All Inventory

FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 (On-Premises Edition)
The Discovery & Inventory > All Inventory page (in the Inventory group) displays the inventory records of all devices for which hardware inventory information has been reported. These include:
  • All inventory devices with a status of either Active or Ignored
  • Devices linked to retired or disposed assets.
Exceptions: The following devices are not displayed on this page:
  • Inventory devices that you have deliberately deleted from an inventory device listing (such as this page), and that were not linked to an asset record at that time.
  • Inventory devices that you attempted to delete (or which disappeared from all current inventory sources), but which may have historical impact on the calculation of points for IBM PVU licenses. These devices have a status of Archived while they are required for recalculation of PVU points over time, and are automatically deleted when they are no longer relevant. While archived, they are available in the Discovery & Inventory > Archived Devices page.
  • Remote devices, which are not devices that can be inventoried, but incomplete 'placeholder' devices created to track remote access such as through a Citrix XenApp server. Remote device records are available by navigating to Discovery & Inventory > Virtual Devices > Remote Devices.
  • Virtual desktop templates, which are also not true inventory devices, but are available through Discovery & Inventory > Virtual Devices > Virtual Desktop Templates.
For listed inventory devices, an alert flag next to the device name indicates the number of issues associated with the device. Hover over the flag for a tooltip summary of the issue(s).

If you decide to manage your hardware assets through FlexNet Manager Suite, you can link asset records (create new or link existing) to their respective inventory device records.

This page enables you to perform the following actions on inventory device records:

  • Search for an inventory device: For more information about using lists, filters, and other UI options, see the topics under Using Lists in FlexNet Manager Suite.
  • Create an inventory device: See Create an Inventory Device.
  • View or change the properties of an inventory device: See Create an Inventory Device.
  • Multi-edit shared properties of several inventory devices: Devices you select must have the same value for Inventory device type and also for Compliance status, and then you can click Open to show their shared properties.
  • Delete an inventory device: See Deleting an Inventory Record.
    Note: Deleting a record updates the database immediately, as expected. However, if FlexNet Manager Suite is in 'high-frequency mode' (or 'PVU mode', responsible for sub-capacity points calculations in place of ILMT) and the inventory device is consuming from any IBM PVU licenses, the device record is not actually deleted straight away (and a different database update is performed instead, as follows). This is because IBM PVU licenses require retrospective calculation of consumption points for the entire reporting period (and this calculation is reworked from scratch as part of the nightly full compliance calculation), so that removing the device record while it should still influence those retrospective calculations would introduce an audit risk. Therefore, instead of being deleted immediately, devices still required for those calculations are given an Archived status (and immediately moved to the Archived Inventory page). An Archived device acts just like a deleted one in every way except its continued availability for retroactive corrections and retrospective calculations. Archived devices are automatically deleted once they can no longer affect consumption in the data retention period.
  • Ignore an inventory device: See Ignoring an Inventory Record.
  • Activate an inventory device: See Activating an Inventory Device.
  • Ignore alerts for an inventory device: See Ignoring Alerts.
  • Create an asset: To create an asset linked to an inventory record, select the inventory record, click Create an asset, and select the type of asset. The asset record is automatically created and linked to the selected inventory device record. You may also select multiple inventory devices, as long as you want to create the same kind of asset record for all selected devices.
    Tip: The Create an asset button is disabled when all your selected inventory devices are already linked to asset records (check the Linked asset column).
  • Link an inventory device to an asset: See Linking an Inventory Record to an Asset Record.
  • Remove the linked asset: Select the inventory record and click Remove link to remove the linked asset from this inventory device. This step is mandatory to ignore an inventory device.
  • Create a management view: The Save view as feature of FlexNet Manager Suite enables you to create customized management views of a page by saving the applied user interface settings. For more information, see Creating Management Views.

This page displays the following columns (listed alphabetically). Some columns are displayed by default and others can be displayed through the column chooser. To manage columns and other UI options, see the topics under Managing Columns in a Table.

Tip: The custom properties that you have added for this object are also available through the column chooser. Like other properties, you can also use these properties for filtering and grouping records on this page.
Table 1. Properties listed on the All Inventory page:
Field Description
Assigned user

The user assigned to this device. This assignment overrides the Calculated user.

Editable in the Assigned field in Ownership tab of the inventory device properties.

Calculated user
The name of the most frequent user of this inventory device, over the previous 10 inventory collections. This value is calculated as follows:
  • If there is only one primary user linked to the inventory device, this user is recorded
  • If there are multiple primary users linked to the inventory device, the most frequently logged in user is recorded
  • If there is no primary user associated with the inventory device, the last user to logon is recorded.

The value of this field is automatically generated by FlexNet Manager Suite.

Not available when you create an inventory device manually.

Category

The category of this device. FlexNet Manager Suite enables you to create customized categories to group inventory devices logically. These categories are additional to Inventory device type and Device role categorization. For example, you can create categories to differentiate database servers, network servers, or firewalls. The custom categories have no impact on license consumption.

Editable in the General tab of the inventory device properties.

Clock speed (MHz)

The maximum clock speed (in MHz) of the processor that is installed in the inventory device.

Editable in the Hardware tab of the inventory device properties (for manually-created records). If the value is gathered from inventory, it cannot be edited; however, it can be overridden.

Compliance status
Indicates the compliance status of an inventory device. It can have any of the following values:
  • Changed — Indicates a change in the compliance status of an inventory device. This value is changed automatically when the following conditions are met:
    • The inventory device has a linked asset.
    • You have defined the device compliance settings to track any changes in the hardware properties of this device.
    • There is a change in the hardware properties for which the device compliance settings have been defined. This change can be manual or a result of a new inventory import.
  • Compliant — The inventory details reported in the last inventory import match those of previous imports, or any changes to those details have been approved. For details about reviewing or approving changes to assets, see Viewing and Accepting the Changes to a Device Asset.
  • New — The default value for all newly imported devices. This value is not changed until there is a change in the hardware configuration or an asset is linked to this device.
  • Not tracked — Indicates that the device is no longer tracked for compliance. This may happen when an inventory import leads to a duplicate device record with some change in its properties.

The value is calculated by FlexNet Manager Suite and can be manually set on the General tab of the inventory device properties.

Connection name

The name of the connection through which FlexNet Manager Suite received the last inventory for this inventory device.

Not editable.

Cores

The total number of processor cores available in a physical inventory device; or the number of cores assigned to an inventory device that is a virtual machine.

Populated and (by default) updated by inventory imports, the number of Cores can be manually overridden in the Hardware tab of the inventory device properties (see Hardware Tab).

Corporate unit

The corporate unit responsible for the inventory device.

Editable in the Ownership tab of the inventory device properties.

Cost center

The cost center responsible for all costs incurred for this inventory device.

Editable in the Ownership tab of the inventory device properties.

Created
The date when this inventory record was created in FlexNet Manager Suite.
Tip: New inventory device records are created during a full import to the compliance database, as new inventory is identified. Therefore it's quite possible to have a creation date that is later than the inventory date, with the difference being due to scheduling, such as the scheduling of imports from third-party tools, or delays between the upload of FlexNet inventory and the full import and compliance calculations (for example, if your full imports are scheduled weekly, or the like).

Not editable.

Creation method

Identifies how this inventory device record was created. The possible values are Automatic (for devices discovered in incoming inventory), Manual and VM Host.

FlexNet Manager Suite generates the value of this field.

Disk (GB)

The total space of all hard drives installed in the inventory device, in Gigabytes.

Editable in the Hardware tab of the inventory device properties (for manually-created records). The value is overwritten (permanently) by incoming inventory, and thereafter is read-only.

Not editable for existing inventory devices.

Display adapters

The total number of display adapters installed in the inventory device.

Editable in the Hardware tab of the inventory device properties (manually-created records). The value is overwritten (permanently) by incoming inventory, and thereafter is read-only.

Not editable for existing inventory devices.

Domain name

The name of the domain to which the computing device belongs.

Editable in the General tab of the inventory device properties for manually created records. The value is overwritten (permanently) by incoming inventory, and thereafter is read-only.

Hard drives

The total number of hard drives installed in the inventory device.

Editable in the Hardware tab of the inventory device properties (for manually-created records). The value is overwritten (permanently) by incoming inventory, and thereafter is read-only.

Not editable for existing inventory devices.

Host

Identifies the name of the host when this inventory device is a virtual machine.

Editable in the VM Properties tab of the inventory device properties.
Note: As long as incoming inventory does not identify the host for this virtual machine, your manual entry is preserved (that is, a null value in inventory never overwrites a manually-entered value). However, once inventory returns a known host for this virtual machine, your value is overwritten with the data from inventory. Should it happen that future inventory again returns no value for the host name, the previous inventory value in this field is cleared, matching the current inventory data.
Hosted in

Shows whether the inventory device is on-premises (the default, meaning the device is within your enterprise), or in a cloud operated by a particular service provider. For some cloud service providers, the Hosted in value is set automatically through inventory (AWS is supported from version 13.1.0 of FlexNet inventory agent, and Azure is supported from version 13.2.0). For other cloud service providers, you must make a selection manually.

Editable in the General tab of the inventory device properties.

Hosted in cloud

Indicates No if the inventory device is hosted on-premises (within your enterprise). Indicates Yes if the inventory device is hosted in the cloud by a cloud service provider. Most inventory devices hosted in the cloud are virtual machines; but this value is available for all inventory devices, because some cloud service providers also rent entire machines (for example, AWS provides dedicated hosts and bare metal instances). This is a convenience column for grouping/filtering inventory devices that are hosted in the cloud. The name of the cloud service provider for each inventory device is available in the Hosted in column.

Not directly editable; but the cloud service provider can be specified in the Hosted in field in the General tab of the inventory device properties for a virtual machine. When that property is set to any value other than On-premises, this Hosted in cloud column displays Yes.

IBM region
Shows, for each device, the region in which its PVU points are included (or, if the device is not yet assigned to a region, Unknown region is displayed, and this should be corrected as soon as practical). This is one of the three regions of the world that IBM makes mandatory for reporting points consumption on IBM PVU licenses.
Tip: In any list of inventory devices, a virtual machine shows the IBM region linked to its host server. This is because an IBM PVU license licenses the host, and therefore the total consumption for the host is rolled up into the IBM region that is linked to the host (through its owning location). This total consumption of PVU points includes both software installed on the host and/or on any guest VMs running on that host. (In contrast, if the host for the VM is unknown, the VM displays its own properties, so that in this case, the location and its mapped IBM region are those from the orphan VM.)

Locations can be assigned to IBM regions through the Enterprise > Locations page; and assignments of devices to locations are made in the Ownership tab of the inventory device properties.

Inventory chassis type

The chassis type for an inventory device, as reported by the inventory process.

This value cannot be edited, however you may override it with the Assigned chassis type setting.

Inventory device type
Specifies the type of the inventory device, which may be any of the following values:
  • Computer — A computing device like a desktop, laptop, workstation, or a non-virtualized server.
  • Mobile device — A mobile device like a tablet or smart phone.
  • Remote Device — The device is a remote device (not appearing in inventory) known to have accessed virtualized applications. This value is created automatically.
  • VDI Template — The VDI template used to create the virtual desktop instance that was accessed from an inventory device (see Virtual Desktop Templates). This value is created automatically.
  • Virtual Machine — A virtual machine running on a physical host machine. A physical host can run multiple virtual machines using virtualization technologies from VMWare, Oracle, Microsoft, and so on.
  • VM Host — A physical virtual host running one or more virtual machines using any virtualization technology, such as VMWare.

The Inventory device type field is editable in the General tab of the inventory device properties. The value may be overwritten by incoming inventory.

IP address

The IP address of the inventory device. For inventory devices with multiple IP addresses (for example, those with multiple network cards), a comma-separated list (up to 256 characters) is shown. IP addresses in the IPv6 address family are not reported in FlexNet inventory for devices running UNIX-like operating systems.

Editable in the General tab of the inventory device properties.

Last inventory date

The date when the last inventory information was collected by the Last inventory source for this inventory device.

The inventory process generates the value of this field.

Last inventory source
If you have multiple overlapping inventory sources that report on the same device, it is possible for some inventory details to come from one source and other details from another source. This column identifies the most recent source of inventory that reported the majority of the hardware properties for this device. If you have declared a primary inventory connection and this device appears in inventory from that primary connection, it is likely that your primary connection is supplying the majority of hardware properties, and so is shown here.
Tip: If your primary source reported the majority of hardware properties some time ago, and since then one or more secondary sources have updated a minority of additional properties, this value still shows the primary source (source of the majority of hardware properties). Tracking the primary source is particularly valuable if you have a variation from IBM allowing you to use FlexNet inventory agent and FlexNet Manager Suite as replacements for IBM tools (such as ILMT) in the calculation and reporting of sub-capacity licensing for IBM PVU licenses. That agreement requires that you can demonstrate that the Last inventory source is FlexNet Manager Suite, and that this source is reporting every 30 minutes.
The values are system-provided, and cannot be modified. Most values are self-explanatory; some less obvious ones include:
  • Data Platform — the inventory was imported from Flexera Normalize (previously BDNA Normalize, part of BDNA Data Platform)
  • ManageSoft — the inventory was collected by legacy versions of the FlexNet inventory agent, and saved in a separate inventory database
  • Manual — you created this inventory device record manually, and no matching inventory has been received yet.
  • SMS — the inventory was imported from Microsoft SCCM (previously known as SMS)
  • Tivoli Endpoint Manager — inventory was imported from IBM Big Fix, or one of its earlier renamings (IBM Endpoint Manager, Tivoli Endpoint Manager).
Tip: If you have custom inventory adapters, entries for these may also appear in this column as appropriate.

Not editable.

Last logged on user

The name of the user that was discovered to be the last logged on user on this device.

Editable by clicking the linked full name in the Last logged on field displayed in the Ownership tab of the inventory device properties.

Not available when you create an inventory device manually.

Linked asset
The name of an asset, if any, that the device is linked to.
Tip: If the status of the linked asset is set to Retired (in the asset properties), the linked inventory device remains visible in the All Inventory list, but is suppressed in the Out-Of-Date Inventory list, regardless of how long it is since the device reported inventory.

The link between an inventory device and an asset is editable in the General tab of the inventory device properties.

Location

The location within your enterprise that is responsible for the device.

Editable in the Ownership tab of the inventory device properties.

MAC address

The Media Access Control (MAC) address of the inventory device. If a device has multiple network interface cards, this field displays a comma-separated list of MAC addresses.

Editable in the General tab of the inventory device properties (for manually-created records).

Manufacturer

The manufacturer of the inventory device.

Editable in the General tab of the inventory device properties (for manually-created records).

Model

The manufacturer’s model name or number for this device.

Editable in the Model field in the General tab of the inventory device properties (for manually-created records). If the value is gathered from inventory, it cannot be edited, however it can be overridden by entering a new value in the Overridden field in General tab of the inventory device properties. The original value continues to display on the General tab, alongside the overridden value, and may be restored at any time.

Name

The name of the device. The compliance calculation updates this field with the machine name returned in inventory (matched by serial number).

Network cards

The total number of network cards installed in a physical inventory device; or the number of network cards accessible by a Virtual machine.

Editable in the Hardware tab of the inventory device properties (for manually-created records).

Operating system
The operating system running on this device.
Tip: This value may be blank because:
  • The device is recently discovered – the operating system can only occasionally be populated during first discovery, and is often backfilled once inventory is returned for this device.
  • The device is a VM host that is a hardware frame that may not be running its own operating system. In this case, the computer Name field is set to a serial number associated with the hardware (because, without an operating system, there is no host name). In fact, no inventory of any kind is possible without an operating system, so FlexNet Manager Suite synthesizes the VM host record from common data reported by its guest VMs. The virtual machines in these cases may typically be partitions like:
    • LPARs running on IBM PowerPC servers
    • Solaris zones on either x86 or SPARC architectures
    • nPar or vPar partitions running on HP Integrity servers.

Editable in the Hardware tab of the inventory device properties (for manually-created records).

Overridden

Indicates whether the operator has manually changed one or more properties discovered in inventory, or if the inventory details are unchanged for this inventory device.

FlexNet Manager Suite generates the value of this field.

Partial number of processors

The equivalent number of full-time processors set by the time-sharing controls on the hardware console. Some virtualization technologies (such as on IBM's AIX operating system) report this setting in inventory. You may override an incorrect inventory value for this field.

Populated and (by default) updated on virtual machines by inventory imports, this field in the Hardware tab of the inventory device properties (only for virtual machines) can be overridden with a manually entered value. An overridden value is no longer updated by incoming inventory.

Pool

The name of the resource pool the virtual machine is in.

Not editable. FlexNet Manager Suite generates the value of this field.

Processor type

The type of processor installed in the inventory device.

Populated and (by default) updated by inventory imports, this value can be manually overwritten in the Hardware tab of the inventory device properties (see Hardware Tab).

Processors

The total number of processors installed in a physical inventory device, or logical processors assigned to a Virtual machine.

Populated and (by default) updated by inventory imports, this field in the Hardware tab of the inventory device properties can be overridden with a manually entered value (see Hardware Tab). Overridden values are no longer updated by incoming inventory.

RAM (GB)

The size of Random Access Memory (RAM) installed in the inventory device, in gigabytes.

For manually-created records, this is editable in the Hardware tab of the inventory device properties. The value is overwritten (permanently) by incoming inventory, and thereafter is read-only.

Recommended asset link

Displays a link to an asset that is recommended for this inventory device. If you click the link, FlexNet Manager Suite connects this inventory device to the recommended asset.

Not editable.

Role

The role assigned to the inventory device, such as Development, Test, and Production. Device roles (where permitted by the product use rights on a license) can exempt devices from consuming entitlements on a license to which they are (and remain) attached. For example, some license agreements may grant an exemption for devices used exclusively for testing. For more details, see Exemptions.

Editable in Device role field in the General tab of the inventory device properties.

Serial number

The serial number of the device, attempting to uniquely identify either the hardware (for a stand-alone device) or the virtualization container (for a virtual machine). For records created automatically (or updated) from incoming inventory, this is as reported in inventory.

For manually-created inventory device records, this value is editable in the General tab of the inventory device properties. This value is not editable for records created or updated from collected inventory.

Service pack

The service pack number or ID reported by the operating system.

For manually-created records, this is editable in the Hardware tab of the inventory device properties. The value is overwritten (permanently) by incoming inventory, and thereafter is read-only.

Sockets

The total number of mounting sockets for central processing units (CPUs) available in a physical inventory device. For a Virtual machine, this may be the number of virtual sockets assigned to the VM.

Editable in the Hardware tab of the inventory device properties. If it is not available from your hardware inventory, or if the value is inaccurate, you can permanently override the inventory data with a manual value.

Status
Indicates the current state of a device. It can have any of the following values:
  • Active — A device for which the inventory information is received from an inventory source.
  • Archived — This device is in transition pending deletion, but is currently held because of its historical impacts on IBM PVU sub-capacity retrospective calculations.
  • Awaiting Inventory — This device is a place-holder that has not yet appeared in imported inventory from any source.
  • Ignored — The device that is not managed. An ignored device is not considered in license consumption calculations.
    Tip: If an inventory device is linked to an asset record, and that asset is given a status of either Retired or Disposed, this Ignored value is automatically set for the linked inventory device.

Provided that the inventory device has not [yet] been linked to an asset record, this value is editable in the General tab of the inventory device (although Awaiting Inventory is no longer available once inventory has been collected for the device, and Archived can never be set manually).

Threads

The total number of threads available in a physical inventory device; or the number of logical processors (virtual processors in a virtual machine, or threads assigned to a partition) assigned to an inventory device that is a virtual machine.

Populated and (by default) updated by inventory imports, this field in the Hardware tab of the inventory device properties can be overridden with a manually entered value (see Hardware Tab).

VM name

The name of the virtual machine that is recognized by the host server. This value is visible in the properties of the VM host, in the Virtual Machines tab, in the VM name column.

Editable in the VM Properties tab of the inventory device properties. The compliance calculation updates this field with the machine name returned in inventory (matched by serial number).

VM type

The type of the virtual machine.

For manually-created records, this value is editable in the VM Properties tab of the inventory device properties for the Virtual machine. The value may be overwritten by incoming inventory.

Applicable only to inventory devices of the type Virtual Machine.