Basing discovery on a shared set of custom property  values

To create multiple instances of one or more component templates, you can discover those component templates using a single custom property.

For example, you might need to set up several component templates to implement WebSphere. To discover components based on those templates, you can define multiple instances of a single custom property class and use those instances to satisfy the signatures of many component templates. This approach can be much simpler than defining an instance of a local property for each component template that you want to discover (as discussed in Component-Discovery-Job-Component-Templates).

The Evaluate All Instances of Selected Property section of the Component Templates panel lets you use this approach for discovering components.

To set up a custom property class as the basis for component discovery

1. Create a custom property class. Define multiple instances for the custom property class.
2. Create a component template, and then define a local property for that component template. The local property should be a property class property (a property that refers to a property class or sub-class) that references the custom property class that you created in step 1.
3. In the component template (on the Discover tab), define a signature that includes one or more property values. The property values that are acceptable for the template should include the property values defined for instances of the custom property class that you set up in step 1.
4. Open the Component Discovery Job wizard and proceed to the Component Templates panel.
5. In the Evaluate All Instances of Select Property section of the Component Templates panel, check the local property that refers to the custom property class that you want to use to discover component templates on target servers. This is the local property that you created in step 2.
   When you check this property, the Component Discovery Job uses all instances of the custom property class referenced by this property to determine whether the target server's properties satisfy the component template's signature.
   When you check a local property in the Evaluate All Instances of Select Property section, the Component Discovery Job ignores any instances for that property that are defined locally for a component template. If you do not check that local property, the Component Discovery Job uses any local instances for the property when determining whether the target server's properties satisfy the component template's signature.