Large enterprises often have load balanced groups of servers providing web, middleware, and database functionality. The servers in the group often perform the same functions and have the same set of dependencies on other infrastructure components. For a service with tens of servers in a group, the service topology representation can quickly get very cumbersome. To handle such environments, eG Enterprise allows administrators to define server groups that represent a collection of similar servers. By including a server group in a service topology representation, administrators can indicate that all the servers in the group have the same set of dependencies on other parts of the infrastructure. Topology representation using server groups are compact and concise to represent, and simple to understand.

To create a group, do the following:

1. Follow the menu sequence: Infrastructure -> Groups menu.

2. The COMPONENT GROUPS page that appears next will display all the existing groups. If no groups pre-exist, then a message to that efffect will appear.

3. To add a new group, click the Add New Group button.

4. The COMPONENT GROUP page will then appear. Here, specify the name of the group that is to be created in the Group name text box. 

5. If you want your group to contain a component that is already within a zone, then select that zone from the Filter by zone list. By default, the --All-- option is displayed indicating that all components in the monitored infrastructure are available for creating a new group.

6. The Component type list will automatically be populated with all the component types that are associated with the chosen zone. Pick the component type of your choice from this list. The Available Hosts list will then be populated with the components of the chosen component type. Select the hosts that you wish to add to the new group and click the < button. This will transfer your selection to the Associated Hosts list.

7. To dissociate a host from the group, select the host from the Associated Hosts list and click the > button.

8. Finally, click the Add button.

9. You will then return to the COMPONENTS GROUPS page, which will list the newly created group. To modify the group, click on the icon against the group name. To delete a group, click the icon against the group. To mark all the displayed groups for deletion, select the check box against the Group Name label and click the icon.

10. If a large number of groups have been configured, locating the group to be modified/deleted would become quiet a challenge. This page therefore, allows you to quickly search for a group, by first specifying the whole/part of the group name in the Search text box, and then clicking the icon next to the text box. All groups with names that embed the specified string will then appear.