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.
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.
Manual scan configuration
Manual scan configuration is advised for environments with more than a few thousand computers. It requires that analyses are activated and software and capacity scans as well as uploads of their results are scheduled manually after the installation. These actions are necessary to collect data from the computers in your infrastructure and display in on the BigFix Inventory reports. Flexibility of the manual scan configuration allows for avoiding performance issues that might occur when you scan too many computers at the same time.
Step 1: Activating the analyses
An analysis is a collection of property expressions that is used to view and summarize properties of computers in your infrastructure. Some of the analyses are required to discover installed software and must be activated all the time. Other analyses are used only in specific scenarios or for troubleshooting purposes and can be activated according to your needs.

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.
  - Frequency of scans and uploads of data
    By default, software and capacity scans are scheduled with a frequency that meets auditing requirements. If you want to change the default frequency, ensure that the new setup fulfills the minimal requirements and all considerations.
  - Default scan configuration
    Default scan configuration is advised for environments with up to a few thousand computers. It ensures that the required analyses are activated and software and capacity scans as well as uploads of their results are scheduled automatically. These actions are necessary to collect data from the computers in your infrastructure and to display it on the BigFix Inventory reports. You can enable the default scan configuration during the configuration of BigFix Inventory connections to the databases or when adding another data source.
  - Manual scan configuration
    Manual scan configuration is advised for environments with more than a few thousand computers. It requires that analyses are activated and software and capacity scans as well as uploads of their results are scheduled manually after the installation. These actions are necessary to collect data from the computers in your infrastructure and display in on the BigFix Inventory reports. Flexibility of the manual scan configuration allows for avoiding performance issues that might occur when you scan too many computers at the same time.
    - Distribution of scans for improved performance
      Performance of importing data from the BigFix server to Bigfix Inventory depends on the number of scan files, usage analyses, and package analyses that are processed during a single import. By properly scheduling scans and distributing them over the computers in your infrastructure, you can reduce the length of the data import.
    - Step 1: Activating the analyses
      An analysis is a collection of property expressions that is used to view and summarize properties of computers in your infrastructure. Some of the analyses are required to discover installed software and must be activated all the time. Other analyses are used only in specific scenarios or for troubleshooting purposes and can be activated according to your needs.
    - Step 2: Installing the scanner
      The scanner collects hardware information as well as information about files and packages that exist on the computers in your infrastructure. Install the scanner on every computer on which you want to detect software. If you enabled the default scan configuration, the scanner is installed automatically and this configuration is not required.
    - Cleanup Scanner Installations
    - Step 3: Initiating software scans
      During the software scans, the scanner collects information about files with particular extensions, package data, and software identification tags to evaluate whether particular software is installed on the computers in your infrastructure. It also gathers information about the running processes to measure software usage. By default, software scans are scheduled to run regularly but you can specify the exact days and times of the scans, or modify their start and end dates.
    - Step 4: Uploading software scan results
      When the software scan finishes, its results must be uploaded from the computers in your infrastructure to the BigFix server. To ensure that software inventory data is up-to-date, software scans and uploads of their results should run on a similar schedule.
    - Step 5: Collecting hardware information and capacity data
      The hardware information and capacity data concern information about your processors, and the processor capacity that is assigned to each computer. You can review the information on the Hardware Inventory report. The hardware and capacity data is essential to calculate processor-based metrics, for example PVU.
  - Advanced scan configuration
    After you successfully schedule software and capacity scans and the scan data is displayed on the BigFix Inventory reports, you can further customize the scans. For example, you can exclude directories from software scans or scan remote shared file systems.
  - Discovering software and hardware on IBM i
    Available from 9.2.5. You can discover software and hardware inventory on IBM i systems by using disconnected scans that do not require direct connection between the scanned computers and BigFix server. Scripts that are provided in the disconnected scanner package initiate software and capacity scans, and prepare scan results that you later on upload to BigFix Inventory.
- Performing optional configuration
  You can perform optional configuration tasks to further customize the application.
- 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

Activating the analyses

An analysis is a collection of property expressions that is used to view and summarize properties of computers in your infrastructure. Some of the analyses are required to discover installed software and must be activated all the time. Other analyses are used only in specific scenarios or for troubleshooting purposes and can be activated according to your needs.

About this task

If you enabled the default scan configuration, the required analyses are activated automatically and this configuration is not required.

Procedure

Log in to the BigFix console.
In the navigation tree, click Sites > External Sites > BigFix Inventory > Analyses.
To activate an analysis, right-click it, and click Activate.
To ensure that the installed software is properly detected, activate the following analyses on all computers in your infrastructure:
- Installed UNIX Packages
- Installed Windows Applications
- Software Scan Status
To measure software usage, activate also the Application Usage Statistics analysis.

What to do next

Install the scanner on the computers on which you want to detect the software.