IT Assistant (ITA) detects particular agents (like OMSA, OMCI, etc.) on the managed system to classify it as a server, client, printer etc. A noteworthy point is that as long as ITA does not detect any known agent, the device would be listed under "Unknown" group. Whenever ITA recognizes a known agent, it moves the device from "Unknown" to appropriate classified group like "Servers". Now comes the important part. Once ITA has identified that a device is, say, a server, it will forever remain classified under the "Servers" group no matter whether the agent (e.g. OMSA) continues to run on it or is even uninstalled! This is due to the fact that a real hardware system cannot change - i.e. no matter what you do, a server cannot morph itself into a printer or a switch!

 

If a device gets classified under one of the known groups, and thereafter, ITA is unable to communicate with the appropriate agent on that system (say, during the next discovery cycle), then you would see the grey unknown icon.

 

To analyze your problem I would perform the following checks:

1) Check which protocol are you using for Discovery - SNMP, CIM, IPMI?

2) Whether the agent (OMSA) is installed and running properly on that system? Are all the services up and running - or you may want to try restarting the OMSA service.

3) Whether ITA can communicate with the agent? This can be checked using the ITA's inbuilt Troubleshooting tool - invoke it by right clicking the device and then run appropriate tests (Ping, SNMP test etc). If the test fails, you know the problem. A common root cause is a firewall or anti-virus software that is blocking the communication.

4) Also, it would be a good idea to check whether you are using different protocols to monitor different Discovery Ranges. If yes, check whether the servers in question belong to more than one range by any chance.