Licensing setting IBM Subcap calculation setting : Keep Historical data for X days VS System setting for Inventory Cleanup

[Ronny_OO7]

Dear Flexera IBM Experts,

How does the IBM Subcap calculation setting : Keep Historical data for X days conflicts with the System Setting for inventory cleanup after 180 days conflict with eachother? What if we set inventory cleanup for 180 days and this IBM Licensing setting for keep historical data for 730 days? Does the Inventory cleanup also removes the required IBM data? Help is not really clear

Thanks and Regards

Ronald 

[jevans · Accepted solution]

Good morning Ronald,

Good question!
I imagine this is something we should expand upon in our documentation.

My perspective would be that the Inventory Cleanup governs deleting devices, but the IBM retention period governs Archived devices - and how long those last.
My understanding of Archived status is that, should an Inventory Device be about to be deleted, it'd be retained in Archived for the full retention period.
If you delete a device with IBM PVU licensing in place, and the retention period is 180 days, it wouldn't be removed from Archived status until half a year later.

The removal of historical data, in my mind, doesn't actually conflict - because what that does is delete any underlying Inventory records based on the inventory dates.
If you have a machine which hasn't reported in your historical data period of 90 days, but did originally have a PVU install, it'd be retained in Archived for another 180 days after that.

I hope that's insightful for you; I'll also raise with our documentation team.
Best regards,
Jack

[Ronny_OO7]

Good Afternoon Jack,

Thanks, and Thanks for your helpfull answer! As always it is very well explained. So when I understand it correctly the Inventory record Archived status always wins from the the removal of historical data and during the cleanup it checkes weither the computer Inventory record doesn't have the Archived status? And the actuall computer Inventory record status from Archived is automaticly updated once the Archive rentention period has passed. Only when this is the case computers are cleaned and removed fully?

Thanks also for the document enhancement! I checked but it is currently not described this way.

Regards

Ronald

[jevans]

Morning Ronald,

Yes, when you remove Inventory data (and PVU license consumption is occurring), I'd always expect Archiving.

Cleanup mechanically works by deleting the underlying FNMSInventory Computer record.
During Reconcile, the associated ComplianceComputer is removed, and if PVU license consumption has occurred, Archiving.
And yes, following the retention period, the Archived record would then be fully removed.

Best regards,
Jack

[Ronny_OO7]

Afternoon Jack, Thanks for your insights and help! 

Regards

Ronald