Customizing hardware inventory means changing the default set of classes and properties that Systems Management Server (SMS) version 2.0 collects from every SMS client during hardware inventory. Typically, you direct SMS to collect properties and classes that are important to your organization, but are not part of the default hardware inventory process. Or, you can eliminate properties and classes that are part of the default inventory process, but are not important for your organization.
Besides using hardware inventory to collect hardware information, you can customize it to create entirely new architectures. Such architectures can be used to monitor assets, such as vehicles and other equipment, using the SMS site database.
Before you customize hardware inventory, you should become familiar with Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and the 32-bit hardware inventory process as described in the “WMI and the Hardware Inventory Process” section of this chapter. Note that the 16-bit SMS 2.0 hardware inventory feature cannot take advantage of the WMI services, and so uses a different process. This process is described in “Details of the 16-Bit Hardware Inventory Process” later in this chapter.
After you understand the hardware inventory process, you can customize this process in one of the following ways, as explained later in this chapter:
This chapter also contains the following sections:
This chapter assumes that you have a basic understanding of SMS in general, and SMS hardware inventory in particular. For more information about SMS hardware inventory, see Chapter 10, “Collecting Hardware and Software Inventory,” in the SMS 2.0 Administrator’s Guide.