ISM Controls in Policies

You can create a control script with a text editor, package the script into an ISM, and then upload the ISM to SA using the ISM tool in the ISM Development Kit (IDK). See the "SA Content Utilities" section in the SA 10.50 Administration Guide or more information about IDK and ISM control scripts.

The ISM appears in the SA Library as a package. You can add the ISM package to a policy and then attach the policy to managed servers. See Adding software resources to a software policy for information about adding software packages to policies. The ISM Tool can upload packages and create the corresponding software policy. For more information, see the "Content Utilities" section in the SA 10.50 Administration Guide.

You can run the control scripts in the ISM from the SA Client. An ISM control script can have parameters corresponding to custom attributes. See ISM Controls Reference for more information about running ISM controls.

The name of a parameter matches the name of its corresponding custom attribute. The value of a custom attribute determines the value of the parameter. The source of a custom attribute is an SA object, such as a facility, customer, server, group of servers, or software policy. Custom attributes with the same name (but with different values) can be specified on different SA objects. If a server is associated with objects that have identically named custom attributes, SA uses a predefined search order to determine the custom attribute that provides the parameter value. In the Run ISM Control window of the SA Client, you can view the name and value of the control parameter. See the "SA Content Utilities" section in the SA 10.50 Administration Guide for more information on the search order for custom attributes.