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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.
Additional tasks for improving performance
Learn about additional tasks that you might want to perform to improve the performance in your infrastructure.
Shortening the retention period gradually to avoid problems with growing database size
Since BigFix Inventory 9.2.1, retention period is set to 7 days in a fresh installation, so this procedure does not apply in case of fresh 9.2.1 installations. If you did not configure the retention period after installation in earlier versions of BigFix Inventory and the data accumulation continued for several months, you must enable and repeatedly change the data retention configuration to make the retention period as short as possible. With each successive import, the historical data is deleted gradually and thus problems with growing database size are avoided.

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.
- Setting up scans and import
  Learn how to improve the scanning and importing activities to optimize the performance in your infrastructure.
- Additional tasks for improving performance
  Learn about additional tasks that you might want to perform to improve the performance in your infrastructure.
  - Changing the mode of sorting bundling options on the Software Classification panel
    If the Software Classification panel runs slowly or the BigFix Inventory server is under a heavy load, you might want to change the mode of sorting bundling options.
  - Disabling the calculation of extended software aggregates
    You can noticeably reduce the length of data imports in very large environments if you disable the calculation of extended software aggregates. Software aggregates are pieces of data that are gathered during software scans on your endpoints and which are later processed during successive data imports. They are displayed on the Inventory Exploration report.
  - Shortening the retention period gradually to avoid problems with growing database size
    Since BigFix Inventory 9.2.1, retention period is set to 7 days in a fresh installation, so this procedure does not apply in case of fresh 9.2.1 installations. If you did not configure the retention period after installation in earlier versions of BigFix Inventory and the data accumulation continued for several months, you must enable and repeatedly change the data retention configuration to make the retention period as short as possible. With each successive import, the historical data is deleted gradually and thus problems with growing database size are avoided.
- Tuning performance in medium and large environments
  You can learn the possible causes of the most common performance issues in medium and large environments. Follow the tips and the known solutions to these issues to keep the system in good shape and avoid performance problems.
- REST API considerations
  You can use BigFix Inventory REST API to retrieve large amounts of data that is related to computer systems, software instances, and license usage in your environment. Such information can then be passed to other applications for further processing and analysis.

Shortening the retention period gradually to avoid problems with growing database size

Since BigFix Inventory 9.2.1, retention period is set to 7 days in a fresh installation, so this procedure does not apply in case of fresh 9.2.1 installations. If you did not configure the retention period after installation in earlier versions of BigFix Inventory and the data accumulation continued for several months, you must enable and repeatedly change the data retention configuration to make the retention period as short as possible. With each successive import, the historical data is deleted gradually and thus problems with growing database size are avoided.

About this task

For information about how to configure the retention period in the product web user interface, see Configuring data retention period for raw utilization data.

Note:

After this configuration was applied, the transaction log is used heavily because all the data is deleted in one transaction.
The database size is not decreased automatically. If you want to reclaim disk space that is occupied by database tables, run the command that is appropriate for your database management system.
If the data imports during which historical data was deleted failed, increase the retention period and run the import again.

Procedure

Determine the date of the first successful import.
Calculate the number of days since the first successful import. For example: If the import occurred 6 months ago: 6 months * 30 days = 180 days.
Set the retention period to begin 30 days after the first successful data import.
Example: 5 months * 30 days = 150 days.
Run the data import.
Set the retention period to begin 60 days after the first successful data import, that is, set the retention period to 120 days.
Example: 4 months * 30 days = 120 days.
Repeat the step as many times as necessary, each time decreasing the retention period by 30 days.
When the retention period is short enough, enter the target configuration of 7 days.