Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 : Updating Collections (part 2) - Deleting a Collection

12/10/2013 2:08:47 AM

2. Deleting a Collection

That which the SMS administrator gives, the SMS administrator can take away. This, of course, is true of collections. While you maintain collections, you might need to reorganize your collection structure by creating new collections and deleting existing ones. Deleting a collection can have consequences other than just removing that collection. When you delete a collection, you’ll also effect the following events:

Any advertisements that have targeted only this collection will also be deleted. (If an advertisement is also targeting another collection, it won’t be affected.)
When you create a query, you can limit its scope by associating it with a particular collection. When the collection is deleted, the query’s scope is no longer limited.
Any collections whose membership rules (queries) are limited to the collection that’s being deleted will still process the rule but will display no resources.
Through the object class or instance security you can identify which SMS administrators have the ability to view the membership of each collection. After you remove a collection, the administrators you identified will no longer be able to view that collection’s resources if the resources aren’t in other collections that the administrators can view.

Note

If the collection you’re deleting has a subcollection linked to it, that subcollection is also deleted unless the subcollection itself has its own subcollections. If the latter is true, when you delete the top-level collection, the subcollection isn’t deleted and will still exist in the collection tree.

Fortunately, when you delete a collection, the Delete Collection Wizard warns you of these effects and shows you what properties of the collection might be affected.

Note

When you right-click a collection, you see an option called Delete Special. Be careful when using this option. It bypasses the Delete Collection Wizard and simply deletes all the resources from the collection from the SMS database, along with the resources’ discovery and inventory information. Consequently you could inadvertently delete resources from the SMS database.

Follow these steps to delete a collection:

1.	Navigate to the Collections folder in the SMS Administrator Console and expand it.
2.	Right-click the collection you want to delete and choose Delete from the context menu. The Delete Collection Wizard Welcome page is displayed. Verify the name of the collection to be deleted.
3.	Click Next to display the Effects Of Deleting This Collection page, shown in Figure 3. This page warns you about the effects of deleting a collection and lets you choose whether to display details about the effects. Figure 3. The Effects Of Deleting This Collection page.
4.	Select the Yes option to view individual pages describing what will be affected by the deletion. Select the No option to proceed with the deletion. If you selected the No option, you’d proceed to step 11, where you would simply delete the collection. For this example, select the Yes option.
5.	Click Next to display the Subcollections page, as shown in Figure 4. This page displays a list of this collection’s subcollections. Note the warning that deleting this collection will also delete the subcollections. Figure 4. The Subcollections page.
6.	Click Next to display the Advertisements page, as shown in Figure 5, which displays a list of all the advertisements that have targeted this collection. Again, note the warning that deleting this collection could also delete the advertisements (if they’re not also targeted to another collection). Figure 5. The Advertisements page.
7.	Click Next to display the Queries page, shown in Figure 6, which lists any queries that have been limited to this collection. A similar warning message is provided. Figure 6. The Queries page.
8.	Click Next to display the Collection Membership Rules page, shown in Figure 7. This page displays a list of collections whose membership rules are limited to this collection and warns of possible effects. Figure 7. The Collection Membership Rules page.
9.	Click Next to display the Administrators page, shown in Figure 8, which lists the administrators who have permissions to view resources in this collection and the effect that the deletion might have on them. Figure 8. The Administrators page.
10.	Click Next to display the Choose Whether To Delete This Collection page, shown in Figure 9. This final confirmation page asks whether you want to proceed with the deletion. Select the Yes option to continue. Figure 9. The Choose Whether To Delete This Collection page.
11.	Click Next to display the Completing The Delete Collection Wizard page, shown in Figure 10. Click Finish to delete the collection. Figure 10. The Completing The Delete Collection Wizard page.

In this section we’ve seen SMS administrators update and maintain collections and subcollections. Next, let’s discuss how SMS itself can update your collections automatically.