Flexnet Agent | Server Decommissioned | Application |License

[Cloaky]

Hi Dear Community,

I have a question - 

Inventory for a server is brought in via the Flexnet agent, the server is now decommissioned , however on the application tab the application still exists on the server as well the license is tagged under the licenses tab.

How does this be taken care of, as the license needs to be deallocated from these servers that are not reporting since they are decommissioned from server team. 

Thank you

Abhilash M

[mfranz]

Hi Abhilash,

There are multiple ways to appraoch your situation:

1. Either make sure the inventory is removed from your FNMS, as the device is decommissioned. This can be a tricky part when using the FNMS Agent. Usually an additional data source (e.g. a CMDB) is introduced to make the decission what can be removed. Be sure to remove the inventtory from the original source (e.g. FNMSInventory, SCCM, ...).
2. Or make sure that the inventory status is set to "Ignored". This can be done to the inventory directly or by choosing an appropriate status for the linked Asset. As in the first option, you may want to refer to an external data source to make that decission.
3. Or work with exemptions, manual or automatic ones, based on device roles. This is would not be my first choice as it is likely to create alot of overhead and has other downsides too.

Option 1 or 2 would be considered best practice. They also prevent those decommissioned machines form consuming FNMS licenses.

Best regards,

Markward

[venus_m_concel]

Hi MFranz,

We are using the Option 2.

But do we have automatic way to prevent license consumption once Server/VM is already decom?

Thanks,

[kclausen]

@venus_m_concel - The status of an Inventory Device can be set to IGNORED with a Business Adapter.

You need to add a step to your internal Change Management process so that when a server is decommissioned, some type of Log/Repository is created of the decommissioned servers.  A Business Adapter can then be created to read the list of servers from that Log/Repository and update the status of those servers to IGNORED.

Some customers use their CMDB for this purpose - when the status of a CI is changed to Retired/Decommissioned/etc.  within the CMDB, the status change is fed into a Business Adapter to update the status of the corresponding Inventory Device to IGNORED.

[venus_m_concel]

Hi Clausen,

How to set up this Business Adapter? Is this option available with FNMS Cloud Subscription?

[JohnSorensenDK]

@venus_m_concel 

The ServiceNow adapter includes an XML file that could be used as the outset for you to create a business adapter. This adapter works at the hardware asset level and would potentially have to be modified to work at the device level, so it would merely be an outset for you to begin with.

Thanks,

[venus_m_concel]

May we know where and how to setup the business adapter?

This is available and configured in FlexNet Beacon Server?

[JohnSorensenDK]

@venus_m_concel 

Please refer to part II of the Using FlexNet Business Adapters  guide.

Thanks,