Enable Asset Inventory polling for multiple nodes in SAM

This topic also applies to SolarWinds SCM, which supports Asset Inventory polling.

By default, Asset Inventory polling is automatically enabled for nodes that meet Asset Inventory requirements that are added during Discovery. You can also enable Asset Inventory polling for individual nodes.

To enable Asset Inventory polling for a large group of nodes (for example, after adding required third-party software to nodes), you can either:

• Run Discovery again to "re-import" the nodes. This will not affect anything currently monitored, but Asset Inventory will be enabled on all nodes that meet requirements during the import process. See this article for details.
• Use SWIS verbs to turn Asset Inventory on and off across multiple nodes, as described next.

To avoid overloading polling engines, do not enable Asset Inventory across hundreds of agentless nodes in bulk. For nodes polled by SolarWinds Platform agents, that issue should not occur.

Use SWIS to enable or disable Asset Inventory polling

You can also use SolarWinds Information Service (SWIS) verbs to control Asset Inventory polling across multiple nodes:

• Orion.AssetInventory.Polling.EnablePollingForNodes.
• Orion.AssetInventory.Polling.DisablePollingForNodes.

SWIS is the data access layer that serves as an API for the SolarWinds Platform. You can use the SolarWinds Platform SDK to interface with SWIS, which allows for higher-level operations than would be allowed directly in SQL. The SDK includes a SWQL Studio tool to validate queries and data. SolarWinds Query Language (SWQL —rhymes with "pickle") is a proprietary, read-only subset of SQL that you can use to query your SolarWinds Platform database.

Note the following details about the SolarWinds Platform SDK:

• For documentation, see github.com/solarwinds/OrionSDK/wiki.

  New to the SolarWinds Platform SDK and API? Read Intro to API, SDK, & SWQL on THWACK, or watch Orion SDK 101: Intro to PowerShell and the Orion API.

• Use PowerShell to interact with the SolarWinds Platform SDK; v5.0 or later is recommended; click here for script samples.

• (Recommended) Back up your SolarWinds Platform database frequently.

  The SolarWinds Platform SDK is a powerful tool that can impact SolarWinds Platform data. Users should be well-versed in SQL queries with a background in programming. SolarWinds does not provide pre- or post-Sales support on SDK customizations, including code. Post questions in the SDK forum in THWACK instead. Experiment with the SolarWinds Platform SDK in a non-production instance of SolarWinds Platform. Do not run untested PowerShell scripts against a production instance.

To enable or disable Asset Inventory for multiple nodes with SWIS:

1. Download the OrionSDK.msi installer from GitHub and run the setup wizard.

2. Launch SWQL Studio from its default folder:

   C:\Program Files (x86)\SolarWinds\Orion SDK\SWQL Studio

3. Generate a list of node IDs, as shown in this example query:

   SELECT CONCAT('<int>', NodeID, '</int>') AS col1
FROM Orion.AssetInventory.Polling

4. Click Ctrl + C to copy the list of node IDs.

5. In Object explorer tree, navigate to Orion.AssetInventory.Polling.

6. Right-click the verb (for example, EnablePollingForNodes) and click Invoke.

7. When a new query pane opens, paste the node IDs.

   

8. Click Invoke to process the command.

If you receive errors, verify node IDs and make sure your account has permission to perform the action. You can also review the log file for the SWIS service, stored in this default location:

C:\ProgramData\SolarWinds\InformationService\v3.0\Orion.InformationService.log