Best practices for creating targets

Learn about best practices for creating your target groups and view some example target groups and use cases.

Note: Going forward, Automation Config is no longer included in the Aria Automation suite of products. The new name of this product is VMware Tanzu Salt and this product is available as part of the VMware Tanzu Platform suite of products. See Using and Managing Tanzu Salt for more information.

Create simple target rules

Although there's no limit to how many targets you can create in Automation Config, try to create the simplest targeting rules that encompass all the machines you need to take action against.

Identify required use cases

Before you create targets for your jobs, start with a list of use cases to help you determine which target types to use. For example, for patching, you can use grains to target a specific operating system. The following table contains some examples of target groups, common use cases, and recommended target type.

Target group	Use case	Target type
Operating system	Patching Discovery or diagnostics Standards compliance	Grain
Application cluster	Application installation Directed compliance Selective patching Configuration management and drift detection and remeditation	Glob or list
Data center, subnet, availability zone, or other network segment	Compliance Network or regional configuration	Glob or custom grain
Custom method	Approved or banned packagese User management based on presence or absence of installated applications User accounts	Custom grain