How Inventory files will be processed to Compliance DB

sree335 · ‎Jul 16, 2020

Hi Team,

I would like to understand the way how Inventory Imports come into FNMS via FNMS Agent.

Can someone please explain the procedure. I really got confused at creating an Inventory system for FNMS Agent too in Beacon along with other Inventory sources.

We have this FNMS inventory import system configured and getting the data but other accounts using FNMS in our Organisations doesnt have this configured in Beacon but still it is appearing in System Tasks.

Can someone please clarify?

I beleieve whatever the data is coming via FNMS agent from the target machine will be uploaded to the Beacon and from there with the Scheduled task, it will reach the Inventory server and from there based on the Flexere service, it will be imported into FNMSInventory DB but to see it in the UI, that data should be in FNMSCompliance and we import that data from FNMSInventory to FNMSCompliance using the Inventory system in Beacon configuration and for this step, we can see the status in System Tasks I believe.

Can someone please help me in understanding the workflow and in which step will the UI show the job in System Tasks?

Thanks in Advance!

Srikanth M

mfranz · ‎Jul 16, 2020

Hi Srikanth,

I think you are on the right track. Main elements of the inventory process are:

Reader
Readers interpret the data from the source. As sources differ, there are different readers. Data from multiple sources do end up in the same set of tables, usually starting with "Imported", like ImportedComputer, ImportedInstallerEvidence, ... If you have mutiple sources, FNMS will run one Reader after another. The Reader should show up in the system tasks like this:
Writer
The Writer will process all the "Imported" data. This usually includes matching inventory from mutiple sources, wrtiting the results to the "Compliance" set of tables, e.g. ComplianceComputer, InstallerEvidence, ... After this, you should see the inventory data in the WebUI. The Writer also runs the Reconcile, which updates the license consumption. The Reconcile can be triggered as a single process from the WebUI. The system task overview shows how the Writer consists of the mentioned steps:

Here's a little diagram, I did a while ago:

Does this help?

Best regards,

Markward

sree335 · ‎Jul 21, 2020

But the point here I want to understand is, what is responsible for what.

I mean Reader is responsible of what and writer is responsible of what?

So there should be some task running or a schedule in Beacon which runs the reader part or writer part, can you let us know about them?

Coming to the FNMSCompliance, I got confused with your diagram that for Third party agent data will be going into Compliance but for FNMS agent data will end up in FNMSInventory so there is an additional step which is taking the data from FNMS Inventory to the FNMSCompliance DB, when is that happening and during that process is it coming up in the UI under system tasks?

I know that my questions seems to be confusing but the picture I want to understand is, I am using beacon and we have configured FNMS as one of the inventory system there, and there is one of my friend who works for a different client, he did not configure FNMS as an inventory system in his beacon, so that point here is, I believed so far that, the systems configured in beacon as part of inventory systems will show up in System tasks and will only get imported. But how come there is no difference in the System tasks appearance in both our systems when the configurations is different?

mfranz · ‎Jul 21, 2020

Hi,

Readers are usually run by the Beacon. If the Beacon is installed on an application server, Readers are scheduled by the Windows Task Scheduler. If it is a standalone Beacon, scheduling is done by the Beacon, configured within the Beacon UI.

A Reader is specific for a source, it will extract, transform and load the data into the FNMS schema. The load process differs a bit, depending on your Beacon being standalone or not. Standalon Beacons will produce packages containing files. These packages are then uploaded to the inventory server and written to the database. Integrated Beacons will write directly to the database.

The Writer is is run on the Batch Processing Server and scheduled by the Windows Task Scheduler. It will match and process data from all inventory sources (Readers).

The diagram tries to show that the FNMSInventory database (where all your agent data ends) ist basically on the same level as, for example, a SCCM database. The FNMS inventory server/database consumes the agent data, this database then is the source for the actual Reader. This can be consufing with standalone beacons, because the data is kind of going in two directions. I'll need to update my diagram for standalone Beacons.

Can it be that the "FlexNet Manager Suite" as a connection is configured on a different Beacon at your friend's system? Every connection seen under System Tasks is configured at ONE beacon, not all beacons. So it could be you need to look at another Beacon.

Best regards,

Markward