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ALVAO Discovery Agent

This module covers Windows device hardware and software configuration scanning with the AM Agent application. This application needs to be installed on all devices that will be scanned. The scans contain information about:

  • hardware configuration of the device (CPU, RAM, HDD, ...)
  • installed software - detailed information of executable files on all hard-drives, as well as the list of installed software in the Windows Registry.

Device scanning​

To scan device configuration information:

  1. Choose an agent authentication code (secret) and enter it in the Administration - Asset Management - Settings - Scan - Agent authentication code field.

  2. Also turn on the Administration - Asset Management - Settings - Scan - Automatically create new device objects option to have objects created for computers that have not yet been scanned.

  3. For on-prem installations, make sure, that you have configured the Administration - Asset Management - Settings - Scan - Loading files option to have scan files from AM Agents uploaded properly.

  4. Distribute the AM Agent application with the agent authentication code from the previous step to all devices that will be scanned.

  5. As devices will get scanned by the AM Agent, they will gradually appear in the Found network devices folder on the Objects page.

  6. In order to re-scan the devices and update the objects regularly, ensure that the objects have a scan profile with either automatically or Autonomous Agent scan method assigned (see the Objects - Object - Scan profile command).

tip

Choose the default object type for new computer objects in Administration - Asset Management - Settings - General - Default object type for computers.
Configure which object types will be chosen for new devices, see Device object type.
Also assign the initial scan profile to the computer object templates in Administration - Asset Management - Object templates - Scan profile command.

tip

Only on-prem installations: To reduce congestion on the Alvao system during peak times, schedule scan processing during off-peak times using the Administration - Asset Management - Settings - Scan - Scheduling option.

Manual scan with AM Agent​

AM Agent sends scan data over network to the Alvao Server for processing by default.

To scan computers that are, for some reason, disconnected from network:

  1. Install AM Agent on the computer.

  2. Run it from Windows - Start menu, perform manual scan, and save the scan files to an USB flash drive.

  3. Transfer the files to computer connected to network and upload the scan files using the Objects - Load scan command.

  4. If the computer doesn't exist on the Objects page as an object, it will be created in the Computers from loaded scans folder. Otherwise, the existing object will be updated.

Pairing devices with objects​

The AM Agent generates a unique identifier for each device on which it has been installed and stores it in Windows Registry on that device (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\ALC\ALVAO Asset Management\Agent key, AgentDeviceId value). When the device is scanned for the first time, the identifier is also stored in Alvao Agent device ID property of the Alvao object created to represent the device.

On subsequent scans, the scan data is paired with the existing object primarily by this identifier. If no match is found, objects are searched secondarily by BIOS serial number, MAC addresses, and Hostname properties in the order they are listed.