User guide

5
IMPORTING AND REFRESHING
DEVICES
Overview This chapter describes how to populate the inventory with a list of devices
so that they appear in the device list. You must do this before you can
perform administrative operations on your devices, such as agent update
and device backup.
The process of populating the inventory is done in two stages as follows:
■ Importing — enables you to supply 3Com Network Administrator
with an initial list of devices from an external source. 3Com Network
Administrator supports two data sources for importing:
■ A text file of devices in Comma Separated Value (CSV) format.
■ A populated HP OpenView database
■ Refreshing — begins once you have imported a list of devices. 3Com
Network Administrator attempts to ‘interrogate’ each imported device
in order to obtain live information about its detailed configuration. A
device will only be added to the inventory if the information obtained
meets certain criteria (for example, only 3Com devices are supported).
You can also use the refresh operation independently to keep your
inventory up-to-date.
The following topics are covered in this chapter:
■ Key Concepts
■ Components
■ Examples
■ Key Considerations
3Com Network Administrator for HP OpenView.book Page 87 Wednesday, November 12, 2003 2:33 PM