# Defining Administrative Groups

Within the network, you can create groups of elements and use SDS to share specified data among the member elements at the Admin Group Members scope. By default, all elements are members of the "System Defaulted" administration group. If you do not need to create additional administrative groups, all elements can remain in the default group.

## About Admin Group Size

It is recommended that Administrative Groups contain a maximum of 20 network elements to help maintain required performance of SDS and Reach-Through operation. At MCD Release 5.0+, the system will disable an Admin Group when there are more than 20 nodes in that group. A log will be generated when the group becomes disabled. New administrative groups can be created and nodes moved to the new group. If a group is reduced to fewer than 20 nodes, the Admin Group is re-enabled, and a log entry also generated.

When moving nodes to a new group, ensure there is at least one managed node (an MiVoice Business system, for example) in the new group. This will allow you to login to that node through the System Administration Tool to see the group members. If an Admin group has only SIP Peer elements, you would not be able to "see" that Admin group. Alternatively, the Admin Groups and associated functions, including Reach-Through and alarm consolidation can be ignored, if not required, and the system will automatically disable groups with more than 20 nodes, such as would be encountered at default installation.

To change the name of the local group

1. Admin Groups form

The name of the group to which the local element belongs is displayed in the Admin Group frame.

2. Click Change, enter the new name and click Save.

To create a new administrative group or to move elements to an existing group

1. Ensure that the elements are sharing data via SDS. SDS must be sharing data among the elements in order to update the membership status of the remote elements.

2. Go to the Admin Groups form

3. In the Group Members frame:

4. select All to move all elements to the new group
   or

5. check the individual boxes of each element that you want to move to the new group.

4. Click Move.

5. Click Existing Group and select the desired group from the drop-down menu

or

Click New Group and enter a group name.

6. Click Save.

NOTES

- Administrative Group members must be sharing data via SDS.

- If you move the local element to another group, the system updates the Admin Groups form to list the group members of the new group.

- You can only view the member elements of the local group (that is, the group to which the local element belongs). To see a list of member elements of another group, you must log into an element that belongs to that group and open the Admin Groups form.

- To view and manage a newly created group, you must log into a node that has been added to the new group.

To delete a group, you must first remove all the member elements from that group by moving them to another group. After you have moved all the elements out of the group, the group is deleted. A member element is also removed from the group if you delete the element from the network using the Network Elements form.

Related Topics

- Assign Administrators