How Admins Can Reclaim Their Time With Device Lifecycle Management (DLCM)
Administrators are the unsung heroes of IT who juggle countless tasks while keeping the digital gears of the organization running smoothly.
On a daily basis, from dawn to dusk, they're the troubleshooters, the architects of networks, the defenders against cyber threats, and the masters of server rooms. With a never-ending to-do list, admins dance between deploying updates, patching vulnerabilities, ensuring backups are pristine, and taming the relentless influx of help desk tickets.
Amidst the chaos, they must orchestrate intricate symphonies of hardware and software, each note resonating with the delicate balance between security and accessibility. It's a life of constant adaptation, where new technologies emerge as swiftly as the challenges they solve.
Given these realities, an IT administrator’s time is extremely valuable. Organizations need solutions that best utilize their human resources while still managing required manual tasks such as verifying devices have had cybersecurity software deployed to them, determining how active those devices are, and ensuring that only active devices are listed in their consoles.
By default, the Cylance® console does not automatically identify or remove duplicate, offline, or stale or inactive devices. Device Lifecycle Management (DLCM) is a feature that can be enabled in the Cylance console to specify the number of days that a device can remain offline before it is marked as “inactive.” When a device is marked as such, there is an additional option to automatically remove it from the console after another specified number of days.
Benefits of Using the Device Lifecycle Management
There are a range of benefits that customers can realize by enabling the Device Lifecycle Management feature:
How Device Lifecycle Management Works
When the Device Lifecycle Management feature is enabled or changed, the system checks the "Offline Date" of each offline device and updates its status within 24 hours. For example, if there is a device that has been offline for 40 days, and the Device Lifecycle Management feature is enabled with the Days Offline field set to 30 days, the device state will change to "Inactive" within 24 hours.
Similarly, if there is a device that has been offline for 25 days and the Days Offline field is set to 30 days, the device state will be set to "Inactive" in 5 days, assuming the device remains offline. The console tracks the number of days that the device has remained in the offline or inactive states. When the device communicates with the console again, the device state changes to “Online” and the timer resets.
Enabling Device Lifecycle Management
To enable the Device Lifecycle Management feature in the Cylance console, follow these steps:
In the Cylance console, click Settings > Device Lifecycle.
Turn on the Enable automated device lifecycle management setting.
In the Days Offline field, specify the number of days (7 to 180) that a device must be offline before its status is changed to "Inactive.”
To delete inactive devices, turn on the Remove inactive devices setting.
In the Days Inactive field, specify the number of days (7 to 180) that a device must be inactive before it is automatically removed from the console.
Here is a screenshot of the Device Lifecycle area in the Cylance console:
Monitoring Device Lifecycle Management
As mentioned, when the Device Lifecycle Management feature is enabled or changed, the system checks the “Offline Date” of each offline device and updates their status within 24 hours. To view the current state of any device in the Cylance console, Administrators can open Assets > Devices to view the State column.
To view whether specific devices are included in the Device Lifecycle Management, open Assets > Devices to see the Lifecycle Management column. If the column is not already displayed, customers may need to manually reveal the column by following these instructions:
In the Cylance console, click Assets > Devices.
Click the Table Columns icon to reveal the list of available column settings.
Select Lifecycle Management.
Click the Table Columns icon to hide the list of available column settings.
To exclude a device from Device Lifecycle Management so it is not marked as inactive after being offline, customers should refer to the Manage CylancePROTECT Desktop and CylanceOPTICS devices topic in the Cylance Endpoint Security Administration Guide.
For more information about the Device Lifecycle Management feature, customers can also refer to the Configure device lifecycle management section in the Cylance Endpoint Security Administration Guide.
