Scanning

Overview

This chapter shows operators how to check that every target is scanned on time, run a manual scan and follow up failures. The Scanning page needs the Operator role; open it from the scan status at the bottom of the navigation. Administrators set up automatic scanning (see Scan Automation in the Administration Guide).

Two kinds of scan work

PI Nexus+ scans targets: each PI Data Archive, each AF database and each PI Vision instance. It does two kinds of work on them:

• An inventory scan finds what exists: new, changed and missing objects, their references and their health. It takes minutes to hours and usually runs daily or weekly.
• A health refresh re-reads the current values and health of objects already known. It finds nothing new and takes seconds to minutes. PI Vision instances have no health refresh.

Each target has two clocks, one per kind of work, so the page can say "health current, inventory due" at the same time. A target that has never had an inventory scan has no health to refresh until its first inventory scan succeeds.

Check that scans are current

1. Read Status. Up to date and Catching up need nothing from you. Needs action does.
2. Read Health and Inventory: how many targets are current and how old the oldest target is.
3. Click Needs attention to see which targets are failing or due, and why.
4. Read Last 24 hours. Click a count, such as failed, to see those runs.
5. Use the tabs: Needs attention, Active, Queued, Targets and History.
6. Act on a row in Needs attention: Refresh health, Reconcile inventory or Retry.

A Health refreshes take as long as the freshness cadence banner means a target cannot be refreshed as often as configured; ask an administrator to choose a longer cadence.

Find a target that is not being scanned

The Targets tab lists every configured target, including those never scanned, worst first.

1. Choose Filters and the Activity range.
2. Read the Inventory and Health columns: how the last run of each kind ended and when. Never means that kind of work never ran.
3. Read the Coverage strip. A gap means nothing ran in that period. Click a mark to open that run.
4. In the row menu, choose Open target history to see the target's runs, or Refresh health now to refresh it at once.

The target history lists the target's runs in the chosen range and offers Refresh health now.

Run a manual scan

Run a manual scan after a large change, or when you cannot wait for automatic scanning. A manual request goes to the front of the queue, but still waits for the scan that is running.

1. Choose Reconcile inventory to discover objects, or Refresh health to re-read the health of known objects.
2. Pick a row: Full inventory (or All operational health), PI Points, Asset Framework, PI Interfaces or PI Vision.
3. Optional: narrow the row to some targets, AF databases or, for PI Points, some PI Point rules.
4. Choose Add to queue.

Each AF database becomes its own run; you still get one completion email for the request. A request that is already waiting is not queued twice: the message says Already queued. A scan narrowed to some PI Point rules is fast, but it does not count as a full scan of the archive, so the Targets tab keeps showing the last full scan.

For a single object, Check health or Update inventory in its detail dialog is faster (see Confirm a fix).

Follow up queued and failed work

• Queued: automatic work waiting for the heavy-work window offers Run now, which moves it to the front. Remove from queue drops a waiting item.
• Active: Details shows progress; Cancel stops the scan.
• Needs attention: Retry requeues failed work. Look at the failure in the row first; a failure that is not temporary, such as missing rights, fails again.
• History: every finished run, newest first, with filters and a CSV download.

Recovering a stuck scan and deleting runs need the Admin role (see Manual Scans and PI Point Rule Reconciliation in the Administration Guide).

Reference: Scanning Page Reference