What is a Device Group?

A device group is a group of multiple devices. Device groups allow you to:

• Use device configuration templates to perform initial configuration for multiple devices simultaneously.
• Use device configuration templates to make changes to the configuration for multiple devices simultaneously.
• In the Views tab, view each device group and the sub-groups and devices within each device group.
• Schedule maintenance and downtime for multiple devices simultaneously.
• Suppress events on multiple devices simultaneously.
• Include the device group in an automation policy. An automation policy allows you to trigger an automatic action if specified criteria are met on all the devices in the device group.

A device can belong to multiple device groups. For example, suppose SL1 discovered a server. Suppose this server hosts a corporate website that you want to monitor with a web-content policy. Suppose this server also hosts a MySQL database that you want to monitor with a Dynamic Application for MySQL. You could make this server a member of two device groups, one device group for web servers and another device group for MySQL databases. You could then use a device configuration template to apply a web-content policy to all devices in the device group for web servers and another device configuration template to apply a Dynamic Application for MySQL to all devices in the device group for MySQL servers.

You can add devices to a device group either explicitly or dynamically.

• You can create static device groups, where you explicitly assign one or more devices to a device group.
• You can create dynamic device groups, where you define rules for the device group. Each device that meets the criteria in the rule is automatically included in the device group. For example, suppose that you define a rule that specifies "include all devices in the System organization, with an IP address that starts with '10.100.100' ". SL1 would automatically assign all devices from the System organization with an IP of "10.100.100.*" to the new device group. When a new device is added to the System organization with an IP that begins with "10.100.100.*", that device will also be included in the device group. If a device with an IP that starts with "10.100.100.*" is removed from the System organization, that device will also be removed from the device group.

You can create a device group that includes both explicitly assigned devices and also includes a dynamic rule. This device group will include both the explicitly assigned devices and all devices that meet the criteria in the dynamic rule.

The IT Services feature in SL1 uses device groups to define an IT Service. An IT Service contains sets of rules that define the state of that IT Service based on the state of the devices within the device group. For example, if you created an IT Service that represents the state of your email service, the associated device group might contain your DNS Servers, Exchange Servers, and Virtual Devices that are associated with Email Round-Trip Policies. To learn more about IT Services, see the section on IT Services.

This section describes how to define groups, device configuration templates, view device groups, manage device groups, and include device groups in event suppressions and automation policies.