Hi Sharron,

this is by design. Please take a look at the Snow Manual here for further information.

kind regards,

Jelle

Thanks @Jelle Wijndelts​ for your quick response. So what is the reason or logic behind this "design"?

The pointer to the manual link describes Quarantine management:

1. Select computer Status. Available options:

• Active - The computer is active in the system and will require licenses for installed applications.
  • Quarantined - The computer is placed in quarantine after a defined number of days of not reporting inventory data, but will still require licenses for its installed applications. If automatic quarantine management is activated (in Snow MACC) the computer will automatically be placed in quarantine, and then removed from the system or set to inactive.
  • Inactive - The computer is not active in the system (when in storage for example) and does not require licenses for its installed applications. The computer is not included in compliance calculations. However, if the computer is still reporting to the Snow Inventory server, it will update its data in Snow License Manager. When an inactive computer reports inventory data, an alert is displayed.

However, it does not explain, or the reason why the Inventory visibility section of SLM (Application Search) would not count an inventoried device application install count.

I guess where I am coming from is that I see SAM requires 3 Key Areas

1. Inventory - warts and all. What has been seen, whats on it, and when did it last check in.
2. Entitlement - what am I entitled to use (perpetually or for an amount of time).
3. Compliance - the measure of what can be seen vs what am I entitled to use. This is where it is sensible to apply a filter such as "Inactive" asset.

So with that understanding applied, I was expecting that my inventory view would be my inventory view (warts and all) and without filter (removing computers with an Inactive status).

Application Search is an Inventory view and not a Compliance view.

Do you see where I am coming from?

Cheers

Shaz

P.s Really respected and enjoyed your Didactive work. Awesome. 👍

Hi Sharron,

from my perspective, this is by design and absolutely makes sense.

The mistake in your customer's environment is to set shelf computers to inactive.

Excluding these computers from compliance calculation is simply wrong in regards to license management.

In case of, for example, a Microsoft Audit, the auditor will not care for "but we don't use these computers for the next 6 months". They are there, they are operational, they count towards license requirement. Period.

Inactive computers are most likely and in most environments defect, lost, stolen, retired or whatever.

So, if you ask me, the way how Snow had impolemented this is exactly what I want so see:

• A computer is not longer part of my infrastructure, let's say it has been stolen.
• the computer enters the 'quarantine' status after the defined number of days.
• I have to check what has happened to this computer, ideally in the 'quarantine' period.
• Eventually I learn, that the computer has been stolen and remove it from my infrastrucure.
• If I don't react to the quarantine state, the computer will be set to 'inactive' and will neither have an impact on compliance nor show up in any compliance related reports like 'installations'.

Or, long story short: why should I bother with computers that are not existing any longer in my infrastructure?

The correct solution for your use case would be to exclude these computers from quarantine management. The downturn is, that in case of retirement or replacement, you will have to handle this 'manually'.

Just my 2 ct,

Axel

Thanks Axel! 😀

Sharron see Axel’s answer, this is exactly how the quarantine management was designed.

kind regards,

Jelle

Hi Sharron,

just the two CI-statuses 'acitve/inactive' and 'quarantined' may not be 'sharp' enought to make educated decisions about how to handle them (compliance wise).

Especially as the status may not change 'in time' and relies on some (configurable) 'time passed by without reporting in'.

Depending on those settings your view in Snow may not be 'on point' but rather in a 'sliding time window' of a certain aperture.

So we allways try to integrate with the customers CMDB and have the CMDB staus (shelf, stolen, repair, retired,..... or whatever is the set of statuses in CMDB) synced with a custom attribut of the CIs.

This way you get way more detailled and timely info about the 'real' status of an CI, can react accordingly (from licensing/compliance perspective) and either filter in Reports, set compliance exclusion rules, set inactive/Quarantine status based on those CMDB status accordingly and 'in time'.

The other way around you may help in enhancing quality of CMDB by reporting back e.g.: 'why is this CI set to 'decommissioned/phased out/retired' in CMDB while it (still) actively reports into snow.

BR

Thomas