In big and complex IT landscapes it can be difficult to spontaneously request the device inventory of all devices. Not only could all network communication cease due to the big network load, but device problems could quickly accumulate. Management does need up-to-date device data to guide IT landscape investments. Wildfire device inventory will eventually lead to net loss. Instead, distribute the inventory load smartly using job automation.
An example device inventory and discovery schedule. It consists of jobs repeating each week, distributed by day and device category. On the right you see the complete details of one week's scheduled operation. Do not mind the time-frame of one hour, as jobs issued at that time run until completion anyway.
Example IT landscape
There are five device categories: DEV, SALES, EVENT, CONSULT and APPRENTICE. Each device category is related to its own organization unit, named just like it. Each device category is expected to range from a dozen to hundreds of devices.
On the Organization units page, you can see the organization units of our example IT landscape.
Inventory strategy
The distribution of the device inventory workload is key. A good way of workload distribution is to assign the inventory of smaller sets of devices to different points in time. Here is an example strategy spread out onto a week.
•Monday: inventory all DEV devices at 20:00 o´clock
•Tuesday: inventory all SALES devices at 18:30 o´clock
•Wednesday: inventory all EVENT devices at 22:00 o´clock
•Thursday: inventory all APPRENTICE devices at 19:00 o´clock
•Friday: inventory all CONSULT devices at 20:00 o´clock
•Saturday: complete device discovery at 14:00 o´clock
Remarks
The device sets of organization units (OUs) are fixed. They are managed manually by the IT administration. In the event of new devices inside of the IT landscape, they have to be manually assigned to any of the OUs to include them in the discussed inventory schedules.