Hardware Asset Management in FlexNet

[rwiltshire]

Are there any users with both ITSM and FlexNet Manager that use FlexNet for any hardware asset management activities?

If so, what is the scope of the hardware asset management in Flexera? What has been the benefit of using Flexera over ITSM?

[tkuivala]

Hi!

Yes we've got customers using FNMS as a main Hardware Asset Management tool as well as a hybrid solution where some data is kept in FNMS and other in the customers main HAM Solution.

The benefit, would be to have your licenses, software details and Hardware Life cycle management all in a singe location, with out having to replicate data across many sources and having to make sure it's correct in all of the locations.

Regarding Scope, as mentioned above, that varies, we've got from everything, to simply reflecting the data from another system.

[HowardTux]

Hello, I implemented Flexera in a largish bank with about 150,000 assets spread over 30 countries. As part of the implementation we identified that our CMDB did not have great data and had some poor processes to update some of the data attributes so we used Flexera to be the capture point for hardware and software assets and then feed asset data into the CMDB. We built out the processes so data only needed to be updated in either Flexera or CMDB and it would then be synced across the two systems. This gave us - Better data across both systems - Utilised the ability of Flexera to sync data on the same assets from disparate sources - Simplified processes - Created sense of an asset ecosystem rather than getting lost in Asset Management and Service Management thanks H.

[ReganL]

I need to track the mounting position for racked devices and slot position for blade servers. Is anyone tracking this in FlexNet Manager? If so, are you using the location hierarchy or custom fields? If you are using a custom field, are you using SaaS or On-Prem Flexera?

[dmathias]

While we track only by datacenter location, those data attributes are available to us.  Should we ever decide to track, we would use custom fields.  Yes, we're on-prem.

David

[ReganL]

How well do custom fields transition from On Prem to SaaS?

[dmathias]

Unfortunately I couldn't tell you.  My impression is that they do not.

Without being unnecessarily impolitic, every time we are asked to consider migrating from on-prem to cloud the cost and the inflexibility dissuade us from proceeding.

David

[ChrisG]

@ReganL - similar to @dmathias's experience, I have seen organizations tracking these types of details in custom properties that are configured on asset (or possibly inventory device) records.

Custom properties can be configured in either FlexNet Manager Suite On-premises or Cloud. You need to work with Flexera Support to raise a request for configuring custom properties configured in the Cloud environment.

[smullins]

You might also want to look over the Hardware Asset Management learning track in our Learning Center which contains amoungst other items, a "Hardware Asset Management Practice Guide" to apply good HAM techniques with FlexNet Manager. https://learn.flexera.com/series/spend-optimization-with-flexnet-manager-suite/hardware-asset-management-with-flexnet-manager-suite