Configuration Management

Save time and improve accuracy with Configuration Management

Because the Point System SNMP agent can potentially manage dozens of slide-in devices, it offers a means of applying a single configuration change to an arbitrary number of these devices.

These proprietary extensions are entirely contained within the Point System SNMP agent, meaning that (if for some reason you are unable to or do not wish to use Focal Point,) all functions can be accessed from any standard SNMP v1 Network Management System. See the discussion of this ConfigMng/advanced Topic.

The procedure for applying a configuration change to an individual device is described elsewhere in this document. To use the Focal Point application to apply a change to a user-defined group of devices, follow these steps:

  1. Create group(s) of devices. This is done by opening the "Details" screens of the various slide-in devices (as described above) and typing one or more user-defined Device Group String keywords into the "Groups" text box in the Configuration Management frame of the Details screen, and pressing the "Apply" button. Once the groups have been created, they remain until changed by the user, and can be used over and over. More information on Device Group Strings is available.
  2. Select the groups to which upcoming configuration operations should be applied. This is done by entering one or more of the same Group String keywords used above into the Group Control String box on the opening screen of the Focal Point application. When this is done, an "EDIT" indicator will appear in the cabinet view for each device that is in any of the specified groups. More information on the Group Control String is available below. Note that Focal Point will not permit you to edit the Group Control String when any device Details screen is open.
  3. Make configuration changes to the group(s). This is done by opening the "Details" screen for any device that is the same model as any of the selected devices. Any changes you make on this screen will be applied to the entire group(s), rather than the particular device you have selected.

For example, a system administrator could create the groups "finance" and "admin" by assigning these values to various Device Group Strings. If this were done and a Details Screen were opened and changed:

  • If the Group Control String were set to "", no Group evaluation would be done. This would cause changes made on the Details Screen of a particular slide-in device to affect the selected device and no others.
  • the Group Control String were set to "admin", all operations on the Details Screen of a particular device would be performed only on all devices of that model that had the "admin" keyword in their Group Strings. Note that the selected device would be unaffected, unless it happened to be in the "admin" group. This feature could be used to copy the configuration of a device in the "finance" group to the "admin" group.
  • The Group Control String could be set to "admin finance" to cause the changes to be applied to any devices that belonged to one or both groups.
  • the Group Control String were set to "kumquat", no changes would be made to any device.

For more information on the composition of Device Group Strings and Group Control Strings, read the appropriate sections later in this document.

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