Owner's Manual

232 Frequently Asked Questions
Scope and Capabilities of IT Assistant
These frequently asked questions cover the general capabilities of
IT Assistant, optimizing the UI environment, and discovery configuration.
Question Answer
Why does IT Assistant show
that my discovered system is
down during a status poll
when it is up?
For networks where Dynamic Host Configuration
Protocol (DHCP) is prevalent, IT Assistant may show
a system as down when it is actually up due to another
system obtaining its IP Address. During a discovery
round, when IT Assistant discovers a particular
managed system, it looks for other systems in its
database with the same IP address as the one under
discovery. If any other system shares that address, its
IP address is marked as invalid. When the system
whose IP address was marked as invalid is eventually
rediscovered, its IP address entries are updated and
marked as valid again. Until these IP address entries
are updated, any status poll that runs will mark that
system as down due to not having any valid IP address
entries to check against.
Why doesn't IT Assistant
show my system as up after
I changed the name?
When IT Assistant discovers a particular managed
system through its IP address during a discovery
round, IT Assistant attempts to resolve the managed
system's address to a name, either through
instrumentation or DNS. If DNS is the preferred
name resolution method and the name of the
managed system under discovery has recently
changed, it may take several discovery rounds for the
name to update in IT Assistant due to Windows
caching DNS entries on the local system. For more
information on how to clear the cache faster, see the
Microsoft documentation for your operating system.
Why can't I discover my
desktop system?
Use the IT Assistant Troubleshooting Tool to help
resolve this issue. In the UI, go to Tools
Troubleshooting Tool. See "Troubleshooting
Tool—Finding and Resolving Discovery Issues" in
the Dell OpenManage IT Assistant Online Help.