Novell Documentation: ZENworks for Servers 3 - Understanding the Inventory Server Roles

Understanding the Inventory Server Roles

This section describes the following roles that you assign for an Inventory server:

Root Server

The Root Server has the following characteristics:

This server is the topmost Inventory server in the inventory tree hierarchy.

This server has an Inventory database attached to it.
The Inventory database at the Root Server contains the inventory information for all the lower-level Inventory servers. At the Root Server level, you can view complete inventory information.

The following illustration depicts Leaf Servers connected to the Intermediate Server with Database. The Intermediate Server is attached to the Root Server.

The Root Server at the topmost level, an Intermediate Server with Database at the lower level attached to the Root Server, and Leaf Servers attached to the Intermediate Server with Database

Root Server with Inventoried Servers

The Root Server with Inventoried Servers has the following characteristics:

This server is the topmost Inventory server in the inventory tree hierarchy.
This server has inventoried servers attached to it. There are inventoried servers residing on a LAN.
This server has an Inventory database attached to it.

The following illustration depicts a Root Server with Inventoried Servers and Inventory database attached to it. The Leaf Servers are connected to the Root Server.

The Root Server with Inventoried Servers at the highest level, with inventoried servers attached to it. Also, more than one Leaf Server is attached to this Root Server with Inventoried Servers

Intermediate Server

The Intermediate Server has the following characteristics:

This Inventory server acts as a staging server for the lower-level Leaf Servers.
This server moves the scan information to the next-level Inventory server or to the Root Server.
This server does not have inventoried servers or an Inventory database attached to it.
There can be one or more Intermediate Servers.

The following illustration depicts an Intermediate Server connected to Root Server. Two Leaf Servers roll up the inventory information to the Intermediate Server. This Intermediate Server rolls up the inventory information to another Intermediate Server that is connected to the Root Server.

The Intermediate Server with the lower-level Leaf Servers and the highest-level Root Server.

There are many Leaf Servers and Intermediate servers at different levels. The Intermediate server is a staging server for uploading the scan information to the next-level server. The last Intermediate Server is attached to the topmost Root Server. This scenario is typical if there are many Leaf Servers in different geographical locations. All the Leaf Servers move the scan data to the Intermediate Server.

In some scenarios, the Leaf Server connects to the Intermediate Server over a WAN.

Intermediate Server with Database

The Intermediate Server with Database has the following characteristics:

This server acts as a staging server for the lower-level Leaf Servers.
This Inventory server moves the scan information to the next-level Intermediate Server or the Root Server.
This server has an Inventory database attached to it.

There can be one or more Intermediate Servers in your enterprise.

The following illustration depicts two Leaf Servers attached to the Intermediate Server. A consolidated inventory information of all Leaf Servers is available at the Intermediate Server level.

A Root Server along with an Intermediate Server which has an Inventory database, to which the lower-level Leaf Servers roll up the inventory data

Intermediate Server with Inventoried Servers

The Intermediate Server with Inventoried Servers has the following characteristics:

This Inventory server acts as an intermediate server for the lower-level Leaf Servers.
This server moves the scan information to the next-level Intermediate Server or to the Root Server.
This server has inventoried servers attached to it.
This server does not have an Inventory database attached to it.

There can be one or more Intermediate Servers in your enterprise.

The following illustration depicts two Leaf Servers attached to the Intermediate Server. This Intermediate Server also has inventoried servers attached to it.

A Root Server along with an Intermediate Server which has inventoried servers attached to it

Intermediate Server with Database and Inventoried Servers

The Intermediate Server with Database and Inventoried Servers has the following characteristics:

This Inventory server acts as an intermediate server for the lower-level Leaf Servers.
This server moves the scan information to the next-level Intermediate Server or to the Root Server.
This server has inventoried servers attached to it.
This server has Inventory database attached to it.

The following illustration depicts two Leaf Servers attached to the Intermediate Server. The Intermediate Server has inventoried servers attached to it. A consolidated Inventory database of all Leaf Servers and the inventoried servers that are directly connected to the Intermediate Server is available at the Intermediate Server level.

A Root Server along with an Intermediate Server which has an Inventory database and inventoried servers attached to it

Leaf Server

The Leaf Server has the following characteristics:

This Inventory server is at the lowest level in the hierarchy.

This server has inventoried servers attached to it.

This server moves the scan data to the next-level Intermediate Server or to a Root Server.

A simple Leaf Server does not have an Inventory database. An Inventory database is not required because there may be only few inventoried servers connected to the Inventory server.
The following illustration depicts many Leaf Servers attached to the Intermediate Server. The Intermediate Server is connected to Root Server. A consolidated Inventory database of all Leaf Servers is available at the Root Server level.

Leaf Server with Database

The Leaf Server with Database has the following characteristics:

This Inventory server has inventoried servers attached to it.
This server moves the scan data to the next-level Inventory server.
This server has an Inventory database. You can assign a server as a Leaf Server with Database to maintain the inventory information for inventoried servers specific to the inventory site.

The following illustration depicts two Leaf Servers attached to the Intermediate Server. One Leaf Server has an Inventory database attached to it. This database contains a consolidated inventory of all inventoried servers attached to this Leaf Server.

A Leaf Server with Inventory database attached to it roll up the inventory data to Intermediate Server.

Standalone Server

The Standalone Server has the following characteristics:

This server has inventoried servers attached to it.
This server has an Inventory database attached to it.
There is no roll-up of scan information and there are no requirements for Intermediate Servers and the Root Server.

The following illustration depicts Standalone Server.