Setting Inventory Server instance as primary

Introduced in 2021.2

Updated in 2022.1

This article describes how to designate a particular Inventory Server instance as primary to significantly improve the audit snapshot processing performance in distributed networks.

A primary server is an Inventory Server instance that uploads snapshots received from all automated audit tasks in Alloy Discovery. When running multiple Inventory Server instances on distributed networks, it is strongly advised to set one server as primary. This boosts audit snapshots auditing performance by up to 45%. For the optimal performance, the primary server should be the one closest to the database server.

When one instance is set as primary, others become secondary. Secondary servers do not upload audit snapshots. They only run their automated audit and discovery tasks, receive snapshots, and queue their snapshots to wait for the primary server to process them.

NOTE: The primary and secondary server roles apply only to automated (scheduled) audit tasks, which produce massive snapshots whose upload could burden servers. Audit snapshots from on-demand audit tasks are uploaded locally by corresponding Inventory Servers.

To set an Inventory Server instance as primary:

1. Navigate to the Services > Inventory Servers section of the Settings App to view the list of all Inventory Servers registered in the Alloy Discovery database.

2. Do one of the following:

   • Right-click the required Inventory Server instance and choose Actions > Set as Primary Server from the pop-up menu.

   • Choose Actions > Set as Primary Server from the Module menu.

   • Double-click the Inventory Server record to bring up the Inventory Server [Server Name] window and select the Primary server check box there.