EPO Agent Cleanup 1

[addus5]

As we all know machines get retired off corporate networks due to either age, problems etc. Does anyone know of any good ways to cleanup old EPO agents from the Directory. I don't think searching by last contact date and deleting those that haven't communicated in a certain time frame will cut it. If machines are still up and are just having communication problems they will also be deleted. So my question is how can I cleanup the repository and still maintain agent coverage. Would this involve using something like threat scan. Im open to any ideas......

Addus

 

[Windexx]

I would prune all the old ePO machine accounts that have not communicated to the master in xx days.

As I understand, this will not remove the agent unless you state it to do so, but if they are not communicating it is kind of moot. Once the ePO client is online it will contact the master again and add itself back to the ePO directory. You may test this by deleting an ePO entry in the directory and then have the client connect to master and watch it pop up.

 

[bfralia]

This probably isn't much help but I look at machines that haven't updated through five dat updates. I look at the update domain function (right click domain name, select all tasks then update domain. If during their regular working hours, the machines aren't showing to be active on the network, I delete them from the directory.

The worst thing that happens is they come back the next time they are turned on.

The hardest part is visiting the domains during their working hours since they are scattered across three countries.

 

[bfralia]

Actually ePO finds machines through the network browser rather than by their agent. You can have lots of machines in the directory that don't have agents installed.

 

[ReallyTallCupboards]

I use the global inactive agents maintenance scheduled task - it runs every Sunday + moves all agents that haven't contacted the server in 6 weeks to a site I created called "inactive agents".

Then every Monday morning I fire an agent install at all the resulting machines that have appeared in my "inactive agents" site. Then I wait a day & delete all the machines that have still not contacted the server.

I also use the domain import command in conjuction with the "duplicate computer names" search. Do a full domain import, then use the duplicate computer names search to delete all duplicates & you're left with all those rogue machines without agents.

 

[addus5]

ReallyTallCupboards,

That sounds like a good idea. How do you setup the global inactive agents mainenace task? Is this a new feature with SP2a? Ive looked around in under tasks and couldnt find it.


Thanks
Addus

 

[ReallyTallCupboards]

addus,
the global active agent task is found at the server level - in the console click on the EPO server (one level above "directory" in the tree) & it is found by creating a new task under the "scheduled tasks" tab.

hope this helps
RTC

 

[cottonpants]

You just need to be careful that you aren't deleting any agents that are still on the network but for one reason or another are having ePO communication problems. That is what I'm dealing with right now.

It would be nice if ePO had some sort of ping diagnostic built in to check if the agent is in fact offline as well as not communicating...

 

[ReallyTallCupboards]

that's why I do the full domain import then search & delete duplicates. It leaves you with all your rogue / failed agent installs, even if you've removed inactive / failed agents.