The SMS 2003 Client Heartbeat Discovery Process

Published by naveed at 2:00 AM under Technology

In SMS 2003 as in SMS 2.0 and Configuration Manager (ConFigMgr) 2007 the heartbeat discovery process is designed to let the site server(s) know that the client is in a healthy state and functioning as expected. The process runs on a schedule that you specify on the site server in the Discovery methods leaf and the default is 7 days or a week.

If a client resource fails to process and send its heartbeat discovery information back to the site server for any reason the machine is not automatically removed or deleted from the SMS SQL database unless you have elected to use the ”Delete Inactive Client Discovery Data” maintenance task then the resource will be deleted.

Note: If another discovery method such as network discovery runs and the client does successfully report back yet the heartbeat discovery does not the resource will not be removed.

The heart beat discovery method since it is designed to keep your client resources Discovery Data Records or DDR’s updated is important for your machines once they become client resources so that they will not be aged out of the database. Since Heartbeat discovery is installed on all of your client resources as part of the SMS install process one of its main functions as noted is to keep its DDR’s up to date and therefore the resource will not have to create new DDRs every day or every 25 hours.

Tip: There may be instances when in your SMS database you may see that you have clients changing from Installed Yes to No and you know that they are actually client resources. This may indicate that your Heartbeat Discovery method and your Delete Aged Discovery task are conflicting. Sometimes this issue can be resolved from the client resource by manually initiating the Discovery Data Collection Cycle or any of the Control Panel – Systems Management – Actions tab actions on an advanced client or Components “Refresh Status” for legacy your clients. This will force the install flag to update then update and refresh your collection(s) to see if the client is marked as Installed - Yes.

As far as the process is concerned on the client resource the Client Component Installation Manager (CCIM) uses the Cliex32.dll to create the DDR and it is sent to the Client Access Point (CAP) by the Copy Queue component and processed on the site server and only uses 1 KB and so LAN traffic is not impacted.