Auto-cleanup of Obsolete FlexNet Inventory

[AamerSharif]

Summary

Flexera One ITAM and FNMS/ITAM OnPrem now provide auto-cleanup of obsolete FlexNet inventory data. You can configure the age of the FlexNet inventory data within Flexera ITAM to remove/delete obsolete FlexNet inventory devices and consume only relevant FlexNet inventory devices data that falls within the configured number of days to calculate the license position.  

Obsolete FlexNet Inventory 

Inventory devices reported by FlexNet agent that are not reporting inventory for some time (a specified number of days) and reported hardware and software inventory is not relevant anymore for license positions as it has become obsolete.

How to enable obsolete Flexera inventory cleanup

You can enable/configure obsolete FlexNet inventory data cleanup by going to the Inventory tab under ITAM System Settings, by clicking on Administrator à General (Under IT Asset Management Settings)à Inventory tab.

Under the Obsolete inventory section, you can configure the age of FlexNet inventory data by selecting the number of days under the Remove after: drop-down list and click save.

Default is never, you can choose one of the options from (30, 60, 90, or 180 days).

 

 

After configuring the age of the cleanup for obsolete FlexNet inventory data, the overnight data maintenance task will automatically clean/remove any obsolete inventory devices.

This feature applies to all the inventory devices reported by the Flexera inventory agent, cleanup process uses the hardware inventory date of the reported inventory device to decide whether an inventoried device is obsolete or not.

Applies to:

This feature is available in Flexera One ITAM and also will be available in the next FNMS/ITAM On-Prem 2022 R1 release.

[Big_Kev]

Excellent feature for cloud solution, as we always have 'stale' inventory in big enterprise which not updated by either inventory source nor AD etc. Good stuff. 

[lboym_allstate]

Hello, 

Does this cleanup apply to Cloud customers?  I see the comment.."This feature is available in Flexera One ITAM and also will be available in the next FNMS/ITAM On-Prem 2022 R1 release.

1) We have FlexeraOne Cloud on version 2020 R2  - and can see the Obsolete feature - should this work?? Or is only available for On-Prem customers?

2) We also have SCCM feeding into FlexeraOne - will this also work/cleanup/automatic delete if we have SCCM connector and Flexera agent?

Many thanks in advance.. 

Laura 

[ChrisG]

@lboym_allstate - yes, this functionality is now available in Flexera One ITAM. (I think that is what you are referring to with the phrase "FlexeraOne Cloud on version 2020 R2".)

This functionality is focused on removing obsolete inventory data that has been gathered by the FlexNet inventory agent. If you are using SCCM to gather inventory then you should use functionality in SCCM to remove obsolete inventory from there - the functionality discussed in this post will not touch data in SCCM.

[SimonCWitts]

Question: Where a machine that has not reported for a period is removed from inventory using this feature, if at a future date the machine "comes back to life", will it automatically be re-discovered by the system?

Thanks

[bmaudlin]

@ChrisG , 

My understanding from the thread, this simply applies to the Flexera Inventory Agent data, is there any scope for any additional inventory data feeds to be added such as SCCM?  As well as AD data in the future for example?

[ChrisG]

@bmaudlin - yes, the change discussed in this post is talking about cleaning up data gathered by the FlexNet inventory agent. If your question is about whether Flexera One ITAM/FlexNet Manager Suite might be enhanced to delete records in other systems in a similar fashion, I expect the answer is no. The integration with systems like SCCM and AD is generally one way to import data only, and not make changes in them.

With that said, I believe there is a way to configure SCCM to delete or obsolete old records; an Internet search for a phrase like "sccm delete inactive clients" will probably point you in the right direction. I don't know what organizations do in terms of detecting and cleaning up obsolete data in AD, but I'd guess there are a wide range of practices.

[kevin_christens]

We are using FlexNet Manager Suite 2022 R1 - On prem.  I have enabled the new feature to get rid of old inventory data but I find we still have old inventory records still showing in the "All Inventory".  There are no matching records in im.dbo.Computer  but they do exist in fnmp.dbo.complianceComputer.    The devices still showing with old inventory do not have last inventory source from FlexNet but from SMS(MECM/SCCM).  

Is there a recommended process to safely delete old inventory records from fnmp.dbo.complianceComputer that do not get deleted using the new "Obsolete Inventory" delete process?

[kclausen]

@kevin_christens - This automatic cleanup process only applies to inventory coming in from the Flexera Agent.  In regards to inventory from other sources such as SCCM, see the commend above from ChrisG.

The only way to fully delete old inventory from other sources such as SCCM is to delete the device from the source SCCM system.  If you delete the device out of FNMS without deleting from SCCM, then the next time your SCCM Import runs, the device will be created again.  If you cannot delete the device from the source inventory system, then you need to update the status of the Inventory Device to "Ignore".

[kevin_christens]

I guess the issue we are having then is that the devices no longer exist in SCCM but we still have corresponding records in ComplianceComputer.  I will have to devise a query that can safely find those obsolete devices in ComplianceComputer_MT and remove them.   It doesn't appear that when a device is deleted from SCCM, it automatically deletes the inventory/compliance data from FlexNet.

[AjaykumarPatil]

Is it possible to get informations about deleted records by this functionality if want any point of time?  

[ChrisG]

@AjaykumarPatil - the short answer is that details of delete records are not stored in a meaningfully accessible way.

The slightly longer answer is that if you are working with FlexNet Manager Suite (on-premises) they you may find some artefacts related to deleted records in the ComplianceHistory view in the compliance database, and if inventory devices have consumed IBM PVU licenses then you will also find some records are retained with an "archived" status.

[phillipforrette]

Does the auto-cleanup of obsolete inventories affect an inventory device that is linked to an asset? I realize that I cannot manually delete/ignore an inventory that is linked to an asset, but does this automation have that ability or will it only affect inventories that are not linked to an asset?

[ChrisG]

@phillipforrette - the auto-cleanup of obsolete inventories will not consider whether an inventory device is linked to an asset. The inventory data is cleaned up just the same regardless of any associated asset information. Asset records will not be deleted when associated inventory is cleaned up.

[staudk27]

Is there any chance this will be expanded to handle just the status of older inventory? This is especially true for Flexera One and devices that cannot be linked to an Asset. Many of our customers would like to see the inventory status, which has some automation via UI vs. Business Adapter. 

A few common use cases:

- When inventory is X days old, change inventory status to "Ignored."
- When inventory is X days old, remove the device from inventory.
- If an inventory is "Ignored" and becomes active again, change the status to "Active."

Has anyone achieved this in Flexera One with a Business Adapter?