Inventory

The Inventory module in Enterprise Server is, not surprisingly, the most complex of all the modules and can contain the possibility to store a  vast amount of information. The following explains the essentials that you will need to know if you want to write reports for the inventory module.

You will, no doubt, run into a number of constants here that are not human readable. We include a number of RAP functions that you can access for use in Variables or from the Calc workspace in your report designs. You can see examples of how to do this in the various inventory reports that are included in the standard report packs that are installed with ENT Report Forge. If you want to search by these values however, you will need to know what the actual constant values.

Table Summary

Relationship Summary

The following diagrams show the various relationships for each of the tables that are used for the Inventory module.

Networks

Among other things, Networks are logical collections of machines. Each network can have any number of machines connected to it, however machines can, in turn, be connected to any number of networks. As such, a simple NetworkId field for a machine is insufficient, and the mfNetworkMachines table is used to record network connections. A record in this table indicates that the machine with the Id corresponding to MachineId is installed on the network whose Id correspondes to the NetworkId field.

The type of network is indicated by the NetType field, and can be one of the following.

Additionally, you can create tasks for networks or raise helpcalls relating to a Network. Since all of these can be related to multiple items again, we can't use a simple lookup Id, so we use the mfReferences table as a conduit. As already described in the Calendar and Helpdesk architecture, the mfReferences table contains an ItemId and ItemType (which uniquely identifies the network) and then a RefId and RefType (which uniquely identifies the referenced item). The ItemType will be mfNetworks and the RefType will be either mfTasks or mfHelpcalls (depending on whether it is a reference to a task or a helpcall).

The AlertLevel fields can contain one of a number of Alert Level constants, as follows.

Similarly, the Status field in the mfNetworkMachines table indicates the status of the machine's connection to the network. A complete list of possible values for this field would be far too lenthy to document here, but the following table documents the most common values that you may encounter. Anything else will most likely be a WMI error number, for which you could find more complete documentation on the Microsoft web site.

Assets

The Assets table is a base table storing information which is common to all items based on the mfAbstractMachines, mfPNPDevicess and mfSoftwareAssets tables. This table includes VendorId and WarrantyVendorId fields that can be used to associate assets with organizations in the mfOrganizations table that are flagged as vendors (i.e. which have IsVendor = 1). Primarily the mfAssets table stored financial information. Among the fields in the mfAssets table you'll find a PaymentType as well as a DepreciationMethod field, both of which contain constant values, as defined below:

Abstract Machines

The mfAbstractMachines table is a base table storing information which is common to all of the Machine types. All abstract machines are also assets, so for every record in the mfAbstractMachines table you will find a corresponding record in the mfAssets table - linked by their Id fields.

The MachineType field will tell you exactly what kind of machine this is (and the table where machine specific information can be found about the asset):

You will also note the AuditMethod, AlertLevel and AlertStatus fields, whose values are described below:

The LocationId field associates machines with managed sites (which are organizations that have the IsManagedSite field flagged).

Finally the CustomerId and CustomerType fields can be used to associate the machine with an individual or organizational customer (the CustomerType field indicating which).

Machines

Machines, not surprisingly, have a number of relationships to the other tables in the Enterprise Server databases. Firstly, all machines are also abstract machines - so every record in the mfMachines table will have a corresponding record in the mfAbstractMachines table with the same Id.

The next thing you will notice in the diagram is the two fields in the mfMachines table that contain constant values: DomainRole and SuiteMask. For display purposes, you can use the RAP functions that we provide (such as AlertStatusToString), but if you want to add these columns to as search fields or autosearch fields then you will need to know the various constant values that these fields can hold and what each represents. These are described in the various tables below.

Next, you can see the network connections for the machine are stored in the mfNetworkMachines table, which is already covered above. A similar mechanism is used to record software which is installed on the machine, and the mfMachinesSoftware table is used to relate machines to software products by storing the Id of each in the MachineId and SoftwareId fields, respectively.

The various Slots on the machine's motherboard and their configuration/status is stored in the mfSlots table. Each slot record in this table records the existence and state of a slot on the machine with the Id corresponding to MachineId field in the mfSlots table. The CurrentUsage field indicates the current status of the slot as follows.

Hardware devices are a topic unto themselves (which we cover next). Suffice to say, for the moment, that these are related to machines using the MachineId field in the mfPNPDevices table. If this MachineId is set to NULL then the device is not installed on any machine (i.e. it's a spare part).

Finally, any alerts related to the machine are stored in the mfAlerts table, and the Id of the machine that each alert relates to is recorded in the MachineId field of this table. The AlertType field can contain one of various constant values as follows.

Parts

Not too disimilar to machines, Parts have a LocationId lookup field and use the mfReferences table to store relationships to any helpcalls or tasks that have been created for them. Since we've already covered these in the Machines section above, we won't go over this again. Some other things you will notice are the MachineId (which is also described in the Machines section above) and the OriginalMachineId. The later is a reference to the mfMachines table as well, and simply stores the original machine that the device was installed in. If you move parts from one machine to another or uninstall them, then this field will tell you where the part originally came from, for the purposes of warranties etc.

Otherwise, you'll notice a number fields that store constants values (ConfigManagerErrorCode, AlertLevel, AlertStatus and PaymentType). A full list of the possible values for ConfigManagerErrorCode would be rather lenghty... probably the only one you need to know is 0, which means OK. Anything else means there is an error with the configuration and you can see exactly what the error is from within ENT NetCenter. The possible values and signification of the other constant field values are as follows.

For parts which are network adapters, additional information relating specifically to the adapter (such as the MAC address) can be found in the mfNetworkAdapters table. Similarly, device specific information for Disks, Video Controllers and Processors can be found in the mfDisks, mfVideoControllers and mfProcessors tables, respectively, and the constant values that you will find in the Architecture and ProcessorType fields are described below.

Finally, as with machines, any alerts relating to hardware devices are maintined in the mfAlerts table. The ItemId for the alert, along with the ItemType (which contains the name of the table containing the item with Id = ItemId) can be used to find any alerts that are related to hardware devices. The AlertType field can contain one of various constant values as follows.

Software

Software is where the products that you either use or own are recorded. Each software publisher is recorded in the mfOrganizations table as a an organization with the IsPublisher field is set to 1 (i.e. True). For any software product the Id of the associated publisher can be found in the PublisherId field of the record for the software product, in the mfSoftware table. If this is NULL then there is no publisher assigned for that Software.

As with Network, Machines and Parts, Software items can have Helpcalls and Tasks which are related to them. References to these tasks and helpcalls can be found in the mfReferences table and the mechanism that controls this relationship is as described previously, in the architecture for Networks.

The mfSoftwareAssets table is used to record any software assets (such as media and licenses) related to the software product and the mfSoftwareContracts table records any software maintenance contracts that you have for products. The SoftwareId field in these tables are used to relate software assets and contracts with Software products in the mfSoftware table. The LocationId and ContractorId fields relate to records in the mfOrganizations table that have the IsManagedSite and IsVendor fields set, respectively. The various values for the constant values that can be stored in the Type, LicenseType and PaymentType fields can be set to one of various constant values as follows.

The mfMachinesSoftware table is used to relate machines to software products by storing the Id of each in the MachineId and SoftwareId fields, respectively. Each item in this table represents a software installation (an instance of the software installed on a machine). The Id of the machine that the software is installed on is, not surprisingly, stored in the MachineId field.

Alerts related to software installations are recorded in the mfAlerts table. The ItemId for the alert, along with the ItemType (which will be mfMachinesSoftware in this case) can be used to find any alerts that are related to each software installation. The AlertType field can contain one of various constant values as follows.

Miscellany

Miscellany is stored in the mfMiscellany table. The structure for this is fairly simple. SiteId is a lookup on Organizations (in the mfOrganizations table) which are managed sites (meaning IsManagedSite = 1/True). The details of any loans for miscellany items are recorded in the mfMiscellanyLoans table. Records in the mfMiscellanyLoans table that relate to a particular mfMiscellany record will have the Id of that record stored in the MiscellanyId field.