Enterprise Reporter 3.5.1 - Configuration Manager User Guide

NTFS Discovery: Best Practices

This section outlines some best practices to ensure the NTFS discovery and reports are optimized.

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When collecting Microsoft Office file attributes, Microsoft Office must be installed on the Enterprise Reporter node computer.

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Ensure Enterprise Reporter has been updated with the latest hotfix. The product team regularly adds improvements to optimize discovery times.

Discovery setup and scheduling

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Create a separate discovery for each file server collected. This will allow the schedules to be staggered so that not all file servers are being collected and stored in the database at the same time.

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To properly stagger the schedules, the discoveries may have to be run a few times to get a baseline of how long each discovery takes to run.

Discovery Scopes page: minimize information collected

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Only enable Include hidden shares if this data is needed. Selecting this option will cause a great increase in discovery time because all files on a server will be accessed through system shares such as C$ (C:\ drive) which are all the files and folders on the server.

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Folder Options

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Only enable the option to collect All folder levels if it is required.

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Set the Folder depth to limit the collection to only the levels of folder structure required.

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File Options

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Only enable the option to Collect files and their basic details like size and attributes if file information is required.

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Permission Options

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Only enable the option to Calculate differences between folders and subfolders if the File and Folder Permissions with Differences report is required.

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Advanced Options

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Enterprise Reporter 3.0 (and later) has a performance option to break up tasks by share. Enable Create a task per share for each computer to allow multiple nodes/threads to collect one large file server.

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Prior to Enterprise Reporter 3.0, one computer was considered to be one task. On these versions, if you are collecting 10 file servers, it is recommended to have one node per server that is manually configured to accept one task. This will force each node to collect one file server.

Running Reports

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When generating large NTFS reports, use the Export to CSV option. This will be much faster than generating the report in other formats.

NTFS Discovery: Include scopes

The scopes you add will determine the computers and specific folders that will be the targets of the discovery when it is run. You can explicitly add domains, OUs, containers, computers, folders, shares, DFS shares, or NAS devices. Domains, OUs and containers can contain many computers, which can significantly increase the time it takes to run the discovery. For more information, see Including Objects in Your Scope .

You can create scopes using a dynamic query, which is resolved when the discovery is run. This gives you the flexibility to describe the computers you want to target. For more information, see Using Queries to Define Your Scopes .


	NOTE: Use caution when creating your queries. Ensure that the resulting set of targets is not too large for a single discovery. As well, query results should not include computers included in another discovery of the same type. If a target is in more than one discovery of a particular type, rejected tasks will appear. For more information, see Data Collection Issues .

To explicitly include objects in your NTFS scope

Click

Add.

- OR-

If you have a text file containing the computers to be selected, click Import and follow the steps as outlined in Importing Computers to Your Scopes .

In the treeview, locate the desired object and select it.
To select multiple objects, press Ctrl during selection.

For more information, see Filtering in the Browser .

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To add a scope using a query, expand the Add to scope menu, select Add scope using a query, and click Add. For more information, see Using Queries to Define Your Scopes .

- OR -

To include a scope using a subnet, expand the Add to scope menu, select Add Subnet, and click Add. For more information, see Using Subnets to Define Your Scopes .

Click Include to add to your selected scopes list.

Click OK.


	NOTE: When you add a domain, its child domains are not included - each domain must be explicitly added. When you add an OU or container, all children are included.

To explicitly include a DFS share (NTFS discoveries only)

Click

Add.

Click Add to Scope | Add DFS share.

Type the DFS root path using the fully qualified domain name.

Click Include to include the DFS share.

NTFS Discovery: Optionally refine your scope list with exclusions

Exclusions refine the inclusions you have defined. You can do this optional step in conjunction with inclusions. For full details, see Refining Your Scope with Exclusions .

To explicitly exclude objects from your selected scope

Click

Add.

- OR-

If you have a text file containing the computers to be selected, click Import

Browse to locate the file containing the computers to be imported and select Exclude Computers.

Expand the treeview to locate the object you want to exclude.

You can press Ctrl to select multiple objects.

Click Exclude.

Select the file and click Open to start the import.

To explicitly exclude a DFS share (NTFS discoveries only)

Click

Add.

For Add to Scope option, select Add DFS share.

Click Add.

Type the DFS root path using the fully qualified domain name.

Click Exclude to exclude the DFS share.

NTFS Discovery: Select your global scopes

Global scopes are folders that are collected from every computer in the scope. When you run the discovery, Enterprise Reporter uses the scopes you selected in the first two steps to resolve a list of computers that will be targeted. Anything you include or exclude globally is applied to these computers. Use global scopes to:

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Collect common paths on all computers. For example, if you have included computers from different Windows operating systems, the path to the Windows folder may be different. Instead of having to specifically add the Windows folder, you can choose the global [WINDOWS] scope, and Enterprise Reporter can determine where that folder is located on each computer.

The following table outlines the pre-defined filters available in the global scope selection.

Table 34. Filters in the global scope selection
Filter	Path selected
COMMONFILES	The location of the Common Files folder. Usually C:\Program Files\Common Files
PROGRAMFILES	The location of the Program Files folder. Usually C:\Program Files
SYSTEM	The location of the Windows System32 folder. Usually C:\Windows\System32
SYSTEMDRIVE	The drive where the operating system is installed. Usually C:\
WINDOWS	The location where Windows is installed. Usually C:\Windows

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Collect specific folders or the contents of specific shares on all computers. If there is a folder that you want to collect on many of the computers, it is more efficient to include it globally. If the folder or share is not on all targets, the inclusion will be ignored for those targets.

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Exclude common paths, specific folders or the contents of specific shares on all computers. You can make the same selections outlined above, but choose to exclude them instead of collecting them.


	NOTE: A global scope is not valid alone. You must first include a domain, OU, container, computer, NetApp filer, folder or share. See NTFS Discovery: Best Practices for more information.

To add a global scope

From the Add Global list, choose the common path.

- OR -

From the Add Global list, choose the common path, then type "\" and a share or folder.

For example, select [WINDOWS] then type \Temp to include or exclude the temp folder on all computers.

- OR -

Type a share or folder.

Because these are going to be collected for all computers in the resolved discovery, you cannot include a computer name in the path. Invalid characters include "|", "[", and "]".

You can use wildcards to exclude groups of folders.

For example, type “Program Files*” to exclude all folders starting with “Program Files” on all computers.

Click Include or Exclude.

You can press Enter to add to your list. Enter functions as the last button you clicked - for example, if you have just clicked Include, Enter includes your global scope.