HP SIM 4.1 problem with discovery

[Slobodan Kozul]

1900 HP d530 computers are imaged using drive imaging software. We made an mistake not deleting the registry key entry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Compaq\CIMAgent\Guid. Discovered systems are described as an orphan system. I was delete an old orphan systems from SIM database and registry key on all systems. I also stop and restart the agents. After restart key entry remain the same on all systems. When automatic discovery starts, discovered systems show up with incorrect IP address and disappeared. All other devices in network (Proliant servers, HP printers, Cisco routers, clusters, management processors) are discovered without any problems. Any idea?

[Jon Ward]

Have you deleted all prior references to these affected systems in the database, then run Automatic Discovery?

[Slobodan Kozul]

Yes, I have deleted all infected discovered systems and start automatic discovery. At this point SIM discovered approximately 700 new desktop systems. All systems has correct name and IP address. My question is why discovery process is taking so long (3 days) and still 1200 systems is missing.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Jon Ward]

In my experience on my own low utilization network, it takes about 4 hours per 1000 devices detected. As a matter of fact, hp Systems Insight Manager recommends discoverying more than 2000 devices.

To reduce the number of devices being sought, and thus pinged on all kinds of protocols, each having their own retries and timeouts, brake up large blocks of IP address ranges if you know that only a part of the range actually have valid targets. It is possible to setup multiple ranges and even individual IP addresses.

What kind of systems are not being recognized? Check the Automatic Discovery filter. Maybe it is too strict? Also, if the discovery takes that long, perhaps a significant period of time is being performed at off peak business hours when the devices are shut off. The most typical device I can think of would be personal computers.

To address this, consider reducing the discovery range to, say 200 IP addresses a day and run them during peak business hours. Or, reduce the number of protocols you do not think you will be needed during the discovery. If you are looking for a range of desktops, why perform SNMP and WMI pinging if the desktop agents are only capable of communicating using the DMI protocol (or vice versa).

Other issues to consider is if certain protocols being used on these devices may be blocked by firewalls, switches, routers, etc. within certain subnetworks.

[Jon Ward]

Correction: I should have said that hp Systems Insight Manager recommends pinging less than 2000 devices.