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.
Managing large amounts of information by using the application user interface can be time-consuming. You can use the REST APIs as an alternative to the graphical user interface to reduce the time that is needed to manage your software inventory and the content of your software catalog.
Core APIs include all primary set of APIs that are integrated with BigFix Inventory.
Software Catalog REST API to upload and import software catalogs.
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.
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.
Learn about the requirements and available installation scenarios to ensure that the deployment of BigFix Inventory goes smoothly in your environment.
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.
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.
This section provides information about catalog updates available with every release.
After you complete the initial configuration of BigFix Inventory, learn how to manage components of its infrastructure: VM managers, server, database, and data sources.
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.
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 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.
Configure different security features to adequately protect business assets and resources in the data model when using BigFix Inventory.
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.
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.
BigFix Inventory detects software components which are bundled with the product.
The operations of the BigFix Inventory REST API protocol are defined as HTTP methods on certain REST resources.
You use connectors and operators to build query segments that filter on matching conditions and values.
Available from 9.2.8. For some REST APIs, version 2 is created to provide improved functions or experience. In such cases, the original API becomes deprecated with time and only version 2 is further developed. If you have custom tools or internal processes that are based on such REST APIs, it is best to adjust the tools to use the new version of the APIs.
You use the POST operation on the api/get_token element to request your unique token that is required to authenticate the REST API requests.
POST
api/get_token
You use the GET operation on the api/sam/about element to request information about the version of BigFix Inventory.
GET
api/sam/about
Available from 9.2.8. You can use REST API requests to quickly retrieve large amounts of data related to hardware inventory, including historical data about removed computers. You can then pass this data to other applications for further processing and analysis.
You use the POST operation on the sam/catalog/catalog_updates/upload element to upload the software catalog to the BFI server for import. After successful upload you can run the catalog import API or wait for the Data Import to import the software catalog.
am/catalog/catalog_updates/upload
You use the POST operation on the sam/import_catalog/complete_catalog_import element to run the software catalog import in the BFI server. You can check the import progress by using sam/import_catalog/catalog_import_status API.
sam/import_catalog/complete_catalog_import
sam/import_catalog/catalog_import_status
You use the GET operation on the sam/import_catalog/catalog_import_status element to check the software catalog import status.
Available from 9.2.8. You can use REST API requests to quickly retrieve large amounts of data related to license metric utilization as well as your software inventory, including historical data about uninstalled software. You can then pass this data to other applications for further processing and analysis.
Available from 9.2.8. For REST APIs in version 2, you can use associations to retrieve additional data as part of API requests. For example, you can retrieve detailed information about computer hardware as part of the software_instances API request.
software_instances
Available from 9.2.2. Retrieving raw scan results through REST API is intended to improve the monitoring of your environment by allowing you to quickly discover software that was installed or modified recently. By using shortened data imports, data about your software reaches the server much quicker, and at the same time allows you to increase the number of imports that you can run each day.
Unified view APIs provides you a unified view of the instances.
Configuration APIs include all APIs that you need to configure the application.
For some REST APIs, version 2 is created to provide improved functions or experience. In such cases, the original API is deprecated and version 2 is supported. You must adjust your custom tools or internal processes to the new version of these APIs.
