Windows: Auto discovery of database instances during installation and upgrade

When you install an S-TAP®, it can auto-discover database instances and create inspection engines for the discovered instances.

By default, auto discovery runs once during S-TAP installation. It discovers the database instances, populates inspection engines according to its discovery, and updates the S-TAP configuration file guard_tap.ini. When the installation is complete, auto discovery is disabled to prevent the S-TAP from overwriting user-modified inspection engine configurations. The Guardium® Discovery Agent is installed with the S-TAP package on a database server.

Auto discovery is controlled by the guard_tap.ini parameter AUTO_DISCOVERY. For more information, see Protocol 7 Discovery parameters or Protocol 8 Discovery parameters.

During an upgrade, auto-discovery identifies new database instances but does not create inspection engines for the new instances.
CAUTION:
If you enable auto-discovery before upgrading the S-TAP, then all inspection engines are updated according to the discovered instances. If you changed the port range, for example, it reverts during the upgrade if auto discovery is enabled.
If you want to retain the inspection engine configurations, disable auto discovery before the upgrade.

All Windows S-TAP database types are supported for auto-discovery.

The auto discovery parameters should be left at their default values, except for advanced users. Discovery also uses these parameters:
  • software_tap_host: IP address or hostname of the database server on which the S-TAP is installed.
  • sqlguard_ip: S-TAP discovery results are sent to this IP. (The Guardium system with primary=1 in the SQLguard parameters.)

Instance discovery is configured and run independently of auto discovery. For more information, see Windows: Discover database instances.