Welcome
Catalog Overview
This section provides information about catalog updates available with every release.

BigFix Documentation Homepage
BigFix 11 Inventory Documentation
Welcome to the BigFix Inventory documentation, where you can find information about how to install and configure BigFix Inventory. The application provides you with information about your inventory and license metrics. You can manage your software assets, gather information about your hardware, and ensure license compliance for your enterprise using BigFix Inventory.
BigFix Platform
Overview
Become familiar with key concepts that are necessary to understand how BigFix Inventory works and learn about features and functions that are introduced in every version of the application.
Installing
Learn about the requirements and available installation scenarios to ensure that the deployment of BigFix Inventory goes smoothly in your environment.
Configuring
After you install BigFix Inventory, configure the application. Create accounts for the users who need access to the application and set up scans to collect software and hardware inventory data from your environment.
Upgrading
A new version of BigFix Inventory is released periodically, typically at the end of each calendar quarter. Upgrade to the new version regularly to take full advantage of new features and application fixes.
Catalog Overview
This section provides information about catalog updates available with every release.
- What's new in this Catalog release
  BigFix Inventory provides new features and enhancements that facilitate your work with the application. For more information, follow BigFix Forum - Inventory (Release Announcements).
- Catalog End-of-Support data schedule
  Learn about the catalog end-of-support data schedule about the publishers.
- Software Data Harvesting
  We are introducing a BigFix Inventory Catalog Enhancement program. The purpose of this program is to provide BigFix Inventory clients with better discovery capabilities adjusted to software installed on their Windows endpoints.
Managing the infrastructure
After you complete the initial configuration of BigFix Inventory, learn how to manage components of its infrastructure: VM managers, server, database, and data sources.
Software inventory and license utilization
You can classify the discovered software so that reports in BigFix Inventory reflect your entitlements and properly show utilization of license metrics by particular products.
Managing security threats
Learn how to use BigFix Inventory to manage security threats in your environment. You can view whether any of the installed components is prone to any Common Vulnerability and Exposure (CVE).
Tutorials
Tutorials help you understand how to use BigFix Inventory. They consist of modules that focus on broad goals. Modules consist of tasks that show how to configure specific settings step-by-step.
Security
Configure different security features to adequately protect business assets and resources in the data model when using BigFix Inventory.
Troubleshooting and support
Learn about solutions to common problems that might arise when you use BigFix Inventory BigFix Inventory and how to find logs and trace files that help you troubleshoot those problems.
Tuning performance
Learn how to plan the infrastructure of BigFix Inventory and to configure the application server to achieve optimal performance. The following guidelines are applicable in big data environments as well as in smaller environments that are running on low-performance hardware.
Integrating with REST API
External systems integration is one of the key features of BigFix Inventory. Business logic is enabled for integration and interfaces are provided for common integration points.
Glossary
Guide in PDF format

Catalog Overview

This section provides information about catalog updates available with every release.

Catalogs are signatures created manually to discover software installed on your devices. The signatures help in managing the software licenses by identifying and differentiating between the software licenses installed in your environment. Catalog discovery also ensures that the software installed in your environment is compliant, the latest, and accurate.

The different types of signatures are file signatures, registry signatures, package signatures, and template-based signatures.

To create signatures, BigFix Inventory runs the scanner to collect data from endpoints, and the collected data is matched against the catalog signatures. The identified software is then reported under the Software Classification reports.

Signatures created as part of BigFix Inventory are integrated with the existing catalog, and the latest catalog is generated.

Regular updates to the catalog are necessary to include new software products and versions. The Server Software Catalog Update (version) fixlet ensures that the BigFix Inventory system remains up-to-date and accurate in identifying and managing software assets. For more information on the fixlet, refer to Server Software Catalog Update (version).

The Catalog provided by HCL contains signatures for a range of software from various vendors, such as Microsoft, Oracle, and many more. It also includes license information for IBM products and template signatures.