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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.
Key concepts
There are several concepts that will help you to understand how BigFix Inventory works and how to use it effectively.
Time handling
From version 10.0.6, contract values are calculated in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) time zone. Before version 10.0.6, BigFix Inventory used to calculate contract values in server OS's time zone for All Contract reports and in local time for edit contracts.

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.
- What's new in this release
  BigFix Inventory provides new features and enhancements that facilitate your work with the application. For more information, follow BigFix Forum - Inventory (Release Announcements).
- <discontinued> Updates and patches for BigFix Inventory up to version 10.0.13.1
  This page provides information about application updates released for BigFix Inventory.
- Keeping BigFix Inventory up-to-date
  BigFix Inventory updates and content packs are released periodically. Ensure that you upgrade the BigFix Inventory server with each release to take advantage of the new features and apply the application patches.
- Features and functions
  BigFix Inventory provides useful features for managing physical and virtualized environments. It discovers the software that is installed in your infrastructure, helps you to analyze the consumption data, and allows you to generate reports.
- Preview features
  BigFix Inventory provides a set of preview features that give you a chance to take a sneak peek at what we are currently developing and researching. Whether it is a small function or an extended report, you can check how it works and tell us about your ideas. The previews can change with each release, which means that you can still influence their final form.
- Limitations
  Review the list of BigFix Inventory limitations. For information on IBM limitations, refer to IBM limitations.
- Key concepts
  There are several concepts that will help you to understand how BigFix Inventory works and how to use it effectively.
  - Dashboard
    The dashboard provides with a quick access to information about deployments, scans, computers, and software assets in your infrastructure.
  - To Do list
    Available from 9.2.13. The To Do list provides you with information about items that might require your action including failed imports of data, availability of a new version of BigFix Inventory or the need to configure a connection to VM managers.
  - Extract, Transform, Load (ETL)
    The Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) is a process in the database usage that combines three database functions that transfer data from one database to another. The first stage, Extract, involves reading and extracting data from various source systems. The second stage, Transform, converts the data from its original format into the format that meets the requirements of the target database. The last stage, Load, saves the new data into the target database, thus finishing the process of transferring the data.
  - Software and hardware discovery
    BigFix Inventory discovers hardware and software in your IT infrastructure.
  - Fixlets, tasks, and analyses
    Fixlets and tasks are central to BigFix platform. BigFix Inventory, as a part of this platform, uses them to perform required actions on selected computers. Fixlets and tasks define these actions and specify the criteria that make them relevant. Usually, an action is deployed with a simple click.
  - High-water mark
    Utilization of license metrics can fluctuate depending on the location and configuration of virtual machines in the physical environment. High-water mark is the peak in the utilization of a license metric by a product during the reporting period. It represents the number of metric units that are needed to license a product during that period.
  - Main background application tasks
    The main goal of BigFix Inventory is to generate PVU, and RVU audit reports based on the collected data. All calculations are done in accordance with PVU, and RVU license pricing rules that are described in the official subcapacity licensing documents.
  - Products, components, and bundles
    BigFix Inventory discovers software components, and bundles them to products basing on the data contained in the software catalog. Get familiar with these notions to understand the capabilities and performance of BigFix Inventory.
  - IBM Software licensing rules on public clouds
    IBM software that is installed on computers that run on public clouds is licensed according to the IBM BYOSL policy. To ensure that license metric utilization is properly calculated for such software, computers must be identified as running on public clouds.
  - Licensing of non-containerized Cloud Pak programs
    Available from 10.0.1 IBM Cloud Paks deliver IBM enterprise software and open source components in open and secure solutions that are easily consumable and can run anywhere. BigFix Inventory collects information about the utilization of license metrics by non-containerized products that are installed as part of IBM Cloud Paks.
  - Configuration parameters of the disconnected scanner (disconnected scenario)
  - Discovery of software in Docker containers
    Available from 9.2.5. Docker is a platform that allows for automating the deployment of applications inside software containers. BigFix Inventory discovers software that is installed inside Docker containers. It also measures license metric utilization of the discovered products.
  - Support for ISO/IEC 19770-2
    ISO/IEC 19770-2 is an international standard for creating software identification (SWID) tags. The tags are XML files that are used for discovering and identifying software. They are delivered with software products and contain unique product-related information such as its name, edition, version, whether it is a part of a bundle and more. SWID tags facilitate software discovery and the overall process of software asset management.
  - Discovering Mac software in BigFix Inventory
    With BigFix Inventory version 10.0.10, software discovery is extended on Mac endpoints or computers. The discovery is based on catalog-less mechanism and catalog entries are created automatically based on discovery results and algorithm/logic for Mac discovery.
  - Unicode
    Available from 9.2.3. Starting from V9.5, BigFix Platform has the capability to gather data from BigFix clients deployed with different code pages and languages, encode the data into UTF-8 format, and report it back to the BigFix server. As a result, regardless of the system and encoding that your clients use, the data is correctly displayed both in BigFix and in BigFix Inventory. This capability is useful when your environment has clients with different code pages and data that contains non-ASCII characters.
  - Time handling
    From version 10.0.6, contract values are calculated in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) time zone. Before version 10.0.6, BigFix Inventory used to calculate contract values in server OS's time zone for All Contract reports and in local time for edit contracts.
- Scenarios
  To understand the business goals that you can achieve with BigFix Inventory, familiarize yourself with the main user scenarios. Each scenario presents a real-life example of using the application and lists personas who are typically involved in achieving a business goal.

Time handling

From version 10.0.6, contract values are calculated in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) time zone. Before version 10.0.6, BigFix Inventory used to calculate contract values in server OS's time zone for All Contract reports and in local time for edit contracts.

Dates are shown in local time zone if no time zone is mentioned for a component. Dates are shown in UTC if the same is mentioned during the creation. For example, when creating a new contract, BigFix Inventory indicates that the considered time zone is UTC.

Example: All Metrics panel

In UTC In UTC, daylight saving does not impact the start and end time. In UTC, any computation for the date considers the start time as 00:00:00 UTC and end time as 23:59:59 UTC.

Example: Data Imports: A data import is scheduled in Central European Time (CET) for October, 14th 2021 at 03:00 PM (15:00). In UTC, the import is scheduled for 1:00 PM (13:00). This means that after switch to Winter time on October 31, 3:00 AM, data import will be still triggered at 1:00 PM (13:00) UTC, which mean that the import will happen at 2:00 PM (14:00) CET instead of 03:00 PM (15:00).
Example: Saved Reports: In Asia-Pacific time zone, at the start of the day, reports show data from 'previous day' and in Americas, at the end of the day, reports show data from 'next day'. To avoid this discrepancy, API calls are made based on the UTC time zone. When you select to view a report, the API converts the report in UTC and the report is shown in UTC.