Finding Machines Not Being Used

[RobertH]

How do you use FlexNet Manager to find machines that are, receiving updated inventory, but not being used?

[JohnSorensenDK]

@RobertH 

Please would you elaborate a bit more on the actual use case you're trying to find relevant information for? E.g. are you suspicious that you have idle (or zombie) devices in your environment (machines reporting inventory but not being used), or...?

Thanks,

[RobertH]

You described it well.  Computer assets are not being used so they are eligible for reassignment to meet requests for computer assets.

[JohnSorensenDK]

@RobertH 

You haven't described which discovery/inventory solutions you're utilizing so the available options may vary depending on the tools implemented. Monitoring operating system performance may be available, relevant metrics may be CPU, memory (RAM), disk I/O, network I/O, etc. Another option may be to use end-user login events into the directory (Active Directory?) and then compare that against the list of registered end-user devices...

If you're using the FlexNet inventory agent on your desktops/laptops it doesn't include any functionality to collect such data, so you would be left with monitoring application usage on the devices, e.g. pick an application that you feel confident that would be used by all end-users on a daily basis if anybody logs in. For details on how to enable application usage tracking with FlexNet Manager, please refer to Application usage metering using the FlexNet inventory agent 

Thanks,

[RobertH]

Right.  My environment is using FlexNet Manager 2018 R1 with inventory primarily fed from SMS and a small number of machines have FNMS Agent installed to capture SQL Server edition information.  So, it looks like I need to collect the last login information in a custom property somehow so asset management personnel can identify candidate hardware assets for reclamation and reassignment.