IT infrastructures typically have a number of staging and testing components, in addition to their production components. An eG administrator may want to have only the production components monitored by the eG Enterprise system. The Manage/Unmanage option selected from the Components sub-menu of the Infrastructure menu available in the user interface supports this scenario. The COMPONENTS - MANAGE / UNMANAGE page that then appears offers the option to manage/unmanage Servers and/or Systems.

By default, the COMPONENTS - MANAGE / UNMANAGE page allows you to manage/unmanage servers. This page can also be accessed by clicking on the Manage Servers node in the DISCOVERY tree structure that appears when the Infrastructure -> Components -> Discover menu sequence is followed.

In the COMPONENTS - MANAGE / UNMANAGE page, you can do the following:

• For each component type that an administrator chooses from the Component type list box in the COMPONENTS - MANAGE / UNMANAGE page, he/she can view the components being managed and those that are unmanaged. The component-types listed in the Component type list box are the ones that have been discovered by the discovery process.
• To filter the component-types listed in the Component type drop-down, you can use the Show managed component types only check box. By default, this check box will be unchecked, indicating that the Component type drop-down will list all discovered component types by default. Select the Show managed component types only check box if you want the Component type drop-down to list only those component types with at least one managed component. This way, you can filter out all those component types without any managed components. The managed components are the only ones that are being targeted by eG agents for testing.
• To add additional components for monitoring, an administrator can choose one or more of the unmanaged components and click on the << Manage button to manage the component. Likewise, components can be unmanaged using the Unmanage >> button.
• Based on the administrator's choice of components to be managed, the eG manager generates agent specifications to indicate that tests will be setup and targeted only at those components that are being managed. When eG Enterprise discovers a component, it will mark the component as being unmanaged and prefix it with an asterix (*) to indicate that this component has been newly discovered. The administrator then has to explicitly choose to manage the component.
• Since web servers on Unix and Microsoft platforms have different monitoring requirements, eG's discovery process is intelligent enough to differentiate between web servers executing on these platforms. A similar treatment is provided for SSL and FTP servers as well. Hence, the servers executing on the Unix and Microsoft platforms are displayed separately under the “Type of components” selection.
• Any host that responds to ICMP ECHO messages but which does not have an eG-managed application executing on it is listed as a generic server. In some cases, users may want to monitor a system for its CPU and memory utilization, but not individually monitor the applications executing on it. To support this capability, eG supports a category of components called generic servers. For a generic server, an eG agent monitors the server's CPU, memory, disk, and network statistics. In addition, if desired, specific application processes executing on the server can be monitored.
• eG's discovery process automatically discovers network routers alone. Other network devices, such as switches, hubs, etc. have to be manually added for monitoring, via the administrative interface.
• While most components are identified uniquely by a host and port number, Oracle database servers are identified uniquely by a combination of host, port number, and an instance identifier (referred to as SID). If specific instances corresponding to an Oracle server are not configured, then a WARNING icon and warning message that displays the servers for which specific instances have not been configured appears at the top of this page. As indicated in the message, the Oracle SID has to be configured immediately. The details of how to configure the Oracle SID have been mentioned in the "Configuring Oracle Servers" section. The administrator will not be allowed to sign-out until he/she configures the Oracle SID and an error message to that effect will appear in this page.
• You can delete a managed/unmanaged component by selecting that component from the corresponding list and clicking the Delete Components button below that list. Components that are deleted will not be auto-discovered again by the eG Enterprise system, and will hence have to be manually added if required.
• To commit any changes performed throughout the administrative interface, the administrator has to click on the Update button. At any point, clicking on the Back button will enable the user to go to the previous screen.

If your eG license enables Metric Aggregation, then, as soon as you manage the very first component of a type, a corresponding aggregate component type will be automatically created by the eG Enterprise system. For instance, as soon as you manage the first IIS web server in your environment using the MANAGE / UNMANAGE page, a corresponding IIS Web Aggregate component-type will be dynamically generated by the eG Enterprise system. You can add one/more aggregate components of the aggregate types so generated by following the procedure discussed in the eG User Manual.

On the other hand, if you do not create any aggregate component for an aggregate type, then, as soon as you delete/unmanage all ‘non-aggregate’ components of the non-aggregate type that corresponds to it, the aggregate type will cease to exist. In other words, if you unmanage/delete all the managed IIS web server components in your environment, then, the corresponding IIS Web Aggregate component-type will be automatically removed from the eG Enterprise system, if no aggregate component of that type pre-exists.

The eG manager configures tests for execution against the managed components only. Based on the administrator's choice of components to be managed, the eG manager generates agent specifications to indicate that tests will be setup and targeted only at those components that are being managed. The Update button must be clicked for the changes to be effective. Once the Update button is clicked, the Discovery Process will be re-activated (if it has been stopped earlier).