Reed G. Porter at myITforum.com

Part II - Randomize Weekly and Monthly Inventories

In Part I we randomized daily inventories so they ran randomly within a 4 hour window rather than all at once to prevent overloading the Notification Server with NSE's.  In Part II we'll take that a step further by randomizing which day Weekly or Monthly inventories run and give them a 4 hour window to run randomly in so these larger inventories are spread out relieving the load on the Notification Server even further.

For our weekly example, we'll choose the Software Inventory.  I want AuditPlus to run once a week on a random day sometime between 9pm and 1am.  My daily job is running between 5pm and 9pm so for this job to run I have to wait for the daily window to close.

1. Clone the Software Inventory Task and name it Random Software Daily or the like.
2. Under the new task's General tab, click on the Go To Program link.
3. The Software definition file program should be showing.  Copy the command line to the clipboard and click New
4. Paste the command line in the New Program command line
5. Type Random Software Program or similar on the Name line
6. Under Description type: Runs Hardware Definition File randomly between 0 and 4 hours after the command is run. Task can only run once per week on a random day.
7. Edit the command line as such: AeXRuncontrol.exe /rndschedule  "Random Software"  "AeXInvSoln.exe /hidden /s AeXInvSolnAdm2.ini" WEEKLY 1 7 /d:1-14400
• There are a couple key changes from Part I (Complete Command Line Arguments are available in the Inventory Solution Users Guide )
• AeXRuncontrol.exe - is the same exe you copied to your Inventory Solution directory in Part I.
• /rndschedule is the switch that tells the command to randomize the day or the week of the month in which to run.
• "Random Software" - is the key where AeXRunControl stores the command and parameters.  Notice that each instance of AeXRunControl.exe scheduled on a client needs it's own unique registry key name. 
• "AeXInvSoln.exe /hidden /s AeXInvSolnAdm2.ini" - is the original command line you copied and pasted into this program.
• WEEKLY 1 7 This sets up weekly mode and allows the command to be run on any day between Sunday (1) and Saturday (7).
• /d:1-14400-  Once the inventory is allowed to run, this command tells the client to wait from 1 to 14400 seconds before executing the command.
8. Rest of program settings are similar to yesterday- Estimate disk space at 3000k, runs in 5 minutes, Terminate after 240 minutes (4 Hours), Run with System Account rights, Whether or not user is logged in, no input required, no network required.
9. Apply and Update Distribution Points then close the Inventory Agent Package window.
10. Back on the new Random Hardware Daily screen change the Program name to Random Software (you may need to refresh the screen in order to see the new program.)
11. Ensure you have the correct Collection selected, Run on a schedule, uncheck the as soon as notified box so program only runs when you want it to. Check Run on a schedule(All machines at the same time), 9pm every day. ASAP.  AeXRuncontrol only check to see if it is okay to run the inventory, so you need to run it every day so it can check.
12. Check the Enable box and hit apply
13. Be sure to disable the original Software Inventory.

For the monthly inventory, I chose the Recreate Full Inventory.  Everything is pretty much the same except the program command line contains the MONTHLY switch:

AeXRuncontrol.exe /rndschedule "Recreate Full"  "aexinvsoln.exe /cleanbeforerun /hidden /s AeXInvSolnAdm1.ini" MONTHLY 1 28 /d:1-14400

The MONTHLY 1 28 switch, as you may have guessed, will limit the program to executing once between the 1st and the 28th.  You will need to run the program daily at the beginning of the 4 hour window as above.

In Part III I will discuss ways to make the inventories tighter by inventorying only for what you actually need on a daily basis. hint: How often does a server or desktop change its name?

Again, if you know of a better way of noticed any errors, please contact me or comment below.