What's new in this release

• Removal of the legacy IBM Software Classification panel

  The IBM Software Classification was already deprecated and substituted with Software Classification panel in application update 9.2.13. At this point, the IBM Software Classification panel is entirely removed. The new Software Classification panel allows simple software classification and ensures better performance. It is fully customizable and allows you to create custom classification rules.

• End of support for MS SQL 2008 and 2008 R2 database for BigFix Inventory server

  The support for MS SQL 2008 and 2008 R2 database for BigFix Inventory server is sunset. It is related to Microsoft officially ceasing the support in July 2019. For more information, see: Prepare now for end of support in 2019 and 2020 (Microsoft). To upgrade to BigFix Inventory 9.2.17, first migrate to newer MS SQL version that is supported by BigFix Inventory. For the list, see: Software requirements.

You can additionally use drill down on Software Summary report to see the detailed information about the software instances that contribute to software usage through the related columns, for example, Used, Unused, Used in the Last Month and other summary columns. For more information, see: Available reports.

• BigFix Inventory reports information about the highest license consumption of FlexPoints over a specified reporting period for an entire FlexPoint bundle as well as the contributing products.
• You can view the license metric utilization trends for the entire bundle, as well as its components on the Metric Quantity History graph. The graph presents information about the values calculated by the system and the values that are declared by the user.
• Two new columns are now available on metric reports: Peak Date and Metric Quantity. For more information, see: Report columns.
• The All IBM Metrics report shows only license consumption on a bundle level. To see the detailed information about license consumption for the contributing products, drill down by clicking the name of the bundle.
• Audit snapshot is extended with an additional file that outlines the usage of FlexPoints in your environment. The flexpoints.csv file contains information about the FlexPoint bundles and the underlying products.

You can manually declare the metric quantity for selected license types for which BigFix Inventory does not calculate license metric utilization out of the box. You can also use this option to customize the metric quantity if needed. For more information, see: Setting and removing the declared metric quantity.

You can retrieve information about additional hardware parameters, such as the serial number, vendor, model, or type of the physical server. For more information, see: computer_hardware association.

By specifying the relevant criteria, you can create the custom rule which automatically suppresses the matching components in the future. For more information, see: Creating and managing custom rules.

• Support for new platforms and systems
  • Certified support for the newest BigFix platform updates: 9.2.18 and 9.5.13
  • Debian 9 x86 and x64
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 x86-64
  • SMBIOS3 on Linux
  • server on Windows 2019
  • server on MS SQL 2017 version 14.0.3162.1 for fresh installations

• Rails is upgraded to version 5.1.7 to maintain security.
• WebSphere Liberty Profile is upgraded to version 19.00.4 to maintain security.
• Update of the Xerces library to version 3.2.1 on AIX to keep the scanner secure and reliable.

The report provides an overview of software inventory in your environment. Each row in the report represents a set of software instances that are grouped by the selected columns. You can drill down the Software Summary report to view the details of the instances in a group. The report also provides software usage statistics that contain information about usage of the specific software based on the listed instances. You can check how many instances of a product within the group are used and how many are not. You can see an overview of software usage statistics from last month, last quarter, and last year. You can also track the number of software instances within the group for which software usage is monitored and for which it is not. For more information, see: Available reports.

BigFix Inventory introduces a new and improved method of reporting usage for Java Virtual Machine and Runtime Environments. Paths to Java processes that run on a computer are matched with paths in which the software is discovered. Based on this information, BigFix Inventory can determine exactly which Java instance was used. It is possible to distinguish between usage of BigFix and Oracle Java installed on a single computer. For more information, see: Monitoring and reporting software usage.

Software catalog in version 9.2.15 does not contain usage signatures for Java any more. To report usage of Java, upgrade the BigFix Inventory server to version 9.2.15.

• Support for new platforms
  • Windows 2019
  • Oracle SPARC-M8 processor
  • Ubuntu 18.04 on x86
• Support for new virtualization technologies
  • vCenter with external Platform Services Controllers (PSC) on different computers
  • Solaris Kernel zones on Oracle Solaris x86 and SPARC with nested virtualization. For more information, see: Client Installation on Oracle Solaris

The new version of the Software Installations report is introduced. The old report is deprecated and moved to the bottom of the Reports menu. It is planned to be entirely removed in the future. The new report view is based on the new data model and consistent with other reports. For more information, see: Available reports.

The To Do list is extended and additionally displays information about the outdated scanning actions that need to be restarted. For more information, see: 9.2.13 To Do list.

The look and feel of the user interface is refreshed. The reports are now more vivid with a new blue action bar, updated action icons and selected buttons.

Several improvements are introduced to simplify the navigation and usability of the selected management panels, including Users, Saved Reports, Advanced Server Settings and Contracts. You can use filters based on the available columns, and save the custom view as a predefined view. You can also export these reports to a CSV or PDF file.

Limitation: To filter the Contracts report by the All Computers computer group, use its English name regardless of the interface language. The name of this group is not translated.

You can filter reports and retrieve data from specified columns by using the matches exactly operator. This operator is used to exactly match two values, including upper and lowercase characters.

The names of report files that are exported, or received in a scheduled email follow a new, more meaningful naming convention. Additionally, the email subject contains the name of the predefined or custom report that is included.

The software catalog is extended to discover a number of new components from Citrix, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and other. To discover the components, ensure that you upgrade BigFix Inventory to version 9.2.15.

Names of the BigFix Inventory fixlets are extended with the information about the currently available version. By default, fixlet version is updated with each release of BigFix Inventory server. For more information, see: Ensuring currency of scanner actions and fixlets.

Rails is upgraded to version 5.0.7 to maintain security.

BigFix Inventoryreports utilization of the Registered User metric for Adobe Creative Cloud products. The information is extracted during regular software scans directly from computers where components of some Adobe Creative Cloud products are installed. Based on the scan results, the Registered User metric is calculated and its utilization is displayed on the All Metrics report. Detailed information about users is shown on the Software Users report.

Thanks to this feature, you can track licenses of Adobe CC products in BigFix Inventory to analyze trends, define thresholds and optimize costs by identifying users of unused instances. For more information, see: Software Users report and Registered User.

Information about the usage of Floating User metric is now available on the All Metrics report for BigFix Rational products. The calculations are available thanks to integration with BigFix Rational License Key Server. The usage is provided by the .slmtag files. For more information, see: Other IBM metrics.

You can now tag software components, or instances of the discovered software to classify them. The tags might, for example, emphasize the ownership of a software product, categorize it as a test or free of charge instance, or mark it as blacklisted or approved. For more information, see: Adding and removing tags.

The newest additions to the new BigFix Inventory dashboard include the summary of the most important inventory data, recent changes, discovery gaps, and security issues in one place. The dashboard is also extended with quick search that allows you to easily find information related to file hashes, file names, vulnerabilities and software inventory. For more information, see: Dashboard.

New predefined reports are available under the Software Classification, Scanned File Data and Computers reports. For more information, see: Available reports.

The end of support dates are automatically populated for Microsoft software that according to information provided on 20 November 2018 is announced to be out of support between 30 November 2015 and 1 November 2021.

Documentation provides best practices for configuring VM managers. For more information, see: Best practices for configuring VM managers.

The Software Catalog report is renamed to Products & Metrics. A link to Software Components report is added under Reports in the main menu.

Several improvements are introduced to simplify the navigation and usability of the VM Managers panel. You can filter the report by any available column, and save the custom view as a predefined view. You can also export the report to a CSV or PDF file.

The PUT operation on the /api/sam/v2/software_instances REST API allows you to define, change, or migrate your current software classification. It can be used to migrate your software assignments when moving clients between the instances of BigFix server. For more information, see: Classifying software (v2) and Tutorial: Migrating software assignments between two BigFix servers.

If you have custom tools or internal processes that use the software_instances REST API, you can now achieve your goals by using the v2/license_usage and v2/software_instances REST API. It is best to adjust the tools to use REST API in version 2. For more information, see: Mapping functions of the software_instances REST API.

The software catalog is extended to discover a number of new components from Citrix, Oracle, SAP and other. To discover the components, ensure that you upgrade BigFix Inventory to version 9.2.14.

Microsoft Edge is certified as a supported browser for BigFix Inventory. For more information, see: Software requirements.

• Oracle VM Server for x86 3.4.x
• Solaris Kernel zones on x86 without nested virtualization (not yet announced as BigFix subcapacity eligible). For more information, see: Client Installation on Oracle Solaris.
• SLES 11 for PowerVM on Power9 in Power8 compatibility mode.
• SLES 12 for PowerVM on Power9 in native mode.
• SLES 15 on Power9 with disconnected scanner in P9 native mode.

• To maintain security, Java is upgraded to the newest version: 8.0.5.25.
• WebSphere Application Server Liberty is upgraded to version 18.0.0.3.
• Update of the Xerces library to version 3.2.1 on Solaris Sparc and Solaris x86 to keep the scanner secure and reliable.

The session timeout specifies the period of user inactivity after which the session ends, and the user is required to log in again. Before it happens, you are notified that the session is about to end.

BigFix Inventory reports utilization of the Registered User metric for Microsoft Office 365. The information is extracted during regular software scans directly from computers where components of Office 365 are installed. Based on the scan results, the Registered User metric is calculated and its utilization is displayed on the All Metrics report. Detailed information about users is shown on the Software Users report.

Thanks to this feature, you can track licenses for Office 365 in BigFix Inventory to analyze trends, define thresholds and optimize costs by identifying users of unused instances. For more information, see: Registered User.

Additional IBM metrics that are based on the resource utilization data are displayed on the All IBM Metrics and All Metrics reports.BigFix Inventory scans computers in your infrastructure to find the software components that are reported with .slmtag files and then aggregates their metric quantity. For more information, see: Reported license metrics.

BigFix Inventory automatically detects all versions of a number of software components on Windows. These components include Internet browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Opera) as well as components such as Adobe Air, Adobe Flash Player, Slack, and other. The components are detected by generic signatures while their versions are automatically retrieved from files or packages that caused detection. Such an approach allows for avoiding catalog gaps and ensures full discovery currency.

FlexPoint is a license metric unit that can be used to determine the cost of IBM products that are purchased as part of FlexPoint bundles. Each product from a bundle is licensed based on a different license metric but all metrics are converted into FlexPoints. Products that are currently available as part of FlexPoint bundles are products from the IBM Cloud and IBM Analytics brands. For more information, see: IBM FlexPoints, and Classifying FlexPoint bundles.

The new security dashboard shows a preview of security features in the form of widgets. To view the dashboard, click Go to New Dashboard & Reporting on the home page. For more information, see: Dashboard.

BigFix Inventory displays information about the identifier of the shared processor pool under the Shared Pool ID column on the Hardware Inventory, Computers, Software Installations, Oracle Databases and Software Classification reports.

The /api/sam/v2/software_instances REST API is extended with two associations:

• cve that allows to retrieve information about Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) that were matched with a particular component through its detailed version
• release_component_lifecycle that allows to retrieve information about when a component reaches its end of support

You can filter reports and retrieve data from specified columns by using the is empty and is not empty operators.

BigFix Inventory server is now supported on MS SQL 2016 for fresh installations. If you used MS SQL 2016 with earlier versions of the product, see: Software requirements.

The software catalog is extended to discover a number of new components from Citrix, Symantec, Oracle and other. To discover the components, ensure that you upgrade BigFix Inventory to version 9.2.13.

The information about the end of support dates is refreshed for your BigFix software components for which the dates were announced since the last update of the list. The data is based on the information contained in BigFix Lifecycle in September.

• The import of VM Manager data is optimized to decrease the processing time.

• Java is upgraded to the newest version to maintain security.
• TLS 1.2 is enabled in BigFix Java by default.
• WebSphere Application Server Liberty is upgraded to version 18.0.0.2 to address CVE-2018-1553.
• Update of the Xerces library to version 3.2.1 on Windows to keep the scanner secure and reliable.

Starting from 1st October 2018, migration from License Metric Tool 7.x and Tivoli® Asset Discovery for Distributed 7.x will no longer be supported. The support will not be available regardless of the version of License Metric Tool 9.x or BigFix Inventory 9.x that you are using. For more information, see: End of support for migrating from LMT and TAD4D version 7.x.

BigFix Inventory introduces a detailed hardware scan that allows you to retrieve detailed hardware information related to memory, operating systems, storage, processors, partitions, network adapters, SMBIOS data, IP addresses and logical processor capacity data. You can use the collected information to report and monitor hardware in your infrastructure. The new scan gives you a clear overview of your physical assets. For more information, see: Detailed hardware scan.

Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) is a list of known security threats that are assigned identification numbers. BigFix Inventory uses CVE that is provided by the National Vulnerability Database to help you identify potential threats in your environment. In this release, BigFix Inventory presents initial integration with National Vulnerability Database as a preview feature. Thanks to the visibility of potentially vulnerable software, it is possible to identify and prevent potential threats. For more information, see: Preview: Checking Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs).

Common Platform Enumeration is a standardized naming scheme for software. This information is available in REST API for integration scenarios. BigFix Inventory uses the CPE dictionary to match CVEs and indicate known vulnerabilities in software products. You can analyze and compare the CPEs based on the data feeds provided by BigFix Inventory with other sources, such as CVEs that are available in the National Vulnerability Database. For more information, see: component_cpe association.

The end of support dates for selected BigFix software products and components for which the information has been announced are now available on the Software Classification panel. Additionally, a new Predefined End of Support column is available on the Software Components report. The column indicates whether the end of support date was provided by BigFix or was specified manually by a user.

Review Lite is a standard script used by the Oracle auditors to control the number of Oracle licenses within a company. BigFix Inventory allows you to automatically run this script on all computers in your environment. The results are interpreted by BigFix Inventory which provides you with an overview of the report that you are required to deliver to the auditors. For more information, see: Discovering usage of Oracle Database features.

Until now, remote shared disks could only be scanned with a manual procedure. With the newest release of BigFix Inventory, you can optimize this process and set up automatic scans. As a result, a single computer is designated to scan a specific shared disk and discover the installed software. The data is then automatically populated to all computers on which the same shared disk is mounted. For more information, see:Discovering software on shared disks.

Support for collecting SAP license metric utilization data is extended to License Administration Workbench (LAW) 2.0. LAW 2.0 allows the creation and storage of multiple consolidations. SAP Metric Data Collector uses these consolidations to display the SAP utilization data in BigFix Inventory. For more information, see: Collecting utilization of SAP license metrics.

BigFix Inventory allows you to specify the individual relation between a product and a component as charged or not charged. For example, when the existing relation between the component and the product is charged, but your license agreement states that the component is not charged.

When the software scan, capacity scan, or VM Manager Tool scan finishes successfully on a particular computer but its results are not uploaded to the BigFix server, you can force upload of the data. You can do it directly from BigFix Inventory without the need of accessing the BigFix console and running a separate fixlet for each type of scan. For more information, see: Troubleshooting problems with computers.

You can resume a connection to a VM manager that is in the Invalid credentials - suspended status by clicking the Resume button on the VM managers panel. For more information, see: Understanding the VM Managers panel.

Scanned File Data report displays the full version of discovered files. After upgrade, the data is imported to BigFix Inventory during a number of consecutive data imports to avoid performance issues. Each consecutive import contains data from 10000 computers.

The list of quick links under Help is updated with the link to Learning Resources on the BigFix Security Learning Academy. The site consists of video tutorials for the product.

BigFix Inventory provides end of support dates for BigFix software components as announced in BigFix Lifecycle. You can also specify the dates manually, both for IBM and non-IBM components. You can use this information to easily define license demand for the future. You can also use it for security purposes. For example, to determine whether software installed on a computer that is under investigation is still supported.

BigFix Inventory measures utilization of the Virtual Processor Core (VPC) metric. The metric is based on the number of virtual cores (vCPUs) that are available to the product. VPC consumption is reported on the physical server level as well as across servers similarly to other license metrics such as PVU. For more information, see: IBM Virtual processor core (VPC).

The Package Data report lists software packages that are discovered on the computers in your infrastructure. You can find out what is the name of every package, its version, vendor, description, and type. Every occurrence of the package is listed as a separate row on the report.

This application update introduces the Package Data Summary report. The report provides an aggregated view of the discovered packages with a number of times each package appears in the infrastructure. This number is a hyperlink that brings you to the detailed list of computers where the package is deployed.

From the Package Data Summary report, you can generate software signatures with one click. You can also select multiple packages and create signatures in bulk. As a result, the process of creating signatures from package data is simplified. You can easily create software signatures for up to 20 components at once. Additionally, the report provides information about which packages were already used as signatures so you can focus only on the remaining ones. For more information, see: Available reports and Creating signatures from package data.

Installed software components that are detected based on the presence of specific files are reported with a detailed version which is the same as the file version. The information is shown in the Component Detailed Version column on the Software Classification report. The information can help you decide whether versions of installed software components are covered by your entitlements and are in line with the company policy. It can also be used for security purposes. For example, to check whether the latest security patches are installed or whether versions with vulnerabilities exist in the infrastructure.

The software catalog is extended to discover a number of new components from Windows, Corel, Adobe, Symantec and SAP. To discover the components, ensure that you upgrade BigFix Inventory to version 9.2.11.

The process of updating the software catalog is simplified. You simply need to run the Software Catalog Update task that downloads the software catalog, and automatically uploads it to the BigFix Inventory server during the next import of data. Manual upload of the software catalog through the BigFix Inventory user interface is no longer needed. For more information, see: Updating the software catalog to ensure accuracy of software discovery and reporting.

The process of importing data from BigFix to BigFix Inventory is optimized thanks to using an improved schema of the BigFix database. The improved schema is enabled by default in fresh installations and during upgrades from earlier versions. The only requirement is to have the BigFix server in version 9.5.5 or higher.

When the imports of data are failing for a longer period of time, you can enable skipping certain import steps. In such a case, the import continues even if these steps fail. When the import finishes, it is marked as partial because only data from successfully completed steps is processed. Enabling partial imports allows for quicker system recovery after a problematic import and prevents accumulation of unprocessed data. For more information, see the description of the enable_partial_imports parameter in: Advanced server settings.

The Usage per Computer report shows product usage aggregated per computer so that you can easily identify where the product is deployed and how frequently it is used. Based on this information, you can decide whether you want to extend the license for this product or not.

For product suites such as Microsoft Office, the usage is reported for the entire suite rather than separately for Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and other components. By default, the report is calculated regularly after every import, but you can also configure it to be calculated on demand. For more information, see: Available reports.

This application update provides an end-to-end automation process for scheduling generation and retrieval of SAP license utilization reports by leveraging the provided ABAP plug-in. The process can now be handled entirely by the Administrator of BigFix Inventory without the need to engage the SAP Administrator.

Once the SAP license utilization reports are processed by BigFix Inventory, the related SAP license usage data is available on the Resource Utilization report. For more information, see: Measuring and collecting utilization of SAP license metrics.

You can easily add a custom product and the license metric that it uses to the software catalog. You can then assign the relevant components to this product so that your software classification is correct. For more information, see: Adding a new product to software catalog.

Part numbers that are available on Passport Advantage represent products that you purchased and license metrics that these products use. When you upload part numbers to BigFix Inventory, they affect the default assignment of components. Information about part numbers which caused that a component was assigned to a particular product is displayed on the Software Classification panel. The information gives you a better understanding of rationale behind the default classification that was proposed.

You can retrieve information about utilization of license metrics, query and set thresholds of the utilization as well as query and set values of custom fields by using the api/sam/v2/license_usage REST API. For more information, see: Retrieval of license metric utilization (v2) and Setting license metric thresholds and custom field values (v2).

You can also retrieve computer properties, including custom computer properties, by using the computer_details association for the api/sam/v2/computers REST API. For more information, see: computer_details association.

When hardware inventory data is not retrieved from a VM manager for more than 30 days, default PVU counting is applied and higher utilization might be reported. To allow the Infrastructure Administrator to troubleshoot problems with VM manager connection before they affect the reports, the Outdated VM Manager Data status is introduced. The status indicates that there are problems but license metric utilization is not yet affected. For more information, see: Computer statuses.

If some of your HP-UX computers cannot be managed from a central location due to security reasons, you can discover software and hardware inventory by using disconnected scans. Scan results are placed in files that can be later on used to import the collected data to the BigFix Inventory server. For more information, see: Discovering software and hardware with disconnected scanner on Windows and UNIX.

The number of partition cores that were assigned to a virtual machine when the peak of the metric value occurred is shown in the Partition Cores column on the All Metrics report and in the audit snapshot. You can use the information to better understand how particular VMs contributed to license metric consumption. For more information, see: Report columns.

The software catalog is extended to discover a number of new components from Oracle, SAP, and Red Hat. To discover the components, ensure that you upgrade BigFix Inventory to version 9.2.10.

You can optimize the process of importing data from BigFix to BigFix Inventory. The option is available for BigFix 9.5.5 and higher. To enable the feature, change the value of the schema_next parameter to true. For more information, see: Advanced server settings.

To avoid a situation in which the import of data fails due to deadlocks of SQL queries, the step during which the deadlock occurs is retried up to 5 times before the import fails.

BigFix Inventory supports software discovery on Docker containers under the Red Hat OpenShift container application platform. For more information, see: Discovery of software in Docker containers.

You can have reports of SAP license usage consolidated into BigFix Inventory by integration with the SLAW and USMM tools. The measurements from all SAP systems in the SAP landscape are transferred to the central SAP and combined into one SLAW report. You can integrate the report into BigFix Inventory so that utilization of license metrics for SAP products is shown on the Resource Utilization report. The capability is available for all SAP products that can be measured by SAP SLAW and USMM tools. For more information, see: Collecting utilization of SAP license metrics.

Reporting of Oracle Databases is extended to Solaris 10 and 11 for all discoverable versions. 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. For more information, see: Extended discovery of Oracle Database.

The software catalog is extended to discover a number of new components from Oracle, SAP, and Red Hat. To discover the components, ensure that you upgrade BigFix Inventory to version 9.2.9.

Below is the list of the newly added components. To learn about their exact versions, use the Software Catalog widget in BigFix Inventory to browse the catalog content.

• Added discovery capability for Oracle products
  • Oracle Business Process Management Suite
  • Oracle Database Gateway for APPC
  • Oracle Database Gateway for Informix
  • Oracle Database Gateway for Microsoft SQL Server
  • Oracle Database Gateway for ODBC
  • Oracle Database Gateway for Sybase
  • Oracle Database Gateway for Teradata
  • Oracle Database Gateway for WebSphere MQ
  • Oracle JRockit
  • Oracle Procedural Gateway for APPC
  • Oracle Transparent Gateway for DRDA
  • Oracle Transparent Gateway for Microsoft SQL Server
  • Oracle Transparent Gateway for Sybase
  • Oracle Transparent Gateway for Teradata
• Added discovery capability for SAP products
  • SAP Crystal Server
  • Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise
  • Sybase Enterprise Connect Data Access
  • Sybase IQ Server
  • Sybase Replication Server
• Added discovery capability for Veritas products
  • Veritas NetBackup Client
  • Veritas NetBackup Media Server
• Added discovery capability for CA Technologies products
  • CA Unified Infrastructure Management
  • CA Unified Infrastructure Management Snap
• Added discovery capability for Red Hat Technologies products
  • Red Hat JBoss Data Grid
  • Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
  • Red Hat Satellite Server
• Added discovery capability for AXWAY products
  • Axway Transfer CFT
  • Axway Transfer Interpel
• Added discovery capability for RES products
  • RES ONE Automation Agent
  • RES ONE Automation Console
  • RES ONE Automation Dispatcher

You can extend information that is related to software products by adding custom fields on the All Metrics report and its derivatives. The information can be of any type and therefore can help you better identify ownership and purpose of the discovered products as well as license management information such as purchase orders, product owners or other. After the information is added, you can use it to create filtering and grouping criteria such as contract name, placement, allocation, date, or other. For more information, see: Adding custom information to license metric reports.

The installed software components that are detected with software identification tags are reported with the detailed version, on condition that the tag collects this information. The information is shown in the Component Detailed Version column. It can help you decide whether versions of the installed software instances are covered by your entitlements and are in line with the company policy. It can also be used for security purposes, for example to check whether the latest patches are installed for security purposes. For the components that are discovered with other detection methods, the values in Component Detailed Version and Component Version columns are duplicated.

If some of your AIX computers cannot be managed from a central location due to security reasons, you can discover software and hardware inventory by using disconnected scans. Scan results are placed in files that can be later on used to import the collected data to the BigFix Inventory server. For more information, see: Discovering software and hardware with disconnected scanner on Windows and UNIX.

Package Data report is extended with information about which of the packages that are discovered in your infrastructure are already used as software signatures. Thus, it is easier to identify which packages can be used to extend software discovery. To narrow down the Package Data report to packages that can be used to create new software signatures, filter the Package Data report by the Recognized and Caused Detection columns.

You can overwrite the default key that is used to encrypt VM manager passwords or change the default password to the VM Manager Tool keystore. For more information, see: Improving security of storing VM manager passwords.

If your LDAP server uses load balancer that dynamically changes the list of hosts, and the connection between LDAP and the BigFix Inventory server is secure, set up the BigFix Inventory server to preserve certificates of the LDAP server.

The PDF reports that are generated in BigFix Inventory contain detailed information about the version of the application. The information can be helpful for troubleshooting purposes.

The Software Catalog column is replaced with a set of columns that define the organization that provides the definition of a component, product, publisher, release, signature and version. For more information, see: Report columns.

Rules of counting subcapacity licenses on PowerKVM systems were clarified and multithreading no longer impacts the number of reported cores. BigFix Inventory is adjusted to the change and thus the number of PVUs that it reports is lower. For more information, see: Subcapacity (Virtualization) License Counting Rules.

To ensure that the change in counting rules is reflected in BigFix Inventory, restart the Run Capacity Scan on Virtualization Hosts fixlet and run the import of data. The reported value might not change immediately, as the report shows the peak value.

BigFix Inventory measures utilization of the Single Physical Processor and Dual Physical Processor metrics for Microsoft Windows Server. You can use the information to calculate the license demand for this product. The feature is supported for Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter, Windows Server 2012 Datacenter, and Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter. For more information, see: Microsoft Single and Dual Physical Processor.

Reporting of Oracle Databases is enhanced by processing the core factor and measuring utilization of the Oracle Processor Core metric. You can use the information to calculate the license demand for Oracle Databases without the need to manually calculate core factors. The feature is supported for all discoverable versions of Oracle Database (Enterprise Edition). For more information, see: Oracle Processor Core.

To ensure completeness of software discovery, it is necessary to collect data from shared disks. The solution that was available in the previous application updates could be resource-consuming when shared disks were used extensively. The new solution is based on creating software templates which allows for limiting the impact of the shared disks scan on the performance of the infrastructure.

To report software that is installed on a shared disk, one of the computers on which the disk is mounted is scanned to create a software template. Then, the template is replicated within a computer group that contains other computers on which the same disk is mounted. For more information, see: Discovery of software on shared disks and Step 2b: Optimized mode - Manual scanning of remote shared disks.

To improve software discovery on Linux and Solaris systems, you can use files associated with processes that have been run on the computers in your infrastructure, regardless of their extension. These files, with supplementing information such as path and size, are available on the Scanned File Data report and can be used to create custom discovery and usage signatures for software components. For more information, see: File system scan.

To use this feature, you require the BigFix server and client in version 9.5.5 or higher. Collecting the files is enabled by default for new installations. If you are upgrading from earlier versions, restart the Initiate Software Scan actions, and start them again by using the new version of the fixlet. Ensure that you run the file system scan and application usage statistics scan.

The APIs are planned to substitute the following existing APIs: software_inventory and computer_systems. For more information, see: Retrieval of software inventory (v2) and Retrieval of hardware inventory (v2).

When your license terms define that a particular product uses a specific license metric but such a relation is not available in the software catalog, you can assign any of the license metrics available in BigFix Inventory to any of the products. It gives you more flexibility to accommodate the assignment of license metrics to products in accordance with your contract terms. For more information, see: Assigning an additional metric to a product.

To increase BigFix Inventory security, you can set conditions under which user account is locked. You can set the maximum number of failed login attempts, the period within which these attempts must occur for the account to be locked, and the period for which the account is locked. By default, user account is locked for 5 minutes after the user attempts to log in to BigFix Inventory more than 10 times within 5 minutes. For more information, see: Configuring user account lockout.

If some of your Solaris computers cannot be managed from a central location due to security reasons, you can discover software and hardware inventory by using disconnected scans. Scan results are placed in files that can be later on used to import the collected data to the BigFix Inventory server. For more information, see: Discovering software and hardware with disconnected scanner on Windows and UNIX.

When infrastructure management policy makes a process of deleting decommissioned clients in BigFix difficult or impossible, you can enable automatic decommissioning of inactive computers directly in BigFix Inventory. Inactive computers are then decommissioned after a specified period of time, and are no longer included in metric calculation. For more information, see: Automatically decommissioning inactive computers.

If you are asked to provide data for troubleshooting problems with computers in your infrastructure, you can run the Collect Logs from Endpoints fixlet, and provide the generated output to BigFix Support. The output contains log files needed for troubleshooting purposes. For more information, see: Troubleshooting problems with computers.

When a component that is installed in your infrastructure is not discovered, you can check signatures that are defined for that component in the software catalog. You can then use this information to troubleshoot software discovery. To find the list of signatures, use the Software Catalog widget and search for the component. The list of all signatures is displayed on the component details page. For more information, see: Troubleshooting software discovery.

VM Manager Tool is further enhanced to attempt to automatically fix common problems with the VM manager connection parameters. For example, it tries using a default port or a different URL suffix as well as changing the VM manager type. It also tries to correct more than one mistake at a time.

Browsing the Software Catalog report is improved so that it is more intuitive and consistent.

Information about operating systems and hypervisors that are supported by each component of BigFix Inventory including the server, the BigFix client, and disconnected scans is moved to the Software Product Compatibility Reports (SPCR). You can dynamically generate reports with information about specific operating system or hypervisor, as well as selected components. To view predefined reports generated per component and per operating system, see: System requirements.

You can install the BigFix Inventory server on Windows Server 2016. You can also identify computers as running on the Google Compute Engine public cloud. For more information, see: System requirements.

The software catalog is extended to discover a number of new components from Oracle, SAP, and Red Hat. To discover the components, ensure that you upgrade BigFix Inventory to version 9.2.8.

Below is the list of the newly added components. To learn about their exact versions, use the Software Catalog widget in BigFix Inventory to browse the catalog content.

• Added signatures for Oracle products
  • Oracle Linux
  • Oracle Data Integrator
  • Oracle JDeveloper
  • Oracle Service Bus
• Added signatures for SAP products
  • SAP SQL Anywhere Personal Database Server
  • SAP SQL Anywhere Network Database Server
  • SAP SQL Anywhere High Availability Option
• Added signatures for Red Hat products
  • Red Hat JBoss Fuse
  • Red Hat JBoss Developer Studio
  • Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
  • Red Hat JBoss Web Server
• Added signatures for TIBCO Rendezvous
• Added signatures for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications

The Software Classification panel introduces a new way of looking at software inventory and relations between the discovered components and licensable products. It provides a flat structure with software installations broken into single components, which makes it easier to view software assets and manage relations between them. The new panel provides functions such as reassigning, suppressing and sharing components, excluding products as well as confirming software classifications. The panel replaces the existing BigFix Software Classification panel. For more information, see: Software Classification panel.

When you are assigning a component, or excluding a product, you can create a custom classification rule that will be applied when the same component or product is discovered in the future. It allows for automating actions on analogical components or products, and facilitates the process of software classification. For more information, see: Creating and managing custom rules.

BigFix Inventory measures utilization of the Physical Core and Virtual Core metrics for Microsoft SQL Server. You can use this information to calculate the demand for Microsoft SQL Server licenses. The feature is supported for Microsoft SQL Server 2012, 2014, and 2016 (Standard and Enterprise edition) with Software Assurance. For more information, see: Microsoft Physical Core with SA and Microsoft Virtual Core with SA.

You can retrieve information about license metric utilization for VMware vCenter and vSphere. You can use this information to calculate the demand for VMware licenses. The data is collected by the VM Manager Tool and is displayed on the Resource Utilization report. For more information, see: Measuring license metric utilization of VMware products.

You can retrieve information about SAP components that are installed on Linux and AIX computers in your infrastructure. The discovery is supported for all SAP components that are based on SAP NetWeaver 7.x. For more information, see: Discovering SAP components.

The All Metrics report is extended to include information about the utilization of the Install Instances metric for BigFix products. You can see not only the current number of installed product instances, but also how that number changed over time. You can also set a threshold, to easily monitor when the number of installed instances exceeds your expectations. For more information, see: License metric utilization, and Reported license metrics.

The All Metrics report is extended to include not only products with license metrics for which utilization is calculated, but also all other BigFix products in your infrastructure. Even though metric utilization might not be calculated for these products, it gives you an overview of all IBM metrics for which you should have licenses. For more information, see: License metric utilization and Reported license metrics.

If there is no direct connection between some of the Windows or Linux computers in you infrastructure and the BigFix server, you can discover software and hardware inventory by using disconnected scans. 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. For more information, see: Discovering software and hardware with disconnected scanner on Windows and UNIX.

If you have a large number of VM managers to define, you can use REST API requests to add and change VM managers in your infrastructure. For more information, see: REST API for managing VM managers.

Custom part numbers can be assigned to products with custom deals, or any other software that is not included in the software catalog by default. Custom part numbers that you add are matched against the part numbers that you obtain from Passport Advantage to improve the accuracy of automated bundling. You can check which of your uploaded part numbers were matched against the catalog part numbers or custom part numbers on the Software Catalog report. For more information, see: Part numbers and Adding custom part numbers.

The bundling tags and part numbers rules are extended to increase the accuracy of automated bundling. The rules now use information contained in part numbers to assign components not only to proper products but also to proper license metrics. For more information, see: Bundling tags and Part numbers.

When a file signature used for discovering a component on Windows had size and version specified, the component was discovered only when both properties matched. Applications that are frequently patched required separate signatures for every patch. Currently, if a patch modifies only the size of the file signature, the signature will cause software discovery.

If your company has a security policy for user passwords, or you want to improve the application security, you can configure BigFix Inventory to require that user passwords fulfill specific requirements. By default, user passwords are required to be at least 8 characters long and contain one lowercase character, one uppercase character, and one digit. For more information, see: Configuring security policy for user passwords.

VM Manager Tool is enhanced to attempt to automatically fix the most common problems with the VM manager connection parameters such as adding default URL suffix, correcting the user name format, and testing the WinRM and PowerShell protocols for Hyper-V VM managers. For information about disabling this functionality, see: VM Manager Tool settings.

Look and feel of the user interface is updated for improved experience. The possibility of selecting all columns while configuring the report view is added.

You can use Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2016, Xen Hypervisor, Oracle VM, RHEV-M 3.6 as well as VMware vCenter, and ESXi 6.5 as supported virtualization technologies on selected operating systems. You can also install the BigFix client on AIX VIOS. For more information, see: System requirements.

The software catalog is extended to discover a number of new components from Microsoft, SAP, and Oracle. To discover the components, ensure that you upload the software catalog published in March 2017, and upgrade BigFix Inventory to version 9.2.7.

Below is the list of the newly added components. To learn about their exact versions, use the Software Catalog widget in BigFix Inventory to browse the catalog content.

BigFix Inventory measures utilization of the physical core-based licenses for Microsoft SQL Server. You can use this information to calculate the demand for Microsoft SQL Server licenses. The feature is supported for versions 2012, 2014, and 2016 (Standard and Enterprise edition). For more information, see: Microsoft Physical Core with SA.

You can retrieve information about editions of Microsoft Exchange Servers that are installed in your infrastructure and verify how many licenses are needed for each edition. For more information, see: Discovering Microsoft Exchange edition.

BigFix Inventory retrieves the number of user sessions that are registered into the Oracle Databases deployed in your environment, and provides their high water mark. You can use this information to calculate the demand for the Oracle Named User Plus license. For more information, see: Metering the number of Oracle Database concurrent sessions.

Information about application usage for software that is installed on Mac OS X is available on the Software Installations report. You can use this information to verify whether extension of license is needed for particular software instances based on their frequency of use.

To enable collecting application usage on Mac OS X, stop actions created by the Initiate Software Scan task that are currently running. Then, activate the Application Usage Statistics analysis, and start the package data and application usage statistics scans by using the updated task. For more information, see: Activating the analyses and Initiating software scans.

The All Metrics report is extended to include information about the utilization of the Install Seats metric for non-IBM products that are discovered by SWID tags. You can now see the number of installations of software that is discovered by SWID tags and for which the software catalog does not define license details. For more information about SWID tags, see: Support for ISO/IEC 19770-2. For more information about the Install Seats metric and the All Metrics report, see: License metric utilization.

During the upgrade, new versions of the software catalog and PVU table are uploaded to BigFix Inventory to ensure that the latest software is properly discovered and that new processors are correctly matched. The versions that are uploaded are the newest ones that were available during the release of the application update to which you are upgrading. For more information, see: Upgrading to BigFix Inventory 9.2.17.

The scanner cache folder is used to store information about scanned files and directories in your file system. By knowing the hierarchy of files, the scanner can locate them quicker, which results in shorter scans. The amount of disk space that is needed for the cache depends on the number of files that are being scanned.

Fresh installations of BigFix Inventory use the optimized cache which includes only files that are relevant for the types of software scans that you are running. The optimization results in a reduced size of the cache on the monitored computer. Scanner cache settings are not changed during the upgrade. For more information, see: Optimizing scanner cache configuration.

The Software Catalog report provides information about product part numbers and associated license metrics. Thus, you can check which products your part numbers represent and what license metrics they use. This information facilitates the process of software classification. You can also verify whether a particular part number is contained in the current software catalog, and thus influences automated bundling.

Documentation provides best practices for creating database backups. For more information, see: Backing up and restoring the database.

The BigFix client log contains information about versions of fixlets that were run on the specific computer. The information can be used for troubleshooting purposes, for example to determine whether the action should be restarted because it was created by an old version of the fixlet. For information about the location of client logs, see: Component log files.

Generation of CSV reports is now faster and consumes less resources.

You can detect software that is installed on Windows Server 2016, Ubuntu 16 for IBM Power Systems, and SUSE Linux 12 for IBM Power Systems on Little Endian Architecture. You can use XenServer and Citrix XenServer as supported virtualization technologies on selected operating systems. For more information, see: System requirements.

Information about non-IBM products that use the Install metric is available on the All Metrics report. You can see not only the current number of computers on which the product is installed but also how that number changed over time. You can also set a threshold, to easily monitor when the number of installed instances exceeds your expectations. For more information, see: License metric utilization.

Bundling tags facilitate the process of software classification allowing you to save time and effort related to analyzing to which product a particular component belongs. They contain information about the part number of a product to which the instance of a component should be assigned. Thus, they increase accuracy of the automated bundling. For more information, see: Bundling tags.

You can discover software that is installed on the IBM i systems. The discovery is based on a semi-automatic procedure that uses scripts to initiate software and capacity scans. Because there is no direct connection between the IBM i systems and the BigFix server, the scans that are initiated on these systems are called disconnected scans. Although the scans run automatically, you must perform several manual actions, such as installing the scanner, or uploading the results to BigFix Inventory. For more information, see: Discovering software and hardware on IBM i.

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 BigFix products. For more information, see: Discovery of software in Docker containers.

You can use BigFix Inventory to track the consumption of Virtual Processor Cores (VPC). VPC is a unit of measure by which a program can be licensed. It can be considered as a physical processor core, if the server is not partitioned for virtual machines, or as a virtual core assigned to a virtual machine. For more information, see: Determining the usage of Virtual Processor Cores (VPC).

Information about the duration of the software scan is available in the Software Scan Status analysis. You can use this information, for example, to review the scanner timeout settings or verify whether optimization is needed to reduce the length of the scan.

The Insufficient rights status indicates that no data was collected from the VM manager because the user that is defined for this VM manager does not have sufficient rights.

Information about the processor brand string is available on the Hardware Inventory report. It contains a full specification of the processor including its brand, model, and speed as read from the computer operating system. You can use this information to apply vendor Core Factor values.

When the import of software scan results fails, or when software is not reported properly on the Software Installations report, you can use the Force Reupload of Software Scan Results task to troubleshoot the problem.

You can choose whether you want to install the scanner in the default directory (on the C: or opt drive) or the directory where the BigFix client is installed. This option is useful, for example, when the security policy in your company does not allow for installing software on the C: or opt drive. For more information, see: Installing the scanner.

You can detect software that is installed on Debian 8 for x86 and Ubuntu 16 for x86. You can use z/KVM as a supported virtualization technology on SUSE Linux 12.

You can specify a metric threshold that is used to show how the metric consumption that you would like to maintain relates to the actual consumption. You can then schedule emails to be sent whenever metric consumption for any product exceeds the threshold. For more information, see: Setting license metric threshold.

If you encounter problems with panels and reports or think that some of them might be improved, you can quickly share your feedback by simply clicking the Send Feedback button that is in the top-right corner of the user interface. Each panel has a separate button that creates an email message with the panel name, version of the application that you are using, and your comment. For more information about other available communication channels, see: Give us feedback.

Preview features allow you to work with the newly implemented functions and to provide your feedback to influence their final form. These features are subject to BigFix Support. For more information, see: Preview features.

Information about the cluster to which a computer belongs is available on the Hardware Inventory report. Now, the information can also be retrieved through REST API. It can be then used, for example, to calculate license demand for Oracle or Microsoft. For more information, see: Retrieval of clusters.

You can enable an import that retrieves all software scan data from the restored BigFix database. Such an import is time-consuming and should be run only when problems with incomplete data occur after the database is restored. When you enable the option, the import runs once and returns to the normal operation mode. For more information, see: Database problems.

The scanner cache folder stores information about scanned files and directories in your file system. By knowing the hierarchy of files, the scanner can locate them quicker, which results in shorter scans. The amount of disk space that is needed for the cache depends on the number of files that are being scanned. If the current location of the cache folder cannot ensure sufficient disk space, you can optimize the cache. Thanks to the optimization, the cache includes only files relevant for the types of software scans that you are running. For more information, see: Optimizing scanner cache configuration.

When BigFix software is discovered with a software ID tag but is not in the current catalog, a warning sign is displayed on the Software Catalog widget. It indicates that a newer version of the catalog needs to be uploaded. For more information, see: Support for ISO/IEC 19770-2.

The BigFix client can be installed on Oracle Linux 7 and on Power Linux on the Little Endian architecture. Support is added for PowerKVM virtualization technology. Additionally, support for Multiple Shared Processor Pools is extended to Linux. For more information, see: System requirements

Starting from V9.5, the BigFix Platform can gather data from BigFix clients that are deployed in different geographical locations and thus use different code pages and languages. The data is encoded into UTF-8 format, and reported back to the BigFix server. As a result, regardless of the system and encoding that the clients use, the data is correctly displayed both in BigFix and BigFix Inventory. For more information, see: Unicode.

Checksums are long strings that describe the content of files and act as their fingerprints. You can enable the calculation of checksums for files on your computers to check their integrity and to ensure that they were not altered or tampered with. For more information, see: Collecting file checksums.

You can configure reports to be emailed to specified recipients regularly or when a specific number of rows is exceeded in the report. This option is useful for alerting the recipients about changes to the key data or when the recipients do not work with BigFix Inventory, yet must have access to the reports. For more information, see: Scheduling report emails.

The Scan Configurations panel is extended to allow for basic configuration of software scans per computer groups directly from the BigFix Inventory user interface. Use this method as an alternative to scheduling scans from the BigFix console.

The improvements give more flexibility and better management of data visibility in situations where computers are divided into groups and each group is managed by a different person. For example, in the service provider's environment or when computers are divided into regions or business units.

You can use a tool that moves the custom catalog content from Software Knowledge Base Toolkit to BigFix Inventory. Then, you can stop using Software Knowledge Base Toolkit and start managing the catalog content entirely in BigFix Inventory. Managing signatures in one application instead of two saves your time, facilitates the work, and reduces maintenance costs. For more information, see: Migrating Software Knowledge Base Toolkit.

You can use time filters to display data starting from or ending at a particular date. For example, you can view computers that were not seen within the last week or contracts for which maintenance ends within a month. When you combine this feature with conditional report emails, you get instant notifications about changes within your environment including reports on which data fulfills specific time conditions.

You can collect serial numbers of VM manager hosts and define the format in which the information is displayed on the reports. For more information, see: Advanced server settings.

When the import of capacity scan data fails, you can run a single capacity scan and force the upload of its results to ensure that the data on reports is refreshed. For more information, see: Initiating the capacity scan on all computers.

You can change advanced settings of the BigFix Inventory server, for example settings related to the configuration of the central VM Manager Tool, on the Advanced Server Settings panel. Additionally, a number of new parameters is added. For more information, see: Configuring advanced server settings.

In earlier versions of BigFix Inventory, the PVU per core value was adjusted by using a fixlet. Starting from this version, the fixlet is deprecated. The PVU value can be changed on the Hardware Inventory panel instead. For more information, see: Changing the PVU per core value.

The BigFix client can be installed on Cent OS 6 and 7. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 are supported on z/VM. Additionally, support for RHEV-M 3.5 is provided. For more information, see: System requirements.

BigFix subcapacity licensing rules define three regions. To properly calculate subcapacity values for products that are installed in multiple regions, generate the audit snapshot for each region. Then, for every product, sum up the subcapacity values from all regions. The value that you obtain is the overall subcapacity usage for the particular product. For more information, see: Virtualization Capacity License Counting Rules, BigFix subcapacity regions and Tutorial: Reporting subcapacity usage per computer group.

You can manage software and view reports per organizational business unit. To do this, divide the computers in your infrastructure into groups that represent these units. Then, create dedicated users, each with access only to a particular computer group. For more information, see: Organizational business units and Tutorial: Reporting subcapacity usage per computer group.

A service provider is a company that provides other organizations with access to software installed on machines that are owned and maintained by the service provider. Available from 9.2.2. To properly calculate subcapacity values in the service provider environment, divide the computers in your infrastructure into groups that represent your customers. Then, manage software and generate audit snapshots separately for each customer. For more information, see: Service providers and Tutorial: Managing software in the service provider environment.

Extended software signatures are based on data elements such as file names, registry keys, or specific strings. They allow for discovering software that otherwise might not be discovered with file or package signatures. You can now create extended software signatures directly in BigFix Inventory without the necessity of installing Software Knowledge Base Toolkit. For more information, see: Creating extended signatures.

Software Knowledge Base Toolkit was used by BigFix Inventory users to create complex signatures, and was required at the time when BigFix Inventory could not provide equal capabilities. Now, with the possibility of creating complex signatures directly BFI_unused_file in BigFix Inventory, Software Knowledge Base Toolkit becomes deprecated and will eventually be sunset.

Hardware information, such as processor details, is available on the Computers, Software Installations, and Oracle Databases reports. Combination of software and hardware information on a single report facilitates the calculation of processor-based and core-based licenses for non-IBM products.

Software aggregates are pieces of data that are gathered during software scans. They are processed during the successive data imports and later on displayed on the Inventory Exploration report. You can disable the calculation of extended software aggregates to reduce the length of data imports in very large environments where multiple computer groups are defined. For more information, see: Disabling the calculation of extended software aggregates.

The scanner cache folder is used to store information about scanned files and directories in your file system. By knowing the hierarchy of files, the scanner can locate them quicker, which results in shorter scans. Change the location of the cache folder if the default one cannot ensure sufficient disk space. For more information, see: Optimizing scanner cache configuration.

You can use the vmman_collecting_hostnames_enabled parameter to identify duplicate UUIDs on VMWare vSphere. When you set the parameter to true, host names of virtual machines with duplicate UUIDs are written in the log file. For more information, see: VM Manager Tool settings.

You can define the time range of reports in relation to the current date. Then, the report provides you with data for a specific period, for instance the last 2 weeks.

You can retrieve raw scan results through REST API to improve the monitoring of your environment by quickly discovering software that was installed or modified recently. Shortened data imports cause that data about installed software reaches the server more quickly. They also allow for increasing the number of imports that you run each day. For more information, see: REST API for retrieving raw scan results.

The BigFix client can be installed on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 (x86). Additionally, support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 on Power 8 is provided. For more information, see: System requirements.