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Managing software inventory and metric utilization
Learn how to classify the discovered software so that reports in BigFix Inventory reflect your entitlements and properly show utilization of license metrics by particular products.
Software classification
After new components are discovered, they are assigned to products based on bundling rules. If the initial assignment does not reflect your entitlements, work with the software inventory until it matches the entitlements. To make metric calculation accurate, assign each component to a product, exclude, or suppress the instances that should not be included in the calculation, and confirm your actions. After you confirm the actions, the classification is complete, and the metric calculation is accurate.
Bundling Assistant
Bundling Assistant instances of discovered components to products based on five bundling rules: bundling tags, part numbers, partition collocation, infrastructure collocation, and stand-alone product discovery. Results of this assignment are shown on the Software Classification panel.
Stand-alone product discovery
Stand-alone product discovery is a rule that identifies components that have more than one default component to product relation. For each relation, it compares the name of the component with the name of the product and calculates the Levenshtein distance. During the calculation, production components are assigned to production products, and non-production components such as trial, demonstration, limited, or express versions are assigned to non-production products. The algorithm does not favor shorter names, but names that have more letters in common. Based on the calculations, the product-component relation with the shortest distance (represented by the lowest score) is selected. If a few relations have the same score, they are ordered alphabetically.

Managing software inventory and metric utilization
Learn how to classify the discovered software so that reports in BigFix Inventory reflect your entitlements and properly show utilization of license metrics by particular products.
- Software catalogs
  To correctly identify components of software products in your infrastructure, ensure that your software catalog is always up-to-date. Periodically import a new catalog that contains the most recent software products. Also, manually add products that are installed in your infrastructure but do not have corresponding entries in the catalog.
- Enterprise applications inventory
  Software components are discovered by software scans. The scans correlate data that is collected from the computers with the content of the software catalog, and thus determine whether a component is installed. However, software scans do not discover details of some enterprise applications, for example licensable options of Oracle Database or editions of Microsoft Exchange. The details are discovered by dedicated fixlets. If you are interested in discovering additional details of enterprise applications, run the dedicated fixlets apart from scheduling software scans. Otherwise, running the fixlets is not required.
- Software classification
  After new components are discovered, they are assigned to products based on bundling rules. If the initial assignment does not reflect your entitlements, work with the software inventory until it matches the entitlements. To make metric calculation accurate, assign each component to a product, exclude, or suppress the instances that should not be included in the calculation, and confirm your actions. After you confirm the actions, the classification is complete, and the metric calculation is accurate.
  - Bundling Assistant
    Bundling Assistant instances of discovered components to products based on five bundling rules: bundling tags, part numbers, partition collocation, infrastructure collocation, and stand-alone product discovery. Results of this assignment are shown on the Software Classification panel.
    - Bundling tags
      Available from 9.2.5. Bundling tag is a type of the ISO/IEC 19770-2 supplemental tag. It allows for unambiguously assigning a component to a product and license metric based on the part number that is specified in the tag. When a bundling tag is available, it takes precedence over other bundling rules. Thus, you can create bundling tags to facilitate the process of software classification.
    - Part numbers
      Part numbers represent software products that you purchased and license metrics that these products use. They can be used to increase the accuracy of automated bundling by narrowing down the number of possible products to which a discovered component can be assigned.
    - Partition collocation
      Partition collocation is a rule that discovers component instances that are on the same partition and are related to a product in the software catalog. If any of the discovered component instances has a confirmed, one-to-one, or auto-bundled relation to the product, the other instances are automatically bundled with the same product.
    - Infrastructure collocation
      Infrastructure collocation is a rule that discovers component instances that are installed in the same infrastructure and that are related to a specific product in the software catalog. The search does not include the agent on which the product is installed. If any of the discovered component instances has a confirmed, one-to-one, or auto-bundled relationship with the product, the other instances are automatically bundled with the same product.
    - Stand-alone product discovery
      Stand-alone product discovery is a rule that identifies components that have more than one default component to product relation. For each relation, it compares the name of the component with the name of the product and calculates the Levenshtein distance. During the calculation, production components are assigned to production products, and non-production components such as trial, demonstration, limited, or express versions are assigned to non-production products. The algorithm does not favor shorter names, but names that have more letters in common. Based on the calculations, the product-component relation with the shortest distance (represented by the lowest score) is selected. If a few relations have the same score, they are ordered alphabetically.
  - Software Classification panel
    Available from 9.2.7. Software Classification panel provides an overview of your software inventory and the relations between the discovered software components and licensable products. It provides a flat structure with software installations broken into single components, which makes it easier to view your software assets and manage relations between them.
  - Assigning components to products
    Available from 9.2.7. After new components are discovered, they are associated with products based on bundling rules. As a result, most components are automatically assigned to products. Correct assignment of software components reduces the cost of software ownership and ensures audit readiness. Compare the automatically created bundles with information in your license agreement, confirm the accurate assignments, or reassign the components to right products.
  - Excluding and suppressing software instances
    Available from 9.2.7. If a software instance should not contribute to license metric utilization, you can exclude it on the product level or suppress it on the component level. Exclusion applies to all components that are assigned to a product and are installed on the selected computer. Use it if license information specifies that the product should not contribute to metric utilization under specific circumstances. Suppression applies to a single component that is installed on the selected computer. Use it when a component is improperly discovered.
  - Confirming assignment of software components
    Available from 9.2.7. When the assignment of a component to the product is correct, you can confirm it. The task is optional. However, components whose assignment is not confirmed can be automatically reassigned to different products. It might happen when a new software catalog is uploaded or when a different product is suggested as the best bundling option based on the new results of automated bundling. To avoid such a situation, it is recommended to confirm the assignment of all components.
  - Creating and managing custom rules
    Available from 9.2.7. You can create custom rules to automate the process of software classification. The rules automatically perform the action that is defined by the rule criteria. For example, when you create a custom rule while assigning a component to a product, the rule is applied whenever the exact same component is discovered in the future.
  - Assigning products to FlexPoint bundles
    Available from 9.2.13. When you purchase a product as part of a FlexPoint bundle, assign instances of this product to that bundle for improved tracking and to calculate utilization of FlexPoints.
  - Setting the number of metric units convertible to FlexPoints
    Available from 9.2.13. When a software product is assigned to a FlexPoint bundle, BigFix Inventory converts the number of metric units that the product used to FlexPoints. If the product uses a license metric whose utilization is not calculated by BigFix Inventory, you can manually set the number of metric units to be converted into FlexPoints.
  - Viewing history of installed components
    Available from 9.2.7. You can view information about components that were installed in your infrastructure during a specific period and their assignment. You can use this information to view details of components that contributed to the overall license utilization for a specific period. You can also reassign and exclude uninstalled components if their original assignment was incorrect and impacted the license metric utilization.
- License metrics
  BigFix Inventory provides two types of information about license metrics utilization: aggregated utilization and raw utilization. The former shows utilization of the assigned license metric by all instances of a particular product within the reporting period. However, it is limited to a subset of license metrics. The latter shows data that is collected from .slmtag files. It shows raw utilization of all license metrics that can be used by a particular product. The data is not aggregated and requires further processing.
- Software license optimization
  BigFix Inventory helps you optimize your software licenses. You can analyze the software inventory in your environment and maximize the utilization of your assets. Learn how to minimize the costs of acquiring and maintaining licenses and track license compliance for the software products that are installed in your environment. You can verify the needs and requirements of your environment and then apply the most appropriate license model.
- Reports
  Reports provide detailed information about the computers in your infrastructure and the software items that are installed on these computers. You can decide what type of information you want to display by choosing the appropriate type of report. You can also customize the type and amount of information that is displayed in a report and save the report settings to reuse them.
- Contracts
  You use contracts to track license compliance for the software products that are installed in your environment. When you purchase a software license, you create a contract that contains information about the cost of acquiring and maintaining the license, and the period of entitlement. You use that information to track spending that is associated with software licenses and manage costs of extending or downsizing licenses for the software products. You can also avoid costs that are related to license non-compliance by ensuring that enough software licenses are purchased.

Stand-alone product discovery

Stand-alone product discovery is a rule that identifies components that have more than one default component to product relation. For each relation, it compares the name of the component with the name of the product and calculates the Levenshtein distance. During the calculation, production components are assigned to production products, and non-production components such as trial, demonstration, limited, or express versions are assigned to non-production products. The algorithm does not favor shorter names, but names that have more letters in common. Based on the calculations, the product-component relation with the shortest distance (represented by the lowest score) is selected. If a few relations have the same score, they are ordered alphabetically.

Example

The agent discovers the database component and the server checks which products contain this component in the software catalog. The database component is assigned to the product whose name produces a match with the lowest score, in this case, Product 1.
Graphic that shows bundling in which the discovered component is assigned to the product with the lowest number of components

Graphic that shows bundling in which the discovered component is assigned to the product with the lowest number of components