Other IBM metrics

BigFix Inventory reports utilization for a vast number of BigFix license metrics. It also shows products that are assigned any IBM metric even if calculating utilization is not yet supported for this metric.BigFix Inventory also shows utilization of license metrics for products that deliver .slmtag files.

Other IBM metrics retrieved by BigFix Inventory

A number of IBM products deliver .slmtag files. For more information, see: IBM products that deliver SLM tags. Information about the utilization of license metrics for these products is presented on the following reports:
Resource Utilization
The report shows only the raw license utilization data that is retrieved from .slmtag files. For more information, see: Raw utilization of license metrics.

9.2.13 All IBM Metrics and All Metrics

Starting from application update 9.2.13, BigFix Inventory reports additional IBM metrics basing on the resource utilization delivered by .slmtag files. BigFix Inventory scans a computer to find the software components that are reported with .slmtag files and then aggregates the metric quantity.

Note: The license metrics are reported only for the products that deliver .slmtag files and are detected and reported on the Software Classification panel. The license metric that is assigned to a product on the Software Classification panel must match the license metric embedded in the .slmtag file. Thus, some records displayed on the Resource Utilization panel might not be reflected on the All Metrics and All IBM Metrics reports.
9.2.14 Starting from application update 9.2.14, BigFix Inventory reports license consumption data from .slmtag files that refer to products. When the license usage that is included in .slmtag files is generated on product level, an artificial component is created in the catalog for that product. The component name follows the specific naming convention:
  • License Reporter for <product name> with metric <metric name>; for example, License Reporter for BigFix Rational ClearCase with metric Floating User.
This component does not constitute a real part of the product and it is created only for internal reporting purposes.
Metric quantity that is shown on the report is counted in the following way:
  • The aggregation algorithm sums the maximum daily values from all reporting software instances.
  • The report shows the highest maximum daily value over a period of time.
The following chart shows the license metric utilization of two instances of a product over two days that is embedded in .slmtag files for two instances of the product over two days:

Day 1: 4 + 5 = 9
Day 2: 6 + 5 = 11
The highest reported maximum daily value over a period of time: 11
According to the .slmtag data, both instances of the product are matched with the Authorized User metric. On the first day, the maximum daily utilization of instance A equaled 4 and of instance B - 5. Thus, the total metric quantity used on day one equaled 9. On the second day, the maximum daily utilization of instance A equaled 5 and of instance B - 6. Thus, the total metric quantity used on day two equaled 11. The highest maximum daily value over these two days is 11 and it is reported as such on the metric report.

If the overall metric quantity is not correct, the .slmtag data for the product is not proper. Contact the product support for a fix.

If you require an BigFix product to deliver .slmtag files, submit an idea for the product team. To submit an idea, see: Submit an idea.

For the list of BigFix products that deliver .slmtag files, visit the Resource Utilization Measurement Community.

9.2.7 IBM metrics for which calculating utilization is not yet supported

Apart from license metrics for which utilization is calculated, the All Metrics report also shows all other metrics that are used by BigFix products in your infrastructure. Even though utilization is not calculated for these metrics, it gives you an overview of all IBM metrics for which you should have licenses. For explanation of some of these license metrics, see: Learn about Software licensing.

When no license metric is defined for a particular product in the software catalog, the metric that is displayed for this product is Unknown.