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Organizing Your Assets With the Sun Connection Inventory Channel

Tim Smith, August 24, 2007

This Tech Tip explains how to use the Sun Connection Inventory Channel to organize, group, manage, and stay abreast of the latest product information and updates.

The Sun Connection Inventory Channel

The Sun Connection Inventory Channel can discover the Sun assets in your environment and collect information about these assets such as the product name, release version, host name of the system on which the product is installed, and other basic product information. This information is transmitted securely to the Sun Connection Inventory Channel and matched with your Sun online account information. You can then use the Sun Connection Inventory Channel to organize, group, and manage assets, and stay abreast of the latest product information and updates.

Accessing the Inventory Channel

After you register your products, you're ready to manage them by accessing the Sun Connection Inventory Channel at https://sunconnection.sun.com/inventory. Enter your user name and password to log in and view your registered assets.

To Group Your Assets

Through the Sun Connection Inventory Channel, you can group your assets based on geographic location or business function. To create a new group, perform the following steps.

1. Click the Inventory tab.
2. In the Groups column on the left, click the Action button and select New Group.
3. Type the name and description for your group.
4. Add assets to your group with the following steps:
   1. Choose a particular product.
   2. Click the Add to Group option from the Actions drop down menu.
   3. In the Add to Group popup window, select the appropriate group for the asset.

To Organize Your Assets

You can utilize inventory filters to organize, group, and view your product information.

1. Click the Inventory tab.
2. In the top right of the screen, click the Show Filter button.
3. Specify the criteria for your filter in the dialog box.
4. Click Apply to customize your inventory display.

To Generate a Report

You can generate reports on your products and export your product data to a variety of file formats for use with third party products.

1. Click the Inventory tab.
2. In the top right of the screen, click the Action button and select Report.
3. From the popup window, select the format for the report that you want to create.

   Available report formats are PDF, XML, or a comma-separated list (CSV).

4. Click OK.

To Stay Connected

You can also use the Sun Connection Inventory Channel to keep current on Sun's latest information and updates for your products.

1. Click the Messages tab to choose the following:

   • Access a variety of RSS feeds and receive updated product information

   • Subscribe to additional Sun Connection channels, such as the Update Channel or Provisioning Channel, to manage Solaris, Red Hat, and SUSE Linux systems

2. Register all of your Sun Products.

   For more information about registering specific Sun products, visit the Sun Connection hub at http://www.sun.com/bigadmin.

More Information

For more information about Sun Connection, go to the Sun Connection information hub.

To get an inside perspective of Sun Connection, Sun Management Center software, Sun N1 Service Provisioning System, and Sun N1 System Manager, visit the Sun Connection blog. Contributors to this blog include members of the Sun Connection Field Enablement team. The goal of this blog is to share information with customers who either have already implemented or will implement these products in the future. The blog also provides important information about training and other key enablement activities.

Here are additional resources:

• Sun training at http://www.sun.com/training/:

  Sun Update Connection - Enterprise Technical Essentials (WET-1451)

• Support:

  • Sun Services and Solutions
  • SunSolve Online

• Developer forum for Sun Connection

• Sun Product Documentation at http://docs.sun.com:

  Sun Update Connection - Enterprise

• Sun Connection wiki

• Sun.com: Manage Your IT Inventory With Sun Connection

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