HeartBeat Discovery Status of specific collection of systems

select
    CS.Name0,
    max(AD.AgentTime) as 'Date/Time'
from
    dbo.v_AgentDiscoveries ad
    JOIN dbo.v_GS_COMPUTER_SYSTEM cs on AD.ResourceID = CS.ResourceId
    join dbo.v_FullCollectionMembership FCM on FCM.ResourceID = CS.ResourceId
Where
    AgentName = 'Heartbeat Discovery'
    and FCM.CollectionID = 'SMS00001'
Group by
    CS.Name0

What’s in a Heartbeat

Questions often come on the forums about Heartbeat Discovery including how often should they be configured to run or indirectly, what updates certain resource information in ConfigMgr like the IP Address.

The answer to the first question depends on what you are going to use the data for that is contained in a Heartbeat Discovery? But if you don’t know what’s in a Heartbeat Discovery message, it’s very difficult to answer that question. So, here’s exactly what gets included in the Data Discovery Record (DDR) generated by the client and sent to the server during a Heartbeat Discovery:

• Is the client installed?

• Client type (Legacy, Advanced, or Device)

• Client version

• NetBIOS Name

• Character encoding used by the client

• Default system locale identifier (typically representative of the client’s language)

• Date and time of the DDR

• Date and time of last DDR

• Short name of system

• Currently logged in (interactive) user

• FQDN of system

• IP Network ID

• Platform ID (this is an encoding of the OS version)

• AD Site Name

• IP Address(es)

• MAC Address(es)

• Domain name

• Assigned (Primary) Site

• Hardware ID

• Identifying number (of the computer system)

• Product name (of the computer system)

• UUID (of the computer system)

• Version (of the computer system)

The above list also addresses the second question --  at least as far as Heartbeat Discovery is concerned.

So the question for how often to run the Heartbeat Discovery is really how often do you need the above information updated?

Heartbeat Discovery messages are quite small and have negligible overhead on the client. Cumulatively, a large number could impact an under-powered management point, however, so setting them too frequently is not advisable. Out of the box, the default is 7 days. I typically set this down to every 1 day and know others do it even more often. I would never recommend setting this to less than 1 or 2 hours except in very small environments – there isn’t really any value in doing so anyway as nothing in the above list normally changes that frequently.

The Heartbeat Discovery also serves as a “keep alive” or “yes I am alive” message from the client to the site server. Based on this, the Clear Install Flag and Delete Aged Discovery Data maintenance tasks perform their jobs. Note that the Delete Inactive Client Discovery Data  does not directly use the heartbeat time. Instead, Client Status Reporting (available in R2 and R3), uses the last heartbeat time along with last hardware inventory, last software inventory, and last policy polling time to determine if a client is inactive. Once a client is marked inactive by Client Status Reporting, it is then subject to the Delete Inactive Client Discovery Data task.

This “keep alive” purpose of the heartbeat discovery should also influence your choice of how often to set the interval; i.e., you shouldn’t set so infrequently that it might get accidentally marked inactive or not installed by one of the above mentioned maintenance tasks.

Note that you can manually initiate a Heartbeat Discovery anytime on a client from the Configuration Manager Control Panel applet by navigating to the actions tab, selecting Discovery Data Collection Cycle, and then pushing the Initiate Action button. Alternatively you can use Roger Zander’s Client Center, the right-click tools, or use the SDK to initiate this action remotely.

There are two additional important points to be made about Heartbeat Discovery (these are copied straight from http://blogs.technet.com/b/configurationmgr/archive/2010/03/30/the-top-ten-clarifications-for-discovery-in-configuration-manager-2007.aspx):

Heartbeat Discovery forces the rediscovery of active clients that have been deleted from the Configuration Manager database by the administrator, or by a database maintenance task.

• If you accidentally delete a computer from the Configuration Manager console, it will automatically "come back" if it is still active on the network. You can either wait for the next Heartbeat Discovery cycle to run, or you can hurry things along by selecting the Discovery Data Collection Cycle on the client Configuration Manager Properties: Actions tab, and click OK.

Heartbeat Discovery is the discovery process that submits a client's installation status to its assigned site.

• The client might be installed but the client state in the Configuration Manager console continues to display No for its Client state if the site hasn't received the client's discovery data record (DDR) from Heartbeat Discovery. This will be the case if the client cannot communicate with its management point.

Discovery Mystery

Discovery Methods

Six methods of discovery are available in Configuration Manager 2007:

• Network Discovery
• Heartbeat Discovery----------------------------------------------------this must enabled in all sites
• Active Directory System Group Discovery
• Active Directory Security Group Discovery
• Active Directory System Discovery
• Active Directory User Discovery

 

As Configuration Manager 2007 discovers resources, it creates records in the Configuration Manager database. This record is called a data discovery record (DDR) and the file generated has a .DDR extension. The specific information contained in each record varies depending on the resource "discovered," but it can include data such as the NetBIOS name of a computer, IP address and IP subnet of a computer or device, operating system, MAC address, and so on.

Depending on the discovery method used, resource DDRs are periodically regenerated to keep the discovery data up to date in the database and to verify that the resource is still a valid resource within the Configuration Manager 2007 site.

 

Now these methods what will discover?.. below are the discover use of each

Active Directory System Group Discovery

Organizational unit

Global groups

Universal groups

Nested groups

Nonsecurity groups

Active Directory System Discovery

• Computer name
• Operating system
• Object class
• DNS Host name
• Domain

Active Directory User Discovery

• User name
• DNS host name
• Object class
• Active Directory domain
• Active Directory container name

Network Discovery

• NetBIOS name
• IP addresses
• Resource domain
• System roles
• SNMP community name
• MAC addresses

Heartbeat Discovery :- Heartbeat Discovery is active only on computers that have already been installed as Configuration Manager clients.

It is important to ensure that any schedule you create causes the DDRs to be updated frequently enough so that the original DDR isn't viewed by Configuration Manager as obsolete or deleted from the database.Heartbeat Discovery updates existing DDRs rather than creating new ones. By default, it generates an updated DDR for each client every seven days, although this timing is configurable.

Heartbeat Discovery runs on installed Configuration Manager clients according to the schedule you specify. With this method enabled, the Client Component Installation Manager (CCIM) on the client causes the Cliex32.dll to generate a DDR, which is then written to the management point. This file is the same size as a normal DDR (approximately 1 KB per client), and so it will generate approximately the same network traffic.

 

Active Directory Security Group Discovery

he Configuration Manager 2007 Active Directory Security Group Discovery method searches for security groups by polling the closest Active Directory domain controller. The Active Directory domain can be in mixed mode or native mode.

 

Discovery Troubleshooting Flowcharts http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb735871.aspx

 

Log files related to discovery

Adsysdis.log Active Directory System Discovery log file showing when the discovery method runs, and its results. Look for the number of DDRs created and any "bogus" entries.

Adsysgrp.log Active Directory System Group Discovery log file showing when the discovery method runs, and its results. Look for the number of DDRs created.

Adusrdis.log Active Directory User Discovery log file showing when the discovery method runs, and its results. Look for the number of DDRs created.

 

DISCOVERY HAS A DEPENDENCE OF CLEINT PUSH, IF DISCOVERY IS NOT ENABLED OR NOT DISCOVERED ANY SYSTEMS THEN CLIENT PUSH WILL NOT PUSH ON ANY SYSTEM’S

Scripts:- http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc180843.aspx

If you deleted any system from SCCM / SMS console you can initiate the client discovery data cycle then client can be reappear in the console

 

Third party Discovery Tools :- enhanced discovery tool

 

The major discovery drop backs in SCCM is it will not do a delta discovery it will do from scratch.. that means it will not discover specific to the changes that has changed from last cycle.. to accomplish this you need to depend on Enhanced discovery tool http://www.systemcentertools.com/esd.html 

now with SCCM R3 you can do delta discovery