IBM Proventia Network Enterprise User Manual - Types Of Tasks

Chapter 9: Understanding Scanning Processes in SiteProtector

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IBM Internet Security Systems

Types of Tasks

Introduction

A scanning job is organized by tasks. Tasks manage other tasks or subtasks, or they 

manage the subtasks that actually scan your network and assets. Several factors—

including whether the scan is for discovery or assessment—influence which types of tasks 

a scan job contains. This topic describes the types of tasks in a scan and explains which 

apply to discovery and which apply to assessment scans.

Note:

For examples of tasks displayed in the SiteProtector Console, see Chapter 10, 

"Monitoring Scans" on page 135.

Common 

management tasks

Every scan, whether for discovery or assessment, includes the following management 

tasks: 

Base management 

tasks

For assessment scans, Enterprise Scanner uses a base task for each group in the scan. The 

base task manages the scanning tasks for each criticality in a group. The base task is 

identified as 

Base Assessment Scan for Group

.

Tasks per type of 

scan

Table 45 explains the tasks needed for discovery and assessment scans: 

Management Task

Description

A job-level task

A task that appears once for each type of scan. It is identified by 

the name given to the scan. 

One or more Parent-level 

tasks

A task that appears for each group and subgroup affected by the 

scan. It is identified by the following components:

•

Parent

•

Type_of_Scan

, such as Ad Hoc Discovery or Ad Hoc 

Assessment

•

Name_of_Asset_Group

Table 44: Common management tasks for discovery and assessment scans

Scan Type

Number of Tasks

Discovery

1 job-level task

1 parent task 

1 scanning task 

Note: There is no way to prioritize the order in which a discovery scan scans IP 

addresses, so there is no reason to divide the job into more than one scanning 

task. The scanning task is divided into subtasks, however, based on the 

maximum number of IP addresses allowed per subtask.

Assessment

1 job-level task

1 parent task 

1 base task for each group

1 scanning task for each asset criticality level represented in each group

Table 45: Tasks per type of scan