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FNMS 2019 R1 Update 5 - some thoughts

mfranz
By Level 17 Champion
Level 17 Champion

Hi,

I've tested Update 5 in two systems now and I would like to share some thoughts.

  • There seems to be no Online Help for the new "Evidence" tab yet, so part of this is guessing. Please feel free to correct me.
    Edit: Online help is updated, please see comments below.
  • There is a chance to see duplicate entries when using default columns and filtering. From what I can see, the grid shows both, raw evidence and the matching recognition rule(s). One evidence may trigger multiple rules, so when pulling in additional columns, it becomes a bit clearer what is happening.
  • Also I noticed there were no "KB" type Windows updates in the list. I guess this is by filtering out evidences linked to recognition rules set to "ignored". So that is to be understood and kept in mind when using this new function.
    Edit: Ignored data is shown, there is other filtering going on.
    Edit: Double checked, all data is showing.

Comments welcome.

Best regards,

Markward

(1) Solution

Hi Markward,

Thanks for the feedback, in summary the answers to your questions are:

  1. Correct, online help is not provided with hotfixes typically but is in the upcoming 2019 R2, you can also access the cloud online help on helpnet - https://helpnet.flexerasoftware.com/fnms/EN/WebHelp/index.html#topics/Dev-EvidTab.html
  2. We covered the duplicates scenario in the online help, you've picked up on one but there are others so I'd recommend reading the page above.
  3. This is a yes and no answer; we didn't explicitly exclude these evidence types, in fact we made sure that Ignored evidence is included and there is a column to show this.  That being said, there is other functionality within FNMS that does hide these and we didn't make any changes to this.  If you think it would be a useful addition, please raise a case asking for an enhancement request with the specific use cases you want covering and we'll review it.

The only caveat to using the cloud online help is that it will reference file path which is not in the On-Premises hotfix, this will be in 2019 R2 however involves schema changes and other dependencies that would have made it risky to add to the On-Premises hotfix for multiple versions so I made the decision to exclude it however it's there for Cloud and will be there in 2019 R2.

 

Thanks for trying out this new feature and for providing the feedback, it is appreciated and would love to hear more of your experiences with it once you've tried it out some more.

(Anything expressed here is my own view and not necessarily that of my employer, Flexera)
If the solution provided has helped, please mark it as such as this helps everyone to know what works.

View solution in original post

(13) Replies

Hi Markward,

Thanks for the feedback, in summary the answers to your questions are:

  1. Correct, online help is not provided with hotfixes typically but is in the upcoming 2019 R2, you can also access the cloud online help on helpnet - https://helpnet.flexerasoftware.com/fnms/EN/WebHelp/index.html#topics/Dev-EvidTab.html
  2. We covered the duplicates scenario in the online help, you've picked up on one but there are others so I'd recommend reading the page above.
  3. This is a yes and no answer; we didn't explicitly exclude these evidence types, in fact we made sure that Ignored evidence is included and there is a column to show this.  That being said, there is other functionality within FNMS that does hide these and we didn't make any changes to this.  If you think it would be a useful addition, please raise a case asking for an enhancement request with the specific use cases you want covering and we'll review it.

The only caveat to using the cloud online help is that it will reference file path which is not in the On-Premises hotfix, this will be in 2019 R2 however involves schema changes and other dependencies that would have made it risky to add to the On-Premises hotfix for multiple versions so I made the decision to exclude it however it's there for Cloud and will be there in 2019 R2.

 

Thanks for trying out this new feature and for providing the feedback, it is appreciated and would love to hear more of your experiences with it once you've tried it out some more.

(Anything expressed here is my own view and not necessarily that of my employer, Flexera)
If the solution provided has helped, please mark it as such as this helps everyone to know what works.

Hi Matt,

Thanks for you elaborate answer. The Cloud online help is very helpful.

I should have seen the "Ignored" column and concluded that not everything ignored is hidden. I think it makes sense to clean up the presentation a bit. Just out of curiosity, can you give me a hint how it is filtered? Is it a view, procedure or a function in the database?

Best regards,

Markward

Hi @mfranz ,

 

We did some testing on our side and can see the KB type installer entries in the Evidence tab on our test system so I'm not sure why these are not showing for you.

We checked both evidences that were assigned to an application (which showed up as Ignored) and those that were not.

 

(Anything expressed here is my own view and not necessarily that of my employer, Flexera)
If the solution provided has helped, please mark it as such as this helps everyone to know what works.

Hi Matt,

In my case.

Is see fault positives on Oracle database 11G.  I noticed that they are coming from OUI and have an inventory date from 7 Jan 2017.  According to the online help Inventory date means: 

Inventory date

The most recent date this evidence was detected on this inventory device.

Since my device itself has an Inventory date from 30-09-2019 why is this Oracle Database software that is detected on 7 Jan 2017 still being reported?

Is this perhaps related to the agent bug with OUI evidence issue?

 

Regards

 

Ronald

Hi, You need to verify all the comps.xml that was scanned by the tracker in the tracker.log There might be some old backup directories, comps.xml contains all the installer evidence.

Hi,  Thanks I am aware of that issue. But in this case FNMS is saying that is last reported/ Inventoried on September 2017. So it should not report on it.

or Online help is wrong as it stated:

Inventory date

The most recent date this evidence was detected on this inventory device.

 

But then should be:

Inventory date

The first date this evidence was detected on this inventory device.

Hi Ronald,

The reason the dates don't match up is because the inventory date in screenshot 1 relates to the normalised inventory date for the device itself which is the most recent date across all sources.

In the Evidence tab,  the inventory date relates to the date for that specific data source / entry and we intentionally kept this separate from the main inventory device date to cover scenarios where one data source / piece of evidence was out of date whereas the device itself was showing a recent date.

In this instance I would check whether that particular source is being updated as it likely is showing outdated inventory.

Does this help?

(Anything expressed here is my own view and not necessarily that of my employer, Flexera)
If the solution provided has helped, please mark it as such as this helps everyone to know what works.

Hi Matt,

Thanks for your response. In that case the online help needs to be extended with this useful information.

Regarding your feedback: In this instance I would check whether that particular source is being updated as it likely is showing outdated inventory.

In my case this device only has 1 Source and that is the FNMS agent. And it is reporting last 29 September. So this means the agent is fully update on Inventory. Als we see other evidence with a record from 29September so this indicates the Software inventory was succesfully executed on 29 Sept.

Or do you mean with check whether that particular source: The evidence source (instead of Inventory source) for that report of installation. In this case OUI? This is probably because of the OUI bugg and it was last reported when it was installed in 2017.

 

Regards

 

Ronald 

Hi Matt,

Thanks, this means that the online help needs to be updated with this important information

Regarding your feedback: In this instance I would check whether that particular source is being updated as it likely is showing outdated inventory.

The device only has FNMS agent as source. This is reported on 29Sept. Also some other Installer evidence report on 29Sept. So this means Software inventory was updated correct.

What do you mean with check whether that particular source: Inventory Source? Or Evidence Source? As Inventory source is FNMS and updated.  Evidence source is OUI, and that might be related to agent bug who reads OUI evidence. In that case it will never be updated since it was removed in 2017.

 

Regards

 

Ronald

Hi Ronald,

If you mean the OUI bug where it reads the backup folder, I'm pleased to confirm that is fixed in the upcoming 2019 R2 agent.

If that is the issue, please let me know and as soon as the agent is GA, we can potentially arrange a test if that will help?

(Anything expressed here is my own view and not necessarily that of my employer, Flexera)
If the solution provided has helped, please mark it as such as this helps everyone to know what works.

Hi everyone,

Just a quick update on my data. I finally found the time to double check and my test machine does not report any KB type updates. That is, because they are not part of the inventory, which is, I guess, per design.

Best regards,

Markward

HI Matt,

probably the OUI bug is relevant. Do you already have a test version of the agent available? If not can you notify me when you have it?

 

Regards

 

Ronald