Windows Server discoveries using WMI Access Profile take a long time to complete.

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• CENDURA

Issue/Introduction

Question:

When using CCA to discover a Windows server using the WMI Access profile, it may take a long time to complete.

How to improve the performance for WMI Access profile discoveries?

 

Answer:

WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) is a service available on Windows Server to provide server information to a management application like CCA.  CCA can connect to a target Windows Server using Windows user credentials to establish a connection.  The discovery process will query the WMI providers to extract the data to be managed in the CCA blueprints.  This process is a known Windows limitation which can cause extended discovery execution times.

 

Reference Technical document to verify WMI connection can be established.

https://communities.ca.com/docs/DOC-231160220

 

 

In the CCA UI navigate to the Administration section.

Click on the Configuration Tab.

 

Locate  Group: cca

           Name:  wmi.file.based.discovery

 

           Set the Value to True.  Then cycle CCA Server services for the change to take effect.

 

<Please see attached file for image>

 

 This option will enable CCA discovery to execute scripts in the blueprint and store the data into a temporary file onto the target system.

The temporary file is stored in %TEMP% directory and then gets deleted after the data is transferred back to CCA Server over WMI port 135.

This step eliminates the need for the WMI service to transfer the data back to CCA and should reduce the time it takes to complete the discovery process.

 

There is another variable "wmi.script.exec.timeout.sec" which is set to 900 seconds by default.

It is not suggested to modify this value.  

See technical tip: 

https://communities.ca.com/docs/DOC-231166332

 

If possible, it is better suggested to install the CCA Agent service which has better discovery performance.

 

 

Environment

Release: ACMPHY99000-12.8-Configuration Automation-for Physical Environments
Component: