FlexNet Manager Platform / Suite – SKU & PURL updates

[shuduguru]

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Issued: July 26^th , 2019

Release  # 431 for on Prem customers

                  # 432 for on-Cloud customers

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Summary

The SKU and Product Use Rights Libraries (PURL), used by FlexNet Manager Suite, have been updated. For on premise customers the SKU/PURL libraries have been published and are now available. 

Customers of FlexNet Manager Suite Cloud will have this update applied by the Recognition Data Import task and be available on Monday, July 29^th 2019 in your time zone. 

1. What's new in this release

• Over 17557 new SKU’s have been added. The following table provides an overview of the number of SKU’s with respect to publisher: 

S No	Manufacturer	Total Number of Newly Added SKUs
1	Trend Micro	8805
2	Novell	4675
3	VMware	3367
4	IBM	543
5	Others	167
	Total	17557

• Added 01 new bundles. The following provides a summary with respect to product families.

Product Family	#Bundles
Microsoft Windows Server	01

• SKU library information are as follows,

                      - Total number of SKUs in the library is 1,808,468 across 438

                      - Total number of PURL templates is 2,804 across the blade publishers.

• We have now concluded our review of 1-Level IBM bundle tests and the updated content will be released as follows: FlexNet Manager Suite Cloud - July 29th, 2019, FlexNet Manager Suite on premises - August 22nd, 2019. For more details, visit https://community.flexera.com/t5/FlexNet-Manager-Blog/Upcoming-IBM-Bundle-Library-change-July-17-update/ba-p/101852

• Flexera is updating the Application Recognition Library (ARL) and Symantec Product Use Rights Library (PURL) to separate Symantec and Veritas applications and license templates, aligning with Symantec’s spin-off of Veritas. For more details, visit https://community.flexera.com/t5/FlexNet-Manager-Blog/Upcoming-Symantec-and-Veritas-Library-Changes/ba-p/108632

2. How can I verify that my SKU Library has been updated?

You can inspect the changed data in the SKU Library with the SKU Library Update Report. If you do not already have a copy of this report installed, you can obtain the latest version of the report (and installation instructions) from Flexera Software knowledge base article M100955 available from the Flexera Software Knowledge Center at  https://community.flexera.com/t5/FlexNet-Manager-Knowledge-Base/SKU-Library-Update-Report/ta-p/5900

Please note to access the link it ‘Requires login to the Flexera Customer Community’.

3. How do I report issues with SKU Library updates?

Should you have any issues related to SKU/PURL processing with FlexNet Manager Suite, please send an email to your regular Flexera Software Support address:

• support@flexerasoftware.com (Europe & North America)
• support-apac@flexerasoftware.com (Asia/Pacific)

4. The regular schedule for SKU/PURL updates

We expect the next update to the PURL & SKU Library to be available on Thursday, August 22^nd 2019.  The libraries are available as soon as published and are updated daily via the Recognition Data Import task,

or as otherwise reflected in your local configuration. Customers of FlexNet Manager Suite Cloud will have this update applied by Monday, August 26^th 2019 in your time zone.

5. Downloading the SKU/PURL Libraries Manually

The ARL and SKU/PURL library updates can be downloaded from the Flexera Product and Licensing Center (PLC 2.0). 

Instructions for downloading the libraries can be located in the following KB article: https://community.flexera.com/t5/FlexNet-Manager-Knowledge-Base/Manual-PURL-SKU-Download-amp-Importer-instructions-for-FNMP-9-0/ta-p/5727

Monthly updates are our minimum commitment. We may also provide additional updates from time to time based on customer demand. We will continue to send email alerts to announce each update.

 Regards,
Team Content

[statler]

In this article, you are referencing the SKU Library Report from the following community article (https://community.flexera.com/t5/FlexNet-Manager-Knowledge-Base/SKU-Library-Update-Report/ta-p/5900).

The SKU libary report referenced requires using SQL Server Reporting Services which is no longer used in FNMS 2014 and above.

Might be time for providing a new SKU Library Report that has no dependency on SQL Server Reporting Services?

[Flex-Jeremy]

Hi @statler, 

We have a new version of the article that is mentioned, especially for the newer version of FNMS. You can use the article below to check what versions of the ARL and SKU Library you are using. 

How to find the versions of the ARL, SKU and PURL Blades in FlexNet Manager for versions 2014 and newer:
https://community.flexera.com/t5/FlexNet-Manager-Knowledge-Base/How-to-find-the-versions-of-the-ARL-SKU-and-PURL-Blades-in/ta-p/1526

[statler]

@Flex-Jeremy 

Wow. Providing a dedicated article for pointing to the FNMS "System Health" page to be used as a "report" is kind of overkill :-).

I was hoping for a real report showing historical dates when the ARL/PURL/SKU libraries actually have been updated on the FNMS system by a newer release.

Feel free to consider this as a feature request ...

[Flex-Jeremy]

@statler, 

Would you please post your suggestion on our Blog post about new features for FNMS? 

https://community.flexera.com/t5/FlexNet-Manager-Blog/Have-an-idea-for-changing-FlexNet-Manager-The-product-team-wants/bc-p/98699