Welcome
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.
Performing optional configuration
You can perform optional configuration tasks to further customize the application.
Data retention periods

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.
- Creating users and groups
  Each user who has access to BigFix Inventory must be assigned a role and a computer group. The role defines which reports and panels the user can view. The computer group narrows down the scope of these reports and panels to computers that meet certain criteria.
- Setting up scans to discover software and hardware inventory
  The scanner is an independent, well-defined component that is used by BigFix Inventory. It is installed and managed through the BigFix client, and it enables the software and capacity scans. Software and capacity scans collect data that is later on displayed on the BigFix Inventory reports. For environments with up to a few thousand computers, you can enable the default scan configuration. In this case, the analyses are activated and software and capacity scans as well as uploads of their results are scheduled automatically on the computers that are subscribed to the BigFix Inventory site. For larger environments, it is advisable to divide the computers into groups and manually configure a separate scan schedule for each group to avoid performance issues.
- Performing optional configuration
  You can perform optional configuration tasks to further customize the application.
  - Enabling HTTP Access Logging for BigFix Inventory
    This task enables the server to log any incoming HTTP request. The task is limited when generic data on HTTP level, such as the remote IP, remote host, time, URL, method, status code, and response size are available.
  - Data retention periods
    - Configuring data retention period for raw utilization data
      By default, raw data about utilization of license metrics is stored in the BigFix Inventory database for 90 days. You can change the period depending on the period for which you want to generate reports of raw utilization data.
  - Setting up computer properties
    You can specify computer properties that are to be gathered from the computers in your infrastructure. You can then use those properties to filter data on the Computers report and to assign computers to computer groups.
  - Setting the homepage
    If you use a particular report or panel frequently, you can set it as BigFix Inventory homepage.
  - Deprecated: Disabling subcapacity calculations
    Subcapacity licenses are based on the number of processor value units (PVU) or resource value units (RVU) that can be used by the product not the number of all processor cores that are available on the physical server. Such a licensing scheme allows for reducing the cost of licenses for products that are eligible for PVU or RVU subcapacity. If no subcapacity products are installed in your environment, you can disable subcapacity calculations to improve the performance of the import.
- Classifying the BigFix client used by multiple BigFix products
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.
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
DataFlow ServiceNow Integration

Data retention periods

Table 1. Data retention periods
Type of data	Period for which the data is retained	Changing the default period
Raw scan data: results of the file system scan, package data scan, and application usage statistics scan	7 days	To change the default period, change the value of the raw_data_api_history_keep_days parameter on the Advanced Server Settings panel. For more information, see: Advanced server settings.
Raw utilization data that is displayed on the Resource Utilization report	90 days	To change the default period, go to the Server Settings panel and change the value in the Retention Period section. For more information, see: Configuring data retention period for raw utilization data.
Data that is needed to calculate utilization of license metrics that is displayed on the All Metrics report	Always	The period cannot be changed.
Data about an old complex signature that is substituted with a new complex signature	Until the software is detected based on the new signature	The period cannot be changed.