What's in ZfD Inventory Management

ZfD provides the following new features to achieve higher scalability:

• Minimizes the scanning data traffic on the network by employing a delta scan of workstations.

  The scanners collect hardware and software information from the workstations. Complete inventory scanning of a large number of workstations is time-consuming. Moreover, most workstations may not have new hardware or software changes since the last scan.In ZfD, the scanner tracks the complete inventory of the workstation in an initial full scan. In the next scanning process, the Scanner compares the current inventory data to history it maintains and collects the delta changes in the inventory.

• Provides roll-up of inventory information across servers for large networks.

  ZfD supports roll-up of scan data in large networks with a central database. The inventory data is sent across the servers to the centralized database. In such roll-ups of inventory data, only the changes are moved to the intermediate servers, if any, and finally to the highest level server with the database.

• Provides validity of scan data.

  The inventory components verify the validity of the scan data files before processing the scan data.

• Allows compression of data for roll-up.

  The scan data is compressed and only the compressed scan data is transferred to the next-level server.

• Allows roll-up of changed scan data only.

  Because the scanners report the delta changes in the inventory, the roll-up of scan data transfers only changed inventory information for the workstations. Also, the servers do not retain the scan data once it is transferred to the database.

• Provides WAN-friendly roll-up of scan data.

  In ZfD, the roll-up of scan data handles WAN-related problems, such as the WAN link being down. If the WAN link goes down, the remaining data is transferred after the link is up.

• Supports DMI 2.0 compliance for compatibility with CIM 2.2-compliant SQL databases.

  ZfD scans for DMI 2.0-instrumented workstations and maps the scan data to the CIM 2.2 schema.

• Allows software scanning using Microsoft* Installer (MSI).

  ZfD lets you scan the installed applications on the workstations using the information from Microsoft Installer.

• Supports maintaining the Inventory database in Sybase.

  ZfD configures the Inventory setup for maintaining the inventory information in a Sybase database.

• Provides maintenance of the Inventory database in Oracle.

  Allows the Inventory database to be configured for any existing Oracle setup in your network.

• Provides an optimized database schema.

  The Inventory database is optimized in terms of speed and storage. The database is scalable to the enterprise level and accommodates the inventory information for several thousand workstations.

• Provides simplified database management tools (backup, deletion, organizing database spaces).

  The Backup tool allows you to back up the Inventory database at frequent intervals. The NDS-DB Sync tool verifies that all eDirectory workstation objects exist in the database, and it deletes all obsolete workstation objects from the database.

  The AlterDBSpace tool for Sybase organizes the database files across multiple volumes on the server.

• Provides a database extraction wizard for using the inventory data in external databases, reporting tools, and other applications.

  ZfD lets you export the inventory information in to a comma separated value (CSV) file format.

• Provides predefined inventory reporting.

  You can use the set of predefined reports to filter the inventory information and generate the reports from the Inventory database.

• Allows definition of inventory roles for servers.

  ZfD allows you to configure the inventory setup in your network based on your network configuration. The servers that you deploy for inventory management can be configured at any time.

• Performs inventory operations on geographically separate sites.

  You can view, query, or generate the inventory information from the site databases. A site database has the inventory information for all workstations specific to the site.

• Provides status reporting (status reports, eDirectory reporting pages, export, XML status report).

  ZfD provides a status reporting mechanism that indicates success or failure of inventory scanning for troubleshooting. You can export the status reports to a CSV file or tab-delimited file, or view the status reports in any third-party XML browser.

• Provides migration tools for reuse of ZENworks 2 Inventory policies and databases.

  ZfD allows the reuse of the existing Inventory policies for ZENworks 2 to configure the workstations in ZfD 3.2 You can also migrate the ZENworks 2 Inventory database to ZfD 3.2.