How does purging maintenance work in Symantec Management Platform?
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How does purging maintenance work in Symantec Management Platform?

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Article ID: 228171

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Updated On:

Products

IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

The following article has been created based on questions that came from some customers regarding how purging maintenance works on recent versions (under SMP Console>Settings menu>Notification Server>Purging Maintenance). It is not intended to be a detailed explanation of everything that happens behind the curtains when purging occurs.

Example scenario:

A customer wants to know exactly what computers are going to be purged if they turn on Purge Maintenance. We know about stored proc "spGetComputersToPurge". That appears to only purge/delete "Active" computers that have not been communicating for x-amount of time, not the "Retired" ones from what we were able to test. 

The common understanding about purging maintenance is that we don't purge "Retired" machines, we use purging to set computers from "Active" to "Retired" or to delete them if the computer has not been communicating for x-amount of time.

Our Purge settings make it look like we will delete "Retired" computers after a set time if you have the check-box for "Delete in":

Environment

ITMS 8.x

Resolution

Question 1:

Based on the current Purging Maintenance page shown above, are we reading this UI wrong or are we supposed to delete "Retired" machines this way? Since the UI gives the impression that we will "retire" an active machine that has not reported data after "1 month" in this example and then "delete" it after "12 months" after setting it up to "retired" status.

Answer:

Probably it is not user-friendly in UI to understand what purging will do, but both options "Retired" & "Delete" are separate options from each other, so it is like:

  • you want to make managed computers retired if they aren't communicated per appropriate period (Reclaim consumed license nodes but still see them and their data)
  • or just delete them if they aren't communicating with the SMP (Symantec Management Platform) server anymore per appropriate period despite their asset status "Active", "Retired", "Missing", etc. (Reclaim consumed license and leave free space in the database to do not see them anymore in there because they are gone forever)

Question 2:

Do we not delete "Retired" machines at all using the Purging Maintenance page?

Answer:

The "Delete" option will delete all managed client computers if their SMA hasn't communicated with the SMP server per set period and no matter what Asset status they have.
Once this managed client wakes up and SMA (Symantec Management Agent) will start to communicate with the SMP server, then this computer will appear in the SMP server and will be shown as Active.

Note:
"Retire" or "Delete" options in Purging Maintenance will doesn't affect resources which are:

  • VMM discovered on this SMP server and there is no SMA ever installed/communicated with the SMP server (network discovered without SMA installed)
  • On the Parent SMP server, where a lot of Child Site Servers, Child client computers are replicated from Child SMP servers.

Question 3:

If I have computer X that is no longer around, I set originally to "Retire" it because it has been "1 month" since it is no longer there, if I understood you right when you said ""Delete" option will delete all managed clients computers if their SMA hasn't communicated with NS per set period and no matter what Asset status they have", if I have this checkbox also turned on, after this machine was set to "retire", when the "Delete in 12 months" criteria is reached, that "retired" computer X will be deleted?

Answer:

Yes, these 'retired' managed by this SMP server's client computers with SMA installed, will be deleted if they weren't communicated with the SMP server per %N% period

Question 4:

We know that the "Delete" option will delete all managed clients (computers with SMA installed (IsManaged=1)). Retired systems are not managed and get "IsManaged" set to 0, do they will never be deleted?

Answer:

 The 'Delete' option will delete all managed by this SMP server's client computers where SMA is installed and not communicated last %N% period.

  • SMP server doesn't delete/Change Asset Status for machines that are IsManaged=1 but NsOwner is another SMP server
  • SMP server doesn't delete machines that are IsManaged=0
  • SMP server doesn't change Asset status/ or Delete previously managed computers where SMA is uninstalled so this computer is IsManaged=0 but its inventory data is still present in the database.

Question 5:

What stored procedures are usually involved with the purging process?

Answer:

  • "spGetComputersToPurge"
  • "spResourceDelete"
  • "spPurgeAssociatedData"
  • "spDeleteAllItemReferences"

 

Additional Information

KB 178563  "How Purging works in a Hierarchy?"

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