1.4.3 Maintenance of system configuration information

(1) Searching for system configuration information

From the System Configuration window or Destination window, you can search for destinations that match certain conditions. There are two types of searches:

• Search using a destination name, host group name, or ID group name as the key

• Search using the host registration date as the key

You can use these search functions to maintain the system configuration information, by such means as copying the hosts from the search results to the Destination window or deleting them from the system configuration information.

For details about how to manually maintain the system configuration information using the search functions, see 6.1 Maintenance of system configuration information.

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(2) Automatic maintenance of destination group

Approaches to host group maintenance include editing them in the Destination window or importing data from a file. However, in a large-scale system with thousands of hosts, it is an undue burden on the system administrator to add and delete host groups as regularly as would be needed.

JP1/IT Desktop Management 2 can automatically detect new and moved hosts by monitoring the system configuration information, and assign them to the appropriate host groups based on predefined grouping conditions (called a policy). This is called Automatic maintenance of destination group, and takes place when device information is notified from a managed computer.

The following figure shows an overview of automatic maintenance of destination group:

Figure 1‒15: Overview of automatic maintenance of destination group

Maintenance of host groups can be performed at any time, not just when the managing server receives device information from managed computers. This means that at any time you can assign batches of hosts registered in the system configuration information to host groups based on the policies you have created (apply policies to all hosts).

For details about how to apply policies to host groups, see 6.2.2 Applying policies to all host groups.

You can also create policies from a file. By importing or exporting policy files, you can back up existing policies or swap one policy for another. For details about creating a policy from a file, see 6.4 Creating a policy from a file.

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(3) Automatic ID group maintenance

As a rule, the user determines which ID groups a managed computer joins. If you prefer an approach in which computers are assigned to groups on the managing server, you can configure the system to automatically register computers based on whether they satisfy specific conditions. This is a more reliable and efficient way of registering computers in ID groups than by using the Destination window or importing files.

The process of setting conditions (policies) for ID groups and automatically registering computers based on these conditions is called Automatic ID group maintenance.

There are three types of policy available for automatic ID group maintenance:

• ID group registration associated with creation of new hosts

  This policy allows JP1/IT Desktop Management 2 to automatically detect new computers and register them in ID groups.

• ID group registration based on asset management items

  This policy allows you to set asset management items (such as the department, installation location, or additional management items of hardware asset information) as conditions, and automatically register computers in ID groups based on those conditions.

• ID group registration based on device information

  This policy allows you to set conditions for the system information items, installed software programs, and asset management items of devices, and automatically register computers in ID groups based on those conditions.

The following figure shows an overview of automatic ID group maintenance:

Figure 1‒16: Overview of automatic ID group maintenance

For details about how to use automatic ID group maintenance, see 6.3 Automatic ID group maintenance.

As with automatic maintenance of destination group, you can create a policy from a file. For details, see 6.4 Creating a policy from a file.

Before you can conduct automatic maintenance of an ID group, you must have already executed a job on that ID group.

For example, suppose there is a job that you want to execute every time a new computer is deployed. By executing the job in advance with an ID group as the destination, and creating a policy that adds new computers to that ID group, you can automatically execute the job on all new computers.

The following figure shows the flow of the job when using automatic ID maintenance:

Figure 1‒17: Job flow using automatic ID group maintenance

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