Setting up Collection Agents

Depending on your environment, you can choose a Agent type (Collection Station or Collection Agent) that is suitable to your data collection purposes. If you already have BMC PATROL components installed in your environment, and you want to use the Collection Agent for data collection, then you need to first install BMC PATROL for IT Data Analytics. Furthermore, you need to configure Collection Agents by using BMC PATROL for IT Data Analytics.

Collection Agents are responsible for performing the data collection. BMC PATROL for IT Data Analytics helps you configure Collection Agents and monitor the health and performance of the configured Collection Agents.

Where to go from here

• Start data collection in one of the following ways:
  • To actually start data collection, create data collector by setting the Collection Host (Agent) to Collection Station or Collection Agent. For more information, see Managing data collectors. OR
  • To automatically create particular kinds of data collectors, create collection profiles that define data collector templates. For more information, see Managing collection profiles.
• Create data patterns that define how data must be indexed. This information is necessary while creating data collectors. For more information, see Managing data patterns.
• (Optional) Create hosts to capture host credentials to subsequently use while creating data collectors. For more information, see Managing hosts.
• (Optional) Create credential profiles to capture system credentials to subsequently use while creating data collectors. For more information, see Managing credentials.