The "Properties" tab for devices lets you set various values that control how the device is displayed and what attributes it will have.

Tembria Server Monitor lets you assign display names to your devices. When you assign a display name to a device it will appear in the Tembria user interface under that name but all monitoring actions will use the actual device name. For example you might add a device using its IP address "192.168.0.100" but using a display name you can have it displayed as "Secondary Router" or whatever value you choose. It's sometimes handy if your server names are complicated along the lines of "supsqlbkp" which could use a display name like "Support Backup SQL Server".

When you are adding devices you can give them display names by putting the display name in brackets after the device name. For example, "192.168.0.100 (Secondary Router)". After you've added a network device you can always add, change or remove a display name by going to the "Properties" tab for the device.

The next section shows the device name as it was added to Tembria Server monitor followed by its current IP address.

You can use the "Device Type" field to specify to categorize a device. For example, you might choose to label a device as a "Mail Server" or "Router". This field is for informational purposes only. You can customize your e-mail templates to include the device type field in your notifications but apart from that it is not used in the monitoring system.

In much the same way that blog postings can be tagged with keywords, the "Tags" section allows you to tag your network devices with keywords that you choose. There are two types of tags. Simple tags are just a list of keywords. For example, "router, cisco, 3rdfloor". Valued tags are keyword/value pairs separated by an equal sign. For example, "department=sales, contact=jsmith, phone=234-567-1234".

Tags come into play when you are setting up your event monitor configuration. Using the "Device Chooser" an event monitor's settings you can tell the event monitor to check all of the devices that have a specified tag. It's a great way to automate your monitoring if you are periodically adding new devices to your configuration. Just add the device, specify the appropriate tags, and the event monitors will start to watch the new device automatically.

Tags can also be used in your e-mail notifications. You can customize your e-mail templates to include a list of device's tags each notifications or even pull out the value of a valued tag so that, for example, each notification includes a contact name.

The "Notes" field is a free-form area where you can enter any information about the device that you choose.