Owner's Manual

Planning Your Dell OpenManage IT Assistant Installation 57
Selecting the SQL Server 2008 R2 Express Edition
Default Database or SQL Server 2008 R2
In general, the number of systems you expect to manage and the number of
alerts you expect from your managed systems determine the database to use
with IT Assistant. If you will be managing fewer than 500 systems, the SQL
Server-compliant default database that ships with IT Assistant, SQL Server
2008 R2 Express Edition, is most likely a suitable data repository. However,
if you are going to manage 500 systems or more and/or are receiving several
alerts per second, you should use Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 or later as
your database. You will also need to consider the impact of the performance
monitoring feature on your database choice. For more information, see the
"Performance and Power Monitoring" on page 135. In addition, if you are
performing frequent discoveries or status polls, you may benefit by the increased
performance offered by SQL Server 2008 R2 over SQL Server 2008 R2 Express
Edition.
NOTE: You can configure IT Assistant version 6.3 and later to use Microsoft SQL
Server running on a remote, dedicated server instead of configuring on the IT
Assistant system. For more information, see "Remote Microsoft SQL Server and IT
Assistant" on page 80.
NOTE: IT Assistant version 8.0 and later are backward-compatible with the SQL
Server-compliant default database that ships with IT Assistant 7.x.
E-Mail Notification Features
E-mail Alert Actions are useful in environments in which a system
administrator does not want to use the IT Assistant user interface (UI)
to visually monitor the status of managed systems. By coupling e-mail alert
actions with alert action filters, an administrator may identify a person to
be electronically notified when a specific system sends alerts to the IT Assistant
network management station. This individual can then choose to take the
appropriate corrective action for that system. By configuring alert filters
with corresponding alert actions, constant monitoring of system status in
the IT Assistant user interface becomes unnecessary because e-mail
notification is set up to occur whenever the event criteria is met.