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Unclear definitions: Inventoried - last scanned - unused...

Hello everyone!

I'm pretty new to Snow and haven't even yet had my introduction course which is planned for the near future.

However, there is a necessity for me to clarify a few points and I can't wait until then.

Can anyone help me figure out the answers to the below questions? I haven't found what I'm looking for on the forums just yet:

 

[A]-->Could you please stipulate the difference between an "inventoried computer" and a "last scanned..." computer?

[B]-->And does an inventoried computer always have an Snow Agent installed?

 

Context: I have two reports open: 1)-All Computers- and 2)-Physical and virtual servers per datacenter- 1) should show all inventoried Computers -aka any machine which has an agent and sends (during the daily scan) information. 2) should show all servers (physical and virtual) divided under their respectively named clusters. In report 2) there is a Column Filter called "Inventoried" with "Yes, no or blank" as input possibilities.

 

[C]-->Are all computers mentioned under "no" uninventoried because they do not have an agent? If that's the case how do we still see them listed in that report?

 

[D]--> How is it possible to have a server listed in 1)-All Computers- and simultaneously "Not inventoried" in 2)-Physical and virtual servers per datacenter-?

[E] The Unused Applications Report will sometime show applications that aren't really "unused" and are actually background running apps or services that will be "wrongly" listed. An example of that is the Snow Inventory Agent itself which appears as an "unused application" despite it obviously not being an applications no longer in use and flagged to be uninstalled.

How can I determine what is an actual unused application I can uninstall and what is a service/background application I shouldn't touch?

I hope the above is clear enough and that someone more knowledgeable that I am will be able to help out!

Thanks in advance!

Kind regards,

Tom


  • Hi Tom, Welcome to tyhe community! Very quick answers based on the fact that you are a new user (for advanced users, the answers might be slightly different because of using some advanced features): [A]: Inventoried means that the endpoint has inventory data in Snow Inventory (likely from a Snow agent). The last scanned date shows when the most recent data dates back from. It will always be a date before your last Data Update Job. [B]: 99.9% of the time, yes. There are ways to "inventory" a computer without an agent but you are likely not using them yet (e.g. the "zero-footprint" scanning). [C]: Snow can be configured to scan the network and Active Directory. It then compares what was discovered with the data Snow already has from the Snow Agents. The computers discovered but who have no inventory data are likely computers that have no Snow agent yet (or the agent is having issues) [D]: Snow can be configured to read data from virtualization infrastructures like SCVMM or vCenter through what Snow call "connectors" as plug-ins to their Snow Integration Manager. Those connectors learn about the existence of computers that could still be without a Snow agent. So in this case, they would be known by Snow (existence known) but not inventoried (nothing sent back from a Snow agent). [E]: Snow detects all executable files (where the configuration file tells the agent to look) but it does not report on the usage of Windows services, it only reports on applications run in a user context. So an executable file running as a service will be detected but will show no usage. Snow cannot know what executable is used as a service or running outside of a user context. So any application that shows no usage is a potentially unused application. You need to assess if you want to remove it or leave it. Maybe the whitelisting of application can help you to flag the applications that are unused but that you do not want to uninstall ...
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Unclear definitions: Inventoried - last scanned - unused...