[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       infrastructures
Subject:    Re: [Infrastructures] IP/host inventory tracking tools
From:       Clif Smith <cjs226 () gmail ! com>
Date:       2005-02-16 21:00:33
Message-ID: 1ea252fb0502161300319bdc59 () mail ! gmail ! com
[Download RAW message or body]

Why do you think a an appropriate db schema wouldn't work.  Before the
bubble burst at my co. we were working with a group that was going to
build such a system for us.  We worked for some time to nail down a
nice expansive schema that I think would have worked well.


On Fri, 4 Feb 2005 10:29:03 -0800, Jeremy Mates
<jmates@gs.washington.edu> wrote:
> * Robin Kearney <robin@riviera.org.uk>
> > The more thought i give a inventory tracking tool the more I feel that
> > a traditional relational db schema is not flexible enough to represent
> > the many components inside a machine and or software installed on it.
> 
> Or one pulls out certain bits (CPU speed, RAM: things users like to know
> about their systems) from the XML, and put those into the database for
> quick access, while keeping the complete XML elsewhere.
> 
> > So at the moment I'm thinking about XML, the tree structure lends
> > itself well to representing components in a machine, you could for
> > example have a 'bus' node in the tree off which hangs 'pci' and maybe
> > 'iee1394' nodes and then from each of those nodes representing the
> > devices be it a scsi hba or a firewire hard disk. This could be
> > followed through all the way down to the actuall disks themselves and
> > the partitions ont the disks.
> 
> Apple's system_profiler can dump this sort of information to XML
> already; I have CFEngine keep a copy on disk for reference by
> other tools:
> 
>   macosx_10_3::
>     "/usr/sbin/system_profiler -xml > /etc/system-info/profile" ifelapsed=9998
> 
> Then you can pull out the serial number (great for talking to an
> inventory database) via XPath:
> 
> $ xpquery /etc/system-info/profile '//string[preceding-sibling:key="serial_number"]/text()'
> 
> The profile also includes hardware details, software installed, and
> other things.
> 
> > I'm interested if anybody can see any horrible pitfulls with this way
> > of doing things. I've seen few tools out there that use traditional
> > relational schemas but I cannot help thinking xml would be far more
> > flexible.
> 
> Lack of tools and experience managing XML about systems would be a major
> hurdle, along with designing the schema.
> 
> --
> Jeremy Mates                     (206) 22 1-4714
> Systems Administrator            K 324, Health Sciences Center
> http://cfm.gs.washington.edu/    Mail Box 357730
> _______________________________________________
> Infrastructures mailing list
> Infrastructures@mailman.terraluna.org
> http://mailman.terraluna.org/mailman/listinfo/infrastructures
>
_______________________________________________
Infrastructures mailing list
Infrastructures@mailman.terraluna.org
http://mailman.terraluna.org/mailman/listinfo/infrastructures
[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]