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Chapter 1. Inventory overview

Inventory provides a comprehensive view of all the systems in your organization, which you can use to easily track and manage your infrastructure. You can access inventory using the following methods:

  • the Hybrid Cloud Console
  • the Managed inventory API

Systems registered with Red Hat are visible in inventory. There are many ways to register with Red Hat. For more information about registering systems with Red Hat Lightspeed, see the following resources:

Red Hat Lightspeed Analysis

When your system are registered with Red Hat Lightspeed, Red Hat Lightspeed performs an initial analysis of the system. Status information, such as system state and whether a system is active, is stored in inventory. You can access additional details about the system from the Red Hat Lightspeed > RHEL > Inventory > Systems page in the Hybrid Cloud Console. After the initial analysis is complete, Red Hat Lightspeed runs analyses daily, providing feedback to you and reporting system status to inventory.

Red Hat Lightspeed analysis results can include alerts that identify issues in your systems, and recommendations about how to resolve those issues.

Red Hat Lightspeed also monitors your systems for system staleness, and uses specific staleness criteria to flag systems that are not reporting regularly. If systems do not report after a specified period of time, Red Hat Lightspeed flags them for deletion.

Additional Resources

Getting started with Red Hat Lightspeed

1.1. Data governance
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Red Hat Lightspeed helps to identify and address operational and vulnerability risks, before they result in system downtime. This functionality requires that Red Hat Lightspeed collects small pieces of system metadata for processing and analysis. Here is how we ensure the security of your data:

  • Red Hat Lightspeed collects only the minimum system metadata needed to analyze and identify issues for supported platforms.
  • Before data is sent to Red Hat, you have the option to inspect and redact your data.
  • Data is encrypted throughout the process, with a customizable collection schedule. Red Hat data collection rules are signed and the signature is verified before proceeding.
  • Only one uploaded data set is stored at a time for each cluster, host or instance.

1.1.1. Data obfuscation
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You have full control over the data collected by Red Hat Lightspeed. It is possible to anonymize the data by obfuscating IP addresses, Media Access Control (MAC) addresses, and hostnames in the Red Hat Lightspeed client.

1.1.2. Data redaction
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You can exclude specific data from the Red Hat Lightspeed client collection process, by using data redaction commands in the command line interface. This method can be used to ensure personally identifiable information (PII) is not collected. However, data redaction reduces the quantity and quality of system recommendations.

1.1.3. Data retention
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The Red Hat Lightspeed client collects and uploads your data once a day with the default configuration. The collected data is kept 24 hours for analysis. Data is replaced by new uploads from the Red Hat Lightspeed client every day. Data is automatically deleted after 14 days if there is no upload from the Red Hat Lightspeed client.

Results from the analysis are retained for historical reporting purposes and might be used by Red Hat as input into feature enhancements.

Additional Resources

For more information on Red Hat data governance, see the Red Hat Lightspeed data and application security page: Red Hat Lightspeed data and application security

For more information on obfuscating data, see Red Hat Lightspeed client documentation: Red Hat Lightspeed client data obfuscation

For more information on configuring a denylist, see Red Hat Red Hat Lightspeed client documentation: Red Hat Lightspeed client data redaction

1.2. Data collectors for inventory
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Each system registered in inventory gets its data from one of many data collectors. Data collectors run on a regular cadence and synchronize their collected data with the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console.

A system can be reported by one or more collectors. When multiple collectors provide information for the same system, inventory uses a deduplication mechanism to merge the information. This process ensures that systems appear only once in inventory.

The following data collectors upload system information to the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console:

  • Red Hat Lightspeed. Red Hat Lightspeed registers and aggregates system data. By default, it runs daily on each system and uploads the system data to the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console for processing. The data that Red Hat Lightspeed collects is used to formulate all the recommendations Red Hat Lightspeed provides.
  • Red Hat Subscription Manager (RHSM). The subscription-manager tool runs daily to provide a list of all systems in your organization that are registered with Red Hat. Note that unless Red Hat Lightspeed is also enabled, data collected by Subscription Manager alone does not provide recommendations.
  • Remote Host Configuration (rhc). Use the rhc client to register systems to Red Hat Lightspeed and Red Hat Subscription Manager, and to also configure Red Hat Lightspeed connections for all RHEL systems in your organization. The rhc client also makes it easy to find system issues and to fix them with the playbooks generated by Red Hat Lightspeed from any remediation plans that you created.
  • Red Hat Discovery tool. The Discovery tool scans systems for Red Hat software installations and provides a report to the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console for inclusion in inventory. You can run this tool manually.
  • Red Hat Satellite. Satellite provides an integration with the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console. When configured, Satellite uploads its inventory of registered systems daily and synchronizes it with the inventory application. This includes all systems registered with Satellite and Capsule servers.
Note

Data collected and reported by Subscription manager and Satellite alone will NOT result in analysis and recommendations. Red Hat Lightspeed must also be enabled.

You can determine which data collector(s) have reported for an individual system by visiting the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console:

Prerequisites

  • You have Inventory Hosts viewer access.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the Red Hat Lightspeed > RHEL > Inventory > Systems page.
  2. Click the system you want to view.
  3. You will notice that you are in the General information tab. Remain in that tab and scroll to the bottom of the page.
  4. Reference the Data collectors card at the bottom of the page. There you will see the data collector(s) Name, Status and Last upload details.
Note

You can also filter your systems by data collectors in the inventory Systems page. This is explained in Section 2.2, Refining your view of systems in inventory.

Additional Resources

Red Hat Red Hat Lightspeed client

Red Hat Satellite

Red Hat Subscription Manager (RHSM)

Getting started with the Subscriptions Service

Red Hat Discovery tool

Remote host configuration and management (rhc)

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