Creating and Managing Groups › Group Management › Add Managed Items to a Group Using Rules

Add Managed Items to a Group Using Rules

Networks and systems are constantly changing. CA Performance Center system groups are automatically updated to include managed items as they are discovered. However, it can be difficult to keep custom groups up-to-date. Therefore, you can use rules to populate the custom groups in your monitoring system. Newly discovered items that meet rule specifications are added to groups. Similarly, items that do not meet rule requirements or that are no longer monitored are removed.

Important! If you create a group for a CA Infrastructure Management Data Aggregator data source, we recommend limiting group membership to 10,000 items. This count includes the children of managed items. Observing this limit keeps reporting time to less than 10 seconds.

Before you create rules, take some time to define the items that you want to add to your grouping structure. Group rules are best implemented as part of an overall grouping strategy to organize managed items and provide operator access to associated data. You can still add items manually to groups with existing rules.

Note: Group rules do not apply to domain groups.

Follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Manage Groups page.

   The page displays current groups in a tree structure.

2. Select the group that you want to populate in the Groups tree.

   If items have already been added to this group, they appear in the right pane.

   Note: Items that are added directly to a group as a manual step appear as Direct Items in the Group Properties pane. Items that are added to a group because they are children of a managed item are Inherited Items in the Group Properties.

3. Click the Properties tab in the right pane.

   The Properties page opens.

4. Confirm the setting for the following option, and change it if necessary:

   Include the children of managed items

   Adds the children of managed items automatically when the items are added to this group. If you disable this option and add a router to the group, the interfaces on that router are not included. Therefore, their data is not visible in drilldown views.

   Default: Selected.

5. Click Save.
6. Click the Rules tab, and then click Add Rule.

   The Add Rule dialog opens.

7. Supply a name for the rule in the Rule Name field.
8. Select the type of managed item that you would like to add to the group from the Add list.

   Available options vary based on the data sources that are registered with CA Performance Center.

9. Click Add Condition.

   A row of drop-down lists and fields appears.

   

10. In the first list, select a method for identifying managed items. For example, select Device Type. The options include item description, name, type, and IP address.

    The remaining lists are updated to match the type of item selected.

11. Select a method for matching from the second list. For example, select 'is equal to'.

    Important! Use CIDR notation for the IP addresses that you supply for the 'is in subnet' and 'is not in subnet' options. Use dotted-decimal notation for the IP addresses that you supply for the 'is between' and 'is not between' options.

12. (Optional) Enter a text string to match in the remaining condition field. For example, to add all routers and servers in the Southwest region, supply a string that corresponds to the appropriate naming convention, such as "sw*".

    Note: Wildcard characters are accepted in this field, such as an asterisk (*) for a multicharacter match.

13. (Optional) To add 'OR' matches, click + at the end of the condition.

    An 'OR' drop-down list appears.

14. (Optional) To add 'AND' matches, click Add Condition.

    Three more dropdown lists appear.

    Note: An 'AND' condition indicator does not appear. By contrast, an 'OR' indicator appears when you select an 'OR' operator.

15. Click Preview Results to confirm that the new rule is including the items that you want.

    The results are shown in the Group Rules Preview window. You can expand each item type to see the specific items added.

16. (Optional) Click +Add Rule to add other item types to the group.

    Each item type requires its own rule.

17. When you have finished creating rules, you can click Save or Save and Run Rules:
    • Save - Saves the rules without running the rules. The group is populated during the next global synchronization, which occurs approximately every 5 minutes.
    • Save and Run Rules - Saves the rules and populates the group immediately.