Inventory Module

The Inventory control module on the Sun trademark Control Station allows you to keep track of the hardware components in your managed hosts. This document explains the features and services available through the Inventory control module.

This module allows you to:

view a summary of the inventory of hardware components in a host or group of hosts

update the inventory of hardware components in a host or group of hosts

Note - In most of the short procedures in this chapter, the first step is to click the Inventory item in the left menu bar and the second step is to click on a sub-menu item.

To reduce the number of steps in each procedure, the menu commands are grouped together and shown in Initial Caps. Right-angle brackets separate the individual items.

For example, select Inventory > Summary means to click Inventory in the left menu bar and then click the Summary sub-menu item.

Task Progress dialog

When you launch a task (for example, updating the inventory information for a managed host), a Task Progress dialog appears in the user interface (UI). This dialog has a Status field indicating the current status of the task and a progress bar. When the progress bar displays 100%, the task has completed.

If you want to perform another task in the UI while the current task is underway, you can put the Task Progress dialog in the background. Simply click the button labelled Run Task In Background below the progress bar.

To return to the Task Progress dialog, select Administration > Tasks on the left. The Task table appears. If the task is still underway, a status message is displayed in the Duration column. Click on the progress-bar icon in this column to re-display the Task Progress dialog for this task.

Once the task is complete and the progress bar displays 100%, two buttons appear below the Task Progress dialog: Done and View Events.

To view the list of events associated with the task just completed, click View Events. The Events For <Task> table appears. If you then click the up-arrow icon in the top-right corner, the Tasks table appears.

To return to the previous screen, click Done.

Schedule

The Schedule feature (also referred to as the Scheduler) allows you to schedule a task or tasks to be performed at a later time.

If a task can be scheduled by the Sun Control Station, a button labelled Schedule appears in the table or selector window of the final step.

The Scheduler works in the same way for any task:

1. Fill in the necessary fields for the task.

2. Click Schedule.

The Schedule Settings For <Task> table appears.

3. Configure the schedule settings.

For some functions, you can set the frequency of the task with a pull-down menu above the table (for example, hourly or daily).

You can also enter an email address of the person who will be notified when the scheduled task begins or finishes, or both.

4. Click Save.

The scheduled task then appears in the Scheduled Tasks table under Administer > Schedule.

5. In this table, you can view details for, modify or delete a scheduled task.

To view the details of a scheduled task, click the magnifying-glass icon.

To modify a scheduled task, click the pencil icon.

To delete a scheduled task, click the delete icon.

Inventory screen

When you click the Inventory menu item on the left, the sub-menu items allow you to view a summary of the inventory of hardware components or update the inventory of hardware components in selected managed hosts.

The sub-menu items are:

Summary (see Summary)

Update (see Update)

Selector window

For more information on how the selector window works, see "Selector window" in Chapter 3 of the PDF Administrator Manual.

Summary

The Summary sub-menu item displays a summary of the inventory of hardware components in selected managed hosts.

When you click on the Summary sub-menu item, the selector appears, displaying the groups and the hosts within each group.

Viewing the inventory data

To view the inventory of hardware components in a managed host:

1. Select Inventory > Summary.

The selector appears, displaying the list of managed hosts.

2. Click to highlight a host(s). You can also click Select All at the top to choose all hosts in the list.

3. Click View Summary in the bottom right corner.

The Inventory Summary table appears; see FIGURE 1 for a sample.

4. This table contains the following columns:

Host Name: host name of the managed host

Type: type of host (if available)

CPUs: the number of central processing units (CPUs) in the host

MHz: the speed of the CPU clock, measured in megahertz (MHz)

RAM: the number of megabytes (MBs) of memory installed in the host

NICs: the number of network interface cards (NICs) installed in the host

Drives: the number of hard disk drives installed in the host

Capacity: the total capacity of the hard disk drives, measured in gigabytes (GBs)

Details: Click the magnifying-glass icon to view more details about the host's components. A number of information tables appear. FIGURE 2 shows a sample of some of the tables.

FIGURE 1 shows a sample of the Inventory Summary table; FIGURE 2 shows a sample of some of the Detailed Inventory tables.

Update button

When the Inventory Summary table is on the screen, you can update the inventory of hardware components in the host(s) displayed in the table by clicking the Update Now button below the table. See FIGURE 1.

For more information on the Update function, see Update.

FIGURE 1 Inventory Summary table

This screenshot shows a sample of the Inventory Summary table.

FIGURE 2 Detailed Inventory tables

This screenshot shows a sample of the detailed Inventory tables, including System Memory, CPU, Network Interface Cards, Disks and Filesystems.

Update

The Update sub-menu item allows you to retrieve the most recent inventory data on hardware components from selected managed hosts.

When you click on the Update sub-menu item, the selector appears, displaying the groups and the hosts within each group.

Updating the inventory data

To retrieve the most recent inventory data from a managed host:

1. Select Inventory> Update.

The selector appears, displaying the list of managed hosts.

2. Click to highlight a host(s). You can also click Select All at the top to choose all hosts in the list.

3. Click Update Now in the bottom-right corner.

The Task Progress dialog appears.

Note - You can also schedule the updating of the inventory information for a later time. For more information, see Schedule.