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Inventory Device Roles Best Practices

Hi Everyone - 

I was curious if anyone had a specific methodology for device role management and how they adjust roles & exemptions in their system?

We have about 2x as many environment names as what Flexera's fields cover, so mapping to them is sometimes more art than science. However, I figured the approach is something like this:

  • All devices are prod by default in Flexera workflow
  • Most licenses by default do not have any baked-in exemptions
  • If you do change a role, should err on the side of only changing it to a non-production type role if you are positive there are no production workloads.

 

Example of a tricky one - Stress Testing.

This enviornment nearly matches production, so you can test impact. I'd imagine that maps to a Production or Hot standby, because even though it is used for testing purposes, the infrastructure likely has the same type of licensed software as production on it, and used for similar purposes as prod.

 

From the documentation:

Type Notes
Backup / Archive This device cannot be started without first restoring it from an archive copy. Typical publisher terminologies include backup, or archival.
Cold Standby / Disaster Recovery This device is not currently running, but could be started at any time. Typical publisher terminologies include disaster recovery, cold standby, cold disaster recovery, or failover.
Development This device is used exclusively for system development. It does not carry any production load.
Hot Standby / Active Failover This device is running, and probably doing work such as mirroring database changes. Typically, this system requires a license, so that it would be unusual to select this role for an exemption. Typical publisher terminologies include hot standby, active, active clusters, mirroring, HA, standby, or remote mirroring.
Production Specifies that the device is being used in the production environment, and it consumes license entitlements for its installed software. This is the default value for all newly imported devices, and you need to change it to reflect any other specific role.
Test Specifies that the device is being used exclusively in system testing, and does not carry any production load.
Training Specifies that the device is being used for training purposes. Most publishers require that this use is exclusive, and may also require that the device is within a dedicated training facility.
Warm Standby / Passive Failover This device is on, but is idling and not carrying any production load.
(1) Solution

@johnksilverwood - In some cases like this, you may need to look at the specific scenario on your "Stress Testing" server:

- What commercial software is installed on this server?
- What types of role-based exemptions are defined by the application(s)
- Based on this, do you think this server can be exempted for the application(s)

If you now think that based on the application installed, what exemptions are allowed, and the true role of the server, you can assign a "role" to this server (Testing, for example), and then on the Software License for the application make sure that the assigned role (such as Testing) is exempt from licensing.

View solution in original post

(4) Replies

@johnksilverwood - In some cases like this, you may need to look at the specific scenario on your "Stress Testing" server:

- What commercial software is installed on this server?
- What types of role-based exemptions are defined by the application(s)
- Based on this, do you think this server can be exempted for the application(s)

If you now think that based on the application installed, what exemptions are allowed, and the true role of the server, you can assign a "role" to this server (Testing, for example), and then on the Software License for the application make sure that the assigned role (such as Testing) is exempt from licensing.

Hello kclausen.

Our server admins have a pretty standard naming convention when building server. Just like John, all of our inventory is showing device role = Production, since that's the default when bringing the inventory.

Is there a way to update the device role based on a particular character in the server name? Our character number 7 from the name is giving us the role.

We are in Flexera One. Thanks!

@OscarMartin - In your case, to automate the assignment of the correct Device Role based on the actual Server Name:

1 - Create a process to connect to the Flexera One ITAM API to extract current Inventory Devices with the Computer Name and current Device Role

2 - Analyze the data by looking at the Computer Name and the current Device Role.  If the Device Role needs to be updated, you can then create a final update file (such as in CSV), containing the Computer Name and the new Device Role

3 - Create a Business Adapter to read the CSV file, find the matching Inventory Device and update the Device Role

You could also do this in the UI by creating a view that filters computers "Containing" your imbedded role in the device name, and the current Device Role and then manually edit the device role.

FWIW if anyone else has this problem, we basically followed the logic:

  • Stress testing was assigned Test, as that is its true purpose. Not meant for true production workloads.
  • Exemptions on the licenses themselves are the area of critical analysis - e.g. if you are going to exempt all 'test' - be sure that you don't have any unique scenarios where you can't exempt those stress testing machines because they have the same commercial SW installed.

This probably depends on the publisher more than the server itself, as many publishers have different rules. So the level of scrutiny probably falls to a publisher/license view as opposed to changing the server role itself.