SCCM System Discovery

* Active directory system discovery in SCCM is used to discover devices in active directory Domain service.

* To run the System discovery go to Administration pane.
* Expand Overview-> Hierarchy configuration->Discovery methods-> Active directory system discovery
* Once you select it right click and run "Full Discovery Now" option.

SCCM 2012 R2 Log File for SCCM Discovery issues

SCCM 2012 R2 Log File for SCCM Discovery issues

Discovery

he following table lists the log files that contain information related to Discovery.

Log name	Description	Computer with log file
adsgdis.log	Records Active Directory Security Group Discovery actions.	Site server
adsysdis.log	Records Active Directory System Discovery actions.	Site server
adusrdis.log	Records Active Directory User Discovery actions.	Site server
ADForestDisc.Log	Records Active Directory Forest Discovery actions.	Site server
ddm.log	Records activities of the discovery data manager.	Site server
InventoryAgent.log	Records activities of hardware inventory, software inventory, and heartbeat discovery actions on the client.	Client
netdisc.log	Records Network Discovery actions.	Site server

SCCM 2012 R2 Discovery Methods

SCCM 2012 R2 Discovery Methods

To gather information regarding your resources in your company , configuration manager 2012 R2 makes use of methods called discovery methods. 

Configuration Manager 2012 R2 uses a variety of discovery methods to gather resource information and each of the discovery methods gathers information about different objects.

There are 6 types of of Discovery methods. they are:

• Active Directory Forest Discovery
• Active Directory Group Discovery
• Active Directory System Discovery
• Active Directory User Discovery
• HeartBeat Discovery
• Network Discovery

Active Directory Forest Discovery:

This discovers Active Directory sites and subnets, and then creates Configuration Manager boundaries for each site and subnet from the forests which have been configured for discovery. With this discovery method you are able to automatically create the Active Directory or IP subnet boundaries that are within the discovered Active Directory Forests.

Active Directory Group Discovery:

This discovers local, global, and universal security groups, the membership within these groups. When you configure the Group discovery you have the option to discover the membership of distribution groups. With the Active Directory Group Discovery you can also discover the computers that have logged in to the domain in a given period of time.

Active Directory System Discovery:

This discovers the computers in your organization from specified locations in Active Directory Domain Services then we use Active Directory System Discovery. In order to push the SCCM clients into the computers, the resources must be discovered first. There is an option to discover the computers that have logged on to a domain in given period of time

Active Directory User Discovery:

This discovers the user accounts from your Active Directory domain. You will have to specify the Active Directory container to search for the user accounts.

HeartBeat Discovery:

This discovery runs on every Configuration Manager client and is used by Active Configuration Manager clients to update their discovery records in the database.

Network Discovery:

This discovery searches your network infrastructure for network devices that have an IP address. It can search the domains, SNMP devices and DHCP servers to find the resources. 

Upgrading an Operating System from Windows 2003 to Windows 2008: How to Prevent Discovery Problems

Upgrading an Operating System from Windows 2003 to Windows 2008: How to Prevent Discovery Problems

• Before you upgrade the operating system on a monitored computer, uninstall the Operations Manager agent. After the upgrade, reinstall the Operations Manager agent.

Reason:

• The objects that the management pack discovers, such as logical disks, are hosted by a parent class that is not version-specific. When you upgrade the operating system, the order in which discovery occurs can result in duplicate objects being discovered.
• For example, you upgrade a computer running Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008. 
• If the Windows Server 2003 discovery rules run first after the upgrade, the instance of the computer running Windows Server 2003 and its objects will be removed from discovery because the operating system base class has been removed. When the Windows Server 2008 discovery rules run, the computer and its objects will be discovered again.
• If the Windows Server 2008 discovery rules run first after the upgrade, the computer running Windows Server 2008 and its objects will be discovered. When the Windows Server 2003 discovery rules run, the instance of the computer running Windows Server 2003 will be removed from discovery, but the objects hosted by that instance will not be removed.
• So If you upgrade a computer without uninstalling the agent first and then discover duplicate objects, uninstall the agent to mark all hosted objects as deleted in the database. Next, reinstall the agent to only discover existing applications/objects.