Before setting up Workstation Inventory, you should understand the inventory components, which interact together to perform inventory functions.
The following sections provide a brief overview of the Workstation Inventory components:
Platform-dependent scanners determine the hardware and software configurations of workstations. These Inventory scanners are located at the inventoried workstations. When executed on the inventoried workstations, the scanner collects the inventory information for the inventoried workstations. The inventory information is subsequently transferred to the Inventory server and processed.
Using the Workstation Inventory policy, you can configure the scan settings for scheduling the scan on the workstations and customize hardware scanning. From the Inventory Service object (Inventory Service_server_name), you can specify the location of the inventory information and also customize software scanning using the Software Dictionary snap-ins.
For more information about the Inventory scanner, see Section 74.3, Understanding the Inventory Scanner.
The Inventory server components process the inventory information. The following components are Java programs that work identically on Inventory servers:
Selector
The Selector processes the inventory information and places the information in appropriate directories. For more information, see Section 74.6, Understanding the Selector.
Sender and Receiver
The Sender on the Inventory server compresses the inventory information and then transfers it from the lower-level Inventory server to the Receiver on the higher-level Inventory servers. By using the Roll-Up policy, you can configure the next level destination Inventory server for roll-up, and also schedule the roll-up time. For more information, see Section 74.4, Understanding the Sender and Receiver.
Storer
The Storer stores the collected inventory information in the Inventory database. By using the Database Location policy, you can configure the properties of the Inventory Database object (Inventory database_server_name) and associate the database object to an Inventory server. For more information, see Section 74.7, Understanding the Storer.
STR Converter
The STR Converter converts the ZENworks for Desktops 4.x and ZENworks 6.5 Desktop Management inventory information to the format required by ZENworks 7 Desktop Management. For more information about the STR Converter, see Section 74.8, Understanding the Str Converter.
TCP Receiver
The TCP Receiver receives the roll-up inventory information from the ZENworks for Desktops 4.x and ZENworks 6.5 Desktop Management Inventory servers connected to it and converts the information to a format required by ZENworks 7 Desktop Management. For more information, see Section 74.5, Understanding the TCP Receiver.
Dictionary Provider and Dictionary Consumer
All Inventory servers run the Dictionary Provider and Dictionary Consumer services. The Dictionary Consumer downloads the dictionary updates from the Dictionary Provider. For more information, see Section 74.10, Understanding Dictionary Provider and Dictionary Consumer.
The Inventory database is a repository of inventory information of the inventoried workstations. In Desktop Management, the database is a Common Information Model-based database and is implemented in Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). It is maintained in Sybase, Oracle, or MS SQL. For more information, see Section 73.2, Setting Up the Inventory Database.
The management console is the Novell ConsoleOne. This is a Java-based console that includes snap-ins for Workstation Inventory management operations.