Context

Tool mentors explain how a tool can perform tasks, which are part of ITUP processes and activities. The tasks are listed as Related Elements in the Relationships section.

You can see the details of how processes and activities are supported by this tool mentor, by clicking the links next to the icons:

•   Configuration Management
  •   Identify Configuration Items

Details

The IBM® Tivoli® Configuration Manager product has a component called Inventory that maintains a database of information about machines, devices attached to them, and installed software. The product has some out-of-the-box basic details about hardware and some software signature files that are included to be identified using the Inventory product. More of these signatures and custom scanners are available for download from the IBM Tivoli Customer Support Web site and on the Internet from user groups, business partners, and others.

The software signatures and hardware scanners included with the Inventory product help provide a basis for beginning or complementing your CCMDB efforts with some possible choices for CIs. In addition to the out-of-the-box defined software signatures and hardware scanners, it is possible to build your own as possible CIs in your environment. When the information is in your Inventory database, you will have collected information about those CIs and can readily review the data using SQL queries and reports.

IBM Tivoli Configuration Manager User's Guide for Inventory version 4.2.3, IBM Corporation, October 2002-2005, page 57 covers collecting custom information using Inventory. What follows is some excerpted information from this chapter. Refer to the User Guide for complete details. All current manuals can be located on the IBM Web site in the Tivoli Information Center at http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v3r1/index.jsp?toc=/com.ibm.tivoli.itcm.doc/toc.xml

This chapter, Chapter 5, covers the procedures for collecting custom and optional information with Inventory. You can collect custom information by creating custom signatures, gathering user information with UserLink, or creating custom MIF files. You store this information in custom tables in the configuration repository. You can also configure Inventory to scan PC systems for BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) information.

With some additional configuration, you can extend the functionality of an inventory profile distribution. Before you do any custom configuration, you should be familiar with the options on the inventory profile. See Chapter 3, Working with Inventory Profiles on page 27 for instructions about customizing an inventory profile. When you customize an inventory profile, you specify how to scan target machines and what information to save.

Chapter 5 includes the following information about collecting custom and optional information with Inventory:

• Information about using signatures and signature packages to identify installed software applications. (See Using Signatures.)
• Information about using custom MIF files to collect information that is not generated by hardware or software scans. (See Using Custom MIF Files on page 60.)
• Information about how to create tables in the configuration repository to hold custom data that you collect. (See Designing Custom Tables on page 62.)
• Information about creating history tables for tables that you create in the configuration repository. (See Creating History Tables for Custom Tables on page 63.)
• Examples that demonstrate how to add custom tables and history tables to the configuration repository. (See Adding a Custom Table to the Configuration Repository on page 63.)
• Information about collecting custom information from users using UserLink followed by an example. (See Collecting Information with UserLink on page 65.)
• Information about views and an example that demonstrates how to add a view (See Viewing Custom Information on page 79.)
• The procedure to configure Inventory to scan PC systems for BIOS information. (See Customizing PC Scans for BIOS Information on page 80.)

For More Information

For more information about this tool, click on the link for this tool at the top of this page.