Deployment Guidelines for Consolidator and Probes

When you wish to install and deploy discovery appliances, use the following installation guidelines:

• Installing a Standalone in the Grid–Before you designate an appliance as a standalone discovery appliance, no previously installed Probes should be present on the network and joined to the Grid. If you install a new appliance intended as a standalone, in a network that already has one or more Probe instances (perhaps for testing or evaluation purposes), before discovery service is stopped on the Probe instances, the new "standalone" appliance automatically detects the Probe instances and start as a Consolidator appliance, preventing it from acting to probe and detect devices as a standalone appliance. Consolidators cannot be assigned to network views or to discovery in network objects such as IPv4 or IPv6 network containers.
• Converting a Consolidator to a Standalone–Also consider the example of a Consolidator appliance operating with one or more instances running as Probes, each with respective Discovery licenses. If you wish to convert the Consolidator to a standalone discovery appliance, stop the discovery service on all associated probes. Then, stop and restart the discovery service on the Consolidator appliance. The appliance is selectable for discovery of network objects, acting as a standalone discovery appliance.
• Adding new Probe Instances to a Standalone deployment–Finally, consider the use of a standalone discovery appliance to which you wish to associate a new Probe instance or instances. This process converts a standalone to a Consolidator. After the new Probe instances join the Grid, stop the discovery service on the standalone discovery appliance. Then, start the discovery service on the new Probe or Probes. Next, restart the discovery service on the previously defined standalone appliance. It detects the newly active Probe instances and activate as a Consolidator.
• In all cases, you must maintain proper Discovery licensing.