4.6.1 Group overlap
Regardless of the intended uses for group definitions, the first step is to define which nodes or interfaces are members of a group. Because you can create groups for different purposes, each object can be included in multiple groups. Consider the following example:
![[Figure]](GRAPHICS/F0000085.GIF)
For monitoring purposes, you might want to set a polling interval of 3 minutes for all switches, regardless of vendor or location. You can do this with a device category filter.
For maintenance purposes, you might want to group all Cisco switches so that you can place all of them OUT OF SERVICE together for an IOS upgrade. You can do this with a vendor filter.
For visualization, you might want to group all devices on the 10.10.*.* site into a container with propagated status. You can do this with an IP address filter.
The Cisco switch with IP address 10.10.10.3 would qualify for all three groups.
You want to find the balance between having a usably rich set of groups available for configuration and viewing, and overloading the list with superfluous entries that will never be used.