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Managing software inventory and metric utilization
Learn how to classify the discovered software so that reports in BigFix Inventory reflect your entitlements and properly show utilization of license metrics by particular products.
Enterprise applications inventory
Software components are discovered by software scans. The scans correlate data that is collected from the computers with the content of the software catalog, and thus determine whether a component is installed. However, software scans do not discover details of some enterprise applications, for example licensable options of Oracle Database or editions of Microsoft Exchange. The details are discovered by dedicated fixlets. If you are interested in discovering additional details of enterprise applications, run the dedicated fixlets apart from scheduling software scans. Otherwise, running the fixlets is not required.
Assigning components to active BigFix products
With BigFix Inventory you can assign components to active BigFix products. After the first discovery of the component, you must manually assign the component to the respective product. When the same component is discovered again, it is automatically assigned to the same product that it was assigned earlier.

Managing software inventory and metric utilization
Learn how to classify the discovered software so that reports in BigFix Inventory reflect your entitlements and properly show utilization of license metrics by particular products.
- Software catalogs
  To correctly identify components of software products in your infrastructure, ensure that your software catalog is always up-to-date. Periodically import a new catalog that contains the most recent software products. Also, manually add products that are installed in your infrastructure but do not have corresponding entries in the catalog.
- Enterprise applications inventory
  Software components are discovered by software scans. The scans correlate data that is collected from the computers with the content of the software catalog, and thus determine whether a component is installed. However, software scans do not discover details of some enterprise applications, for example licensable options of Oracle Database or editions of Microsoft Exchange. The details are discovered by dedicated fixlets. If you are interested in discovering additional details of enterprise applications, run the dedicated fixlets apart from scheduling software scans. Otherwise, running the fixlets is not required.
  - Extended discovery of Oracle Database
    You can retrieve granular information about the edition (Standard or Enterprise), options, Management Packs (including Oracle Real Application Cluster, RAC), and user concurrent sessions of Oracle Databases that are deployed in your environment. When you combine this information with the collected hardware inventory data, you can use it to calculate the demand for Oracle Database licenses. The functionality is supported for Oracle Database 11.1, 11.2, and 12.1.
  - Discovering Microsoft Exchange edition
    Available from 9.2.6. To retrieve detailed information about Microsoft Exchange servers that are installed in your infrastructure, run the Get Microsoft Exchange Edition fixlet. The data is collected, imported to BigFix Inventory, and displayed in the Software Installations report.
  - Measuring license metric utilization of VMware products
    Available from 9.2.7. BigFix Inventory allows you to retrieve granular information about license metric utilization of VMware vCenter and vSphere in your infrastructure. The resource utilization data is collected by the VM Manager Tool and displayed on the Resource Utilization report.
  - Discovering and measuring SAP
    You can discover components of SAP Business Suite that are installed on Linux and AIX computers in your infrastructure. You can also collect license metric utilization data from SAP landscapes and integrate it with your other resources on the Resource Utilization report. Discovery and measuring are two separate processes that do not impact each other.
  - Assigning components to active BigFix products
    With BigFix Inventory you can assign components to active BigFix products. After the first discovery of the component, you must manually assign the component to the respective product. When the same component is discovered again, it is automatically assigned to the same product that it was assigned earlier.
- Software classification
  After new components are discovered, they are assigned to products based on bundling rules. If the initial assignment does not reflect your entitlements, work with the software inventory until it matches the entitlements. To make metric calculation accurate, assign each component to a product, exclude, or suppress the instances that should not be included in the calculation, and confirm your actions. After you confirm the actions, the classification is complete, and the metric calculation is accurate.
- License metrics
  BigFix Inventory provides two types of information about license metrics utilization: aggregated utilization and raw utilization. The former shows utilization of the assigned license metric by all instances of a particular product within the reporting period. However, it is limited to a subset of license metrics. The latter shows data that is collected from .slmtag files. It shows raw utilization of all license metrics that can be used by a particular product. The data is not aggregated and requires further processing.
- Software license optimization
  BigFix Inventory helps you optimize your software licenses. You can analyze the software inventory in your environment and maximize the utilization of your assets. Learn how to minimize the costs of acquiring and maintaining licenses and track license compliance for the software products that are installed in your environment. You can verify the needs and requirements of your environment and then apply the most appropriate license model.
- Reports
  Reports provide detailed information about the computers in your infrastructure and the software items that are installed on these computers. You can decide what type of information you want to display by choosing the appropriate type of report. You can also customize the type and amount of information that is displayed in a report and save the report settings to reuse them.
- Contracts
  You use contracts to track license compliance for the software products that are installed in your environment. When you purchase a software license, you create a contract that contains information about the cost of acquiring and maintaining the license, and the period of entitlement. You use that information to track spending that is associated with software licenses and manage costs of extending or downsizing licenses for the software products. You can also avoid costs that are related to license non-compliance by ensuring that enough software licenses are purchased.

Assigning components to active BigFix products

With BigFix Inventory you can assign components to active BigFix products. After the first discovery of the component, you must manually assign the component to the respective product. When the same component is discovered again, it is automatically assigned to the same product that it was assigned earlier.

About this task

To apply automated component assignments, complete the following steps:

Categorize the clients by running one of following fixlets:
- Categorize ClientDevice clients
- Categorize MVS clients
- Categorize RVU clients
Check "License Overrides" analysis and displaying the current license metrics.
Run the "Distributing the site mapping file" fixlet.
Run the "Generating the license tags" fixlet.

You must run the "Initiate Software Scan" and "Upload Software Scan Results" fixlets so that the newly discovered components are visible.

For information on activating license counting process, refer to Activating the license counting process.

What to do next

You can discover the new components by clicking Software Classification > Current Installations.

Newly discovered components shown under Current Installations