Muting nodes (as opposed to Unmanaging them) offers a few benefits:
- It stops any alert actions from triggering regardless of detected changes
- It doesn't stop polling the device for information
I really like this functionality because while I'm patching (during my change windows), I'd still like to poll for CPU/Memory/Application Status/etc. Some people might say I'm being overly cautious in choosing muting (called "Alert Suppression" in the API) instead of Unmanage, but I find it helpful.
This is a simple script - more meant to be a framework that should be tuned for your situation - than to be executed as-is within your infrastructure.
Selection Criteria: Active Directory Site / Location
They key to this particular query is that it is specifically for Active Directory computers managed via WMI or Agent. Within the Orion Platform, the Location property for Nodes is normally pulled via SNMP, but in the case of Domain-connected Windows Computers, this is pulled from the AD Site information.
I've found this helpful because I (in a past life) typically do site-level patching: Everything in the East Data Center gets patched at the same time, then rebooted if necessary, then I move on and do everything in a different site.
The script is configured to mute matching devices between now and 60 minutes from now (editable in the script).
This could also be a useful script when paired with Patch Manager as a pre-patch execution.
Originally Discussed: Patching Machines (or Shut-up Alerts!) » Kevin's Ramblings (kmsigma.com)