FNMS Cloud & Custom Inventory Adapter

[mfranz]

Hi,

I am not too familiar with FNMS Cloud yet, but can you run custom inventory adapters on Beacons reporting to the cloud?

Background is that it would be extremely costly for a  customer to have agents deployed to systems managed by another service provider. Getting reports and creating a custom inventory adapter based on this data, could be a feasible approach.

Best regards,

Markward

[dbalakrishnan]

You can create inventory adapter for cloud. However, FlexNet Manager has an out of the box ability to import data from spreadsheets. If your external source can be mapped into this format that would save you a lot of time and effort in building a custom adapter.

[mfranz]

Thanks for your message. Do you mean the manual "One-off upload" from "Data Inputs"? I am looking for an automated option. Also an inventory adapter would allow me to qualify and transform data.

[DAWN]

The same spreadsheet templates for the One Off Import can be located in a subdirectory on your Inventory Beacon. You would then connect to that data utilizing the Spreadsheet option in your Inventory Beacon. Another option is writing an Object Adapter - which requires a bit more knowledge and access to the back - end database for your source. There is some documentation available here. There is a SaaS framework if the information is only accessed via API, but this requires advanced knowledge of the framework, PowerShell and FNMS Objects in general and I would recommend engaging Services if this is the preferred method and spreadsheets are not a viable option.

[ChrisG · Accepted solution]

I think the link to documentation that @DAWN intended to provide may have been to: FlexNet Manager Suite Inventory Adapters and Connectors Reference. For this scenario (i.e. a custom inventory adapter with FlexNet Manager Suite Cloud), look in The Inventory Adapter Studio chapter and pay attention to parts which talk about:

• The ImportProcedures\ObjectAdapters directory on beacons (this is where your inventory adapters will live)
• "Source to Object" steps - these steps are used for this type of adapter rather than "Source to Target" steps.
• The Inventory Adapter Object Model section of the chapter, which talks about the object model that data must be mapped to by this type of adapter.

The attached .zip file contains a simple sample of this type of adapter to get started:

1. Run the InventoryStagingDB.sql script to create a staging database with a sample schema that holds computer hardware, installer evidence and user data.
2. Insert your inventory data into the database.
3. Place the other adapter files into C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Compliance\ImportProcedures\ObjectAdapters\SampleObjectAdapter\.
4. Configure an inventory source connection to the staging database in the beacon UI as normal.