Managing devices with the administrator console

You add devices to Infrastructure Management through the Device folder on the administrator console. Before creating devices from the administrator console, review the following guidelines in this topic:

Device types

When you add a device for Infrastructure Management to monitor, you are initially presented with the Add Device window in which you identify the device by type.

Infrastructure Management offers the following device type categories:

• AppServer 
• DBServer 
• Firewall 
• MailServer 
• Other 
• RemoteAgent 
• Router 
• Server 
• Switch 
• WebServer

Infrastructure Management automatically creates a set of default monitors for each device type. After you add a device to Infrastructure Management, you can select to monitor applications residing on the device or collect statistics from its Management Information Base (MIB).

Using device aliases

Infrastructure Management uses aliases to associate internal and external events to devices. Device alias are generated when a device is created. They can be generated automatically by Infrastructure Management or you can define them. 

Infrastructure Management compares the device aliases from events with the alias defined for each device, and when a match is found, the event is associated with the device that matches the alias. 

Aliases generated automatically are prefixed with BMC_ComputerSystem and use the following naming conventions, depending on how the device is generated:

• BMC_ComputerSystem:Host Name:Domain For example: BMC_ComputerSystem:test.bmc.com
• BMC_ComputerSystem:IP For example: BMC_ComputerSystem:10.134.12.10
• BMC_ComputerSystem:TokenID

When the cell receives an event, the event is processed as follows, depending on whether the event is internal or external:

• For internal events, the cell compares the device ID from the device alias with the device ID from the event and if a match is found, then the event is associated with the device.
• For external events, the cell compares other alias values, such as BMC_ComputerSystem:Host Name:Domain or BMC_ComputerSystem:IP, with the event mc_smc_alias slot value, which contains device information. If a match is found, then the event is associated with the device.
• If no matches are found, then the event is not associated with any device.
• When a device is created, updated, or deleted in the Administration Console, the device is also created, updated, or deleted in the cell.

For more information, see Associating events to devices with the administrator console.

Avoiding duplicate devices

In Infrastructure Management, a device can be created in the following ways:

• Through one of the following adapters:
  • BMC PATROL Adapter
  • BMC Portal Adapter
  • Native VMware Adapter
  • System Center Operation Manager (SCOM) Adapter
  • BMC Transaction Management Application Response Time (BMC TM ART) Adapter
• Manually by using the Administration Console or a Command Line Interface
• Integrating with BMC Atrium CMDB
• Adding an Integration Service
• Adding PATROL Agents
• PATROL Agents that monitor remote monitoring KMs like VMware vSphere and Windows Remote Monitoring. PATROL Agents stream the device information that are discovered by the KM.

When duplicate devices are created

Duplicate devices could result if multiple different sources that use different naming conventions are used to create the devices. For example, if the PATROL adapter uses the host name of the computer where the device is located to name the device, and the BMC Atrium CMDB uses the IP address of the computer where the device is located to name the device, then duplicate device instances will be created in Infrastructure Management.

Avoiding creating duplicate devices

Duplicate devices are not created in the following situations:

• if devices are created by only one source
• if devices are created from different sources independently
• if different sources use the same naming convention when creating the devices; for example, IP address, host name, or fully qualified domain name

Best practices for device creation

To avoid creating duplicate devices, ensure that

• the device is created using the fully qualified domain name of the host computer where the device is located
• each adapter must use the fully qualified domain name of the device if the device is referenced from multiple adapters.