IT Visibility Inventory Targets

A target is a device where you want to perform a task. Most often, that task is to collect inventory (and in particular, FlexNet inventory) and, for this reason, these are known as inventory targets.

At the start of your processes, you may know very little about a target (perhaps only its name, its IP address, and the port where you can gain access, for example). You do not have the full set of information we expect for an inventory device, and for this reason it has a distinct name to highlight that the data here is incomplete. Later, after inventory has been taken successfully, you may gain a full set of properties that qualify this as an inventory device. At that time, you may be able to see exactly the same device in a list of “inventory targets” (with few properties) and in a separate list of “inventory devices” (from which you can access its full set of inventory device properties). The name and IP address may reveal that these two separate records are in fact describing the same physical device sitting on your desk, but the separate name and listings give access to different information.

Furthermore, while sometimes you may plan an inventory-collection task for a single target, it is much more manageable to define similar tasks for groups of targets (for which, see GROUPS).

In summary, then, you import lists of individual targets that you can organize into groups, on which you perform specific tasks.