Inventory

Inventory View

Inventory by Operating System

One of the key requirements of IT asset management, is to periodically take stock of the operating systems (OS), that are in use in the IT environment and their versions. In large IT environments, the knowledge of operating systems and versions will also come in handy while you plan mass OS upgrades, or, when you want to identify targets for installing critical software/patches, or for troubleshooting host-level issues. For instance, you may want to deploy a software that can operate only on version B.11.11 of HP-UX. In large IT infrastructures, it would take days, even weeks, for you to manually identify the hosts that run the OS that is compatible with your software. What you hence need is a single, central interface, that enables you to execute simple queries on the configuration management database, and quickly retrieve the OS, version, and system information you need from across the environment.

Towards this end, the Configuration Management module of the eG Enterprise provides the INVENTORY BY OPERATING SYSTEM page. This page, which can be accessed by the menu sequence, Inventory->View->By Operating System, allows you to quickly and accurately identify those systems that are running a specific version of an operating system.

By default, this page displays a doughnut chart that reveals the distribution of all hosts in the target environment based on operating system - from this doughnut chart, you can easily determine how many hosts are running a particular operating system. To know the names of these hosts, use the table below. By default, this table lists all the operating systems that are in use in your environment, the hosts (i.e., Systems) running each such operating system, and the exact version of the OS that is executing on the hosts. Accordingly, the All option is chosen by default in the Operating System list.

To view the host and version details across the operating systems, do the following:

1. By default, Component option is chosen from the View By list indicating that the operating systems of each component will be considered. However, if you wish to collectively view the configuration of the components in a zone/service/segment, you can do so by selecting the appropriate option from the View By list.
2. Select All option from the Operating system list box as depicted in Figure 1.
3. To run a quick search across the systems to locate a particular system, use the Search by System(s) option in this page. Specify the whole/part of the system name to search for in the Search by System(s) text box and click the right-arrow button next to it.

4. Then click the Submit button.

   

   Figure 1 : Viewing inventory across the operating systems

5. You will now view the complete list of systems, that are using different versions of operating systems.
6. If the right-arrow button is clicked with the All option chosen from the Operating System list, then, this page will provide the version details of all hosts with names that embed the specified search string, regardless of the operating system in use.

To view the host and version details specific to a operating system do the following:

1. Select an OS of your choice from the Operating system list box as depicted in Figure 2.

2. Then, click the SUBMIT button.

   

   Figure 2 : Viewing inventory for a specific operating system

3. If the right-arrow button is clicked with a particular operating system chosen from the Operating System list, then, this page will provide the version details of only those systems that fulfill both the filter criteria - i.e., systems running the chosen operating system that have names containing the specified search string.

   Note:

   The doughnut chart will be available, only if ALL option is chosen from the Operating system list box.

4. Clicking on a particular system will take you to the INVENTORY BY SYSTEM page, which provides the basic configuration of that system and the applications managed on it.