired licenses will have all inventory thrown out and not populated on the server.
   • Symptoms: Inventory gets sent but is not processed at the server, error messages in the logs concerning failed to obtain an Inventory Solution License appear. Looking at Resource Manager for a computer system shows no inventory solution data classes updated or included at all since the license problem occurred. Sometimes no inventory will show, sometimes it will be a long time stale.
   • Problems: License counts exceed the licensed nodes, also includes if Agentless Inventory is run as those devices also take up Inventory Licenses. To view current license status, launch the Symantec Installation Manager on the Notification Server, and click the link Add/Update licenses.
     
   • Tests: Check the license count. If at the limit or exceeded, delete old computers and devices or obtain a larger license count. If Agentless Inventory (also known as Inventory for Network Devices) has run in the environment, take these into account. Delete devices that you do not require inventory data from.
4. Good Database Health – Since all inventory is sent and stored in the database, it is essential to have good database health.
   • Symptoms: Inventory is out of date, and not all Inventory being sent up reaches the database.
   • Problems: Inventory is missing or out of date.
   • Tests: Check for deadlock messages in the logs. How long are SQL queries taking? If slow, and if deadlock messages, database health may be poor. A good resource for Database health is found at the following knowledgebase article: Creating a maintenance plan in SQL Server 2012 or later to optimize database performance HOWTO124446
5. Good Queue Health – Another one that often goes hand-in-hand with good database health is monitoring the queue to ensure inventory is not overloading it.
   • Symptoms: Symantec Management Console is slow, Inventory is missing or delayed, SQL is overtaxed
   • Problems: Queue is filled up with Inventory NSEs. Inventory is delayed in processing. The queue is located at C:\ProgramData\Symantec\SMP\EventQueue\Evtqueue.
   • Tests: Check the queue to see if it is filled with NSEs, sample the NSEs to see if they contain inventory data (denoted by data class guid). A good tool to check NSE health is found here:  Symantec SSE Tools for ITMS HOWTO60787