Announcing FlexNet Manager 2020 R1 release

[dgalecki]

Last updated: June 26, 2020

We are excited to share with you information about the release of FlexNet Manager Suite 2020 R1 for Cloud and On-premises editions.

This update is planned to be available on the following dates:

European Cloud:

               User Acceptance Testing (UAT) – May 21, 2020

               Production – June 4, 2020

North American Cloud:

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) – May 28, 2020

               Production – June 11, 2020

On-premises:

               June 25, 2020 - downloadable from the Product and Licensing Center

This release delivers many new capabilities and improvements.

The complete list of all changes is available from the Features by Release documents for Cloud and On Premises. Other documentation can be found in FlexNet Manager Cloud and On-premises documentation in Flexera Community using the “Other Resources > Documentation” link. This includes:

• List of issues resolved in this release
• Online help
• System requirements

We would like to thank all our customers and partners who provided their insights to help ensure the changes and new features in this release meet your needs.

Highlights of this release include:

Docker container discovery and inventory on Linux

FlexNet Manager agent can now discover your Docker containers on Linux and collect inventory of software running in these containers.  This will allow you to understand whether software deployed in containers impacts license consumption.

This is the initial release of this capability and we will continue to update it in future releases to ensure you are able to discover containers, track software deployed in container images and include that software in appropriate license compliance calculations.  Application installation inventory from Docker containers provides visibility into what software is deployed, but in this release it will not contribute towards your license consumption. We are looking for your feedback to help prioritize future work, so please post your feedback in the comments section for this post–we would love to hear examples of software and license models that you have running in containers.

SAP Digital Access license support

The SAP component of FlexNet Manager Suite now allows you to evaluate the cost of Digital Access licenses, new indirect license consumption model introduced by SAP. You can use this feature to compare the cost from the new metric to your existing Indirect Access license cost and decide whether you want to switch to Digital Access license model.

Based on data collected from the official SAP Passport interface for the new metric, you can get an accurate measure of the number of documents created and assess the costs to the organization at various levels of granularity.

Improved Flexera Analytics

We have added new Analytics Dashboards, built based on feedback we’ve heard from you.  We will be continuing to periodically deliver additional updates automatically in our Cloud environments, and by providing an optional update to Flexera Analytics for On-premises deployments.

New FlexNet Manager Suite Management Dashboard

This is an updated, configurable version of the Management Dashboard.  It is provided as an “experimental” feature in this release.  You can access it by appending “/Management/Dashboard” to the standard FlexNet Manager Suite URL. You may wish to try bookmarking https://your-server/Suite/Management/Dashboard to be used as your entry point to FlexNet Manager Suite.

We are working on additional enhancements and are looking for feedback for this feature.  Please post your feedback in the comments section for this post.

Flexera SaaS Manager integration

Integration with SaaS Manager enables SaaS consumption information to be shown in FlexNet Manager Suite, providing a unified view of all on-premises software license consumption alongside SaaS consumption.

Oracle Database transparency

This is a new capability for the on-premises edition of FlexNet Manager Suite, allowing you to view detailed information about the collected usage evidence, including the sources of the evidence, for Oracle Database Options and Management Packs.

This capability already exists in the loud edition.

ServiceNow integration

The integration with ServiceNow has been updated and is certified with the London, Madrid, New York and Orlando releases.  The integration name in the ServiceNow store has changed to “Flexera Integration”, as the same integration is now used by both FlexNet Manager Suite and Flexera’s Data Platform product.

Over the next few days, we will be posting additional blogs, with more detailed descriptions and demos of key improvements in this release, so please remember to check for the updates.

Recording of the release webinar is available here: FlexNet Manager Suite 2020 R1 release webinar 

And please keep your feedback coming!

Flexera Product Management team