Snow Inventory Installing and Evaluating Snow Software AB 2002
Table of Contents Introduction...3 1. Evaluate Requirements...3 2. Download Software...3 3. Obtain License Key...4 4. Install Snow Inventory Standalone Edition (SE)...4 5. Survey Your Inventory...8 6. Install and Configure Snow System Services...9 8. Configuring Snow Inventory SE File Processing...24 Snow Software AB 2002 Page 2
Introduction Snow Inventory is quick to deploy and easy to configure and administer. Following the steps listed below will ensure that your installation and evaluation goes smoothly. These are instructions on how to set up the Standalone Edition, which requires no agent on client workstations. In this configuration we use a local Access database to store information. Snow Inventory allows you to use nearly any relational database, and can also deploy agent software. But we suggest you bring up the software for the first time in this configuration to familiarize yourself with its features before adding configuration options. Before beginning the evaluation: 1. Evaluate the program s requirements. 2. Download the software. 3. Obtain a license key. To evaluate the software on a single computer: 4. Install Snow Inventory SE. 5. Survey the inventory data. To extend evaluation to multiple systems: 6. Install and configure Snow System Services. 7. Install and configure Snow Management Console. 8. Configure Snow Inventory SE for multi-user mode. 1. Evaluate Requirements A. Operating System. Snow Inventory requires Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 (with Service Pack 4), Windows 2000, or Windows XP. B. Disk Space. Fifty megabytes of free disk space are required to install and use the product. (The inventory databases will continue to grow in size as the product is used.) C. MDAC. Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) must be installed on the system. If MDAC is not already installed, Inventory will automatically install it. Installation of MDAC will require rebooting your system. 2. Download Software Snow Inventory is available for download from www.snow.no. Go to the Products page and click the Download button. To evaluate Snow Inventory on a single system, in order to see the information it returns, all you need to download and install is a single file: SISE207.EXE. To perform a full evaluation of Snow Inventory on a network, you need to download and install the three files listed below. Product File Name File Size Snow Inventory SE SISE207.EXE 1.5 megabytes Snow System Services SAMSRV207.EXE 12.9 megabytes Snow Management Console SMC206.EXE 13.3 megabytes Snow Software AB 2002 Page 3
3. Obtain License Key Fill in the form on the Download page to receive an evaluation key that will unlock the product for temporary (two-week) use. The license key will be emailed to the address you specify in the form. The evaluation key will be matched to the company name you enter, so you must enter the company name in exactly the same form as in the email you receive. Because the license key is long, cutting and pasting it directly into the registration screens will be easier than retyping it. The same evaluation key will unlock all three software components. 4. Install Snow Inventory Standalone Edition (SE) Click on the copy of SISE207.exe you downloaded to begin installation of the standalone software. Read the text and the press Next to proceed with the installation. Read the text and the press Next to proceed with the installation. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 4
Remember to enter the company name exactly as when filling out the license request form. The ID drop-down box allows you to choose how you want to identify individual systems on inventory scans. The default, as illustrated, is to identify systems via the unique MAC address of their network adapters. You also have the option of using the more recognizable computer name or assigning computer identifiers. The Scanning Profile drop-down box allows you to include less information than the default full scan. Press Next to proceed with the installation. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 5
Click Browse if you want to change default installation folder. Press Next to start copying files. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 6
Press Next after the file copying process ends. Press Finish to end the setup process. You will now have a new icon placed on you desktop: Snow Software AB 2002 Page 7
5. Survey Your Inventory To begin exploring the variety of information Snow Inventory captures, click on your system and look at the reported data, as illustrated below. Under Overview are Administrative, Hardware, Operating System, Software, Login Users, and Custom Data. For more detailed information, choose the Hardware, Operating System, Network and Software panes to the left. The above steps show you the information that Snow Inventory will return. But the information displayed is from only a single system. To extend the evaluation to survey multiple computers, follow the steps on the next page. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 8
6. Install and Configure Snow System Services Snow System Services (Snow Inventory Server) are the communication and transport services common to all the components of the Snow Software Management Suite. Snow System Services allow the modules to communicate with one another, handling networking and database access. To install Snow System Services, run SAMSRV207.EXE, and step through the Wizard pages. Read the text and the press Next to proceed with the installation. Read the text and the press Next to proceed with the installation. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 9
Remember to enter the company name exactly as when filling out the license request form. Click Browse if you want to change default installation folder. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 10
Clear the checkbox if you don t want to install the Inventory Agent on the server. Press Next to start copying files. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 11
Press Next after the file copying process ends. Press Finish to end the setup process. You will now have a new icon placed on you desktop: You will gain access to the Snow System Services properties by clicking this icon. The next step is to activate file processing within Snow System Services. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 12
Configuring Snow System Services File Processing Start up by opening the Snow System Services Properties Click on the Agents tab located on top, bringing up the Agents page illustrated below. Double-click on the OLEDB Agent to access the properties page. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 13
Click on the File processing tab located on top, bringing up the File Processing page illustrated below. Check the Enable file processing box. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 14
Choose a reasonable Check interval, for instance every 15 minutes. Click this to add folders Snow Inventory SE will write its scanning results into a shared system folder. Enabling File Processing will instruct the system services to periodically poll this folder and put the results in to the Inventory database. The Check Interval configured here is the interval at which System Services will poll the files. A reasonable interval is 15 minutes. NOTE: this is not the Inventory frequency, which is configured elsewhere. This does not mean that an inventory will be performed every fifteen minutes. This means that, after an inventory is performed, it will be fifteen minutes before your database is updated. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 15
Specify a folder for the file processing. This folder has the following requirements: 1. It must be on a local drive on the system where System Services are installed. (It need not be physically on the same computer, but it must be mapped as a drive letter on that system.) This is because System Services runs as a Windows NT service under the LocalSystem account, and the LocalSystem account does not have access rights outside the local computer. 2. The folder must be sharable to all the systems that will run Inventory, with both read and write permissions. (This is where they will write the results of their inventory.) The usual practice is to create a new share on the server just for use by Inventory. NOTE: The path to this folder must be the same as specified on the client. When you press the OK button after selecting the file processing folder, you will be presented with a page asking whether you want to restart the agent and load the new properties. Say yes. Then press OK to close the properties page. File processing is now set up to use Snow Inventory Standalone Edition. The next step is to install the Snow Management Console. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 16
7. Install and Configure the Snow Management Console Run SMC206.EXE, and step through the Wizard pages as shown below: NOTE! You have the opportunity to install the Management Console on several machines if necessary. Read the text and the press Next to proceed with the installation. Read the text and the press Next to proceed with the installation. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 17
Remember to enter the company name exactly as when filling out the license request form. Click Browse if you want to change default installation folder. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 18
Press Next to start copying files. Press Next after the file copying process ends. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 19
Press Finish to end the setup process. You will now have a new icon placed on you desktop: Click this icon to open the Snow Management Console. The first time you enter the Management Console, you will be prompted to connect to the Inventory databases. The procedure on the next pages explains how to do this. NOTE: You will need to follow this procedure twice, first to connect to the System database, then to the Inventory database. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 20
When the Snow Management Console starts up a test is performed to verify that connections to the system database and inventory database really exists. If no such connection exists, the user is prompted to create one. Click OK to open the Database Connection Wizard and set up the required connection. Snow Inventory allows you to connect to an external relational database of your choice. A built-in Access database is included with the product. For the purposes of a simple initial evaluation, we suggest that you use this built-in database. From the Database setup page illustrated below, choose Connect to an Existing Database. Step 1 Database Connection Wizard Snow Software AB 2002 Page 21
Step 2 Database Name and Type In the second step of the Wizard you give a name and specify the type of the database you are creating. Step 3 Data (OLE DB) Provider Note that the default option for Provider is Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL. This may be the correct choice for eventual production use of Snow Inventory. But for initial installation and configuration, you need to change this option. From the pull-down list box, choose Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Access. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 22
To fill in the Filename list box, click on the three dots to the right of the box. Browse to the location where you installed the software (by default, Program Files\Snow Software\). In the Snow System Services folder, open the Databases Folder. To connect to the System Database, choose SystemDatabase from the browse page. Step 4 Database Security Leave User Name and Password blank (as you are connecting to an Access database), and choose Next to continue. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 23
Step 5 Create Database A final page will display the choices you have made for verification. If they are correct, choose Finish to create the database connection. You can also test the connection prior to creating the database. When the first database connection is established, to the System database, you will repeat this procedure once more for the Inventory database. The procedure is identical, except that wherever System is used above, it should be replaced by Inventory. (If you ever want to change any of the choices you made in this procedure for example, to attach to a new database you can do so by right clicking on the database in the Management Console and choosing Properties.) 8. Configuring Snow Inventory SE File Processing When we installed Snow Inventory SE in Step 4 above, we left it in the default configuration to show the inventory information for the single system on which it was installed. Now we want to configure it for multi-user mode. To start configuration, double-click on the Snow Inventory SE icon placed on the desktop, and press Press Configure to open the properties page illustrated in Figure 11 below. Press Configure to open the properties page. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 24
Click on the Advanced tab located on top. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 25
Select Multi-user mode. For the Folder name, enter the full UNC path to the shared folder you created when configuring System Services in step 6 above. This is the folder where all instances of Inventory will write their results. Click OK. (You can skip the subsequent invitation to scan this system again right now.) The Folder name specified here MUST be the same as the one specified in the OLEDB Agent This is the Inventory software that will be run on systems that are inventoried. It is never installed on client systems (leaving no footprint), but instead is run over the network from a share point. The next step in configuration, therefore, is to create the share point from which it is run. The usual practice is to create a new shared folder with read-only permissions for everyone, and copy the contents of the Inventory folder (by default) C:\Program Files\Snow Software\Snow Inventory SE into the shared folder. This is the folder where all the users will be executing the application from, it is therefore important that users cannot modify anything within it. Give all users read and execute access to the folder, and limit write access to administrators. The Scan Interval box on this page allows you to determine how often inventory is performed. Always will perform an inventory scan every time a user logs on. The usual practice is to choose Daily. Clicking the Update Changed Data box beneath the scan interval reduces Snow s already-low network traffic even further by sending only changes since the last scan rather than full information for ever scan. To invoke Inventory from remote machines, place the following command in the logon script: <share point>\snowinv.exe /Silent Here share point is the full UNC path to the shared folder created just above. The /silent switch causes the software to run without making its presence known on the client systems. Snow Software AB 2002 Page 26