Creating an Action
A discovery and An inventory action is a part of a discovery and an inventory rule that determines what actions to perform on the identified targets when the rule runs. You must create at least one action to create a rule.
To create an action:
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Go to the Discovery and Inventory Rules page (Data Collection > IT Assets Inventory Tasks > Discovery and Inventory Rules). |
The Discovery and Inventory Rules page appears.
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Click the Actions tab. |
The list of existing actions appears.
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Click Create an action to create an entirely new action |
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Click the copy icon ( ) on any existing action to clone that action as a starting point for making your changes (for more details, see Copying or Modifying an Action). |
The Create an Action page appears.
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Enter (or edit) the name and description for the action. |
Names must be unique, and the description should help you recognize the action in a later listing.
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The Action type determines what controls are available on the remainder of the screen, and therefore what tasks can be included in this action. You can select any of: |
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Discovery and inventory—Shows a complete set of options for combining discovery and inventory-gathering tasks in the one action. For more information, see Discovery and Inventory Actions. |
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Discovery only—Shows only those options for discovery, and inventory-gathering settings are excluded from this action. For more information, see Discovery Only Actions. |
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Inventory only—Shows inventory-gathering settings, and excludes any settings for new discoveries; so that the inventory-gathering tasks apply only to target devices that have been previously discovered using other rules/actions. For more information, see Inventory Only Actions. |
Note:For more information on discovery and inventory actions, see Discovery and Inventory Actions Property Reference.
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Select the required discovery or inventory tasks that form part of this action. |
Note:You cannot predict the order of execution of inventory-gathering actions during the execution of discovery and inventory rules, because multiple inventory-gathering actions, like gathering Oracle inventory and gathering VMware inventory, can run in parallel.
The action now appears in the list of actions.
You can edit, copy, or delete an existing action by clicking the corresponding icon on the action list.
Tip:You can delete an action only if it is not being used in a rule.
Discovery and Inventory Actions
You can create a Discovery and inventory action to discover devices, and collect inventory from all discovered devices. It is the recommended method of inventory collection when you need to collect discovery and inventory information (including the services) from the devices within the scope of the underlying target(s) and inventory beacon(s). You can select the required discovery method from the Discovery of devices section, and the tasks you need to perform on the discovered devices from the Tasks for services discovery and inventory gathering section. You must select at least one discovery and one inventory collection method for this type of action. See the following tables for details of the available discovery and inventory options.
Note:IT Asset Management uses different processes to collect inventory from Oracle Database and Oracle VM infrastructure.
For direct gathering of Oracle inventory by an inventory beacon, you need to configure a specific database user on the target Oracle Database server. This account must be a member of the OS-specific ORADBA group; have at least read access to all necessary database tables; and be registered in the Password Manager on the appropriate inventory beacon. Also, the listener password must be recorded in the Password Manager on the appropriate inventory beacon when all of the following conditions apply (and is not otherwise required):
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The Oracle Database version is earlier than 12c |
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The listener actually has a password |
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You have selected the Network scan method for device discovery. |
For more information, see Oracle Discovery and Inventory in the System Reference.
Discovery Only Actions
Create a Discovery only action when you do not want to gather inventory, but want only to discover devices or services (or both) in the target network, and within the scope of inventory beacon(s). Tasks related to inventory gathering are excluded from this view. See the following table for details of the available discovery options.
Some example use cases for Discovery only actions include:
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You need to discover computers using Microsoft Computer Browser Service, and discover if those computers are running Microsoft SQL Server. You can target the entire network (or a lesser subnet if you have prior knowledge) and select the following discovery options: |
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Microsoft Computer Browser service |
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Discover Microsoft SQL Server |
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You need to discover VMware infrastructure running in a particular subnet. You can target the desired subnet and select the following discovery options: |
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Discover VMware infrastructure |
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You need to discover virtual machines in a subnet with a name like VSrvr. You can specify VSrvr in the All machines with name like... option in the target definition. In the Discovery only action, you need to pick the task(s) related to the appropriate kind of virtualization technology. |
Tip:You cannot trigger adoption of computers (that is, automated installation of the Inventory Agent on the target device) using Discovery only actions. Adoption requires a Discovery and inventory action, with (for example) the Gather hardware and software inventory from all target devices task selected; and there must also be a target definition somewhere (not necessarily used in the same rule) that nominates the device(s) with the Allow these targets to be adopted setting. With this combination, the appropriate inventory beacon probes each target device in turn (these may be previously discovered devices, or just discovered as part of the current action, or a mixture).
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If it finds that the Inventory Agent is already locally installed, it moves on to the next target device, leaving the installed Inventory Agent to complete the inventory gathering according to its own schedule (delivered as part of device policy). |
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If it finds that the Inventory Agent is not yet present, it uses remote execution to install it. The configuration used points to the same inventory beacon as the bootstrap server from which the newly- installed Inventory Agent requests its policy, after which the installed agent is left to complete the inventory gathering according to its downloaded schedule. |
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If it finds a current target device that does not have Allow these targets to be adopted set in any target anywhere (or conversely has Do not allow these targets to be adopted specified in any target, since a 'deny' always overrides an 'allow'), the inventory beacon uses zero footprint inventory collection to gather general inventory from the target device (for details about this approach, see Gathering FlexNet Inventory. |
Inventory Only Actions
You should create an Inventory only action when you want the discovery and inventory rules to collect inventory from devices that have been discovered already. This option is more efficient in gathering services inventory as you do not need to ping sweep the entire network before collecting device and service inventory. The following are some example use cases for Inventory only actions:
You need to gather VMware inventory from all computers already discovered in a particular subnet. You can specify the subnet in the target definition, and use the Gather hardware and software inventory from all target devices and Gather VMware infrastructure inventory, with advanced recognition of VMware applications option in the action definition.
You need to gather Oracle Database and Oracle VM inventory from already discovered devices in a particular subnet. You can specify the subnet in the target definition, and use the Gather hardware and software inventory from all target devices, Gather Oracle VM infrastructure inventory, and Gather Oracle database environment inventory options in the action definition.
Note:To use this feature, Flexera recommends upgrading all your parent and child inventory beacons which would enable export of the discovery information from IT Asset Management to the inventory beacons.