[BESAdmin-Announcements] IBM BigFix Inventory and IBM License Metric Tool application update 9.2.5 available

[Announcements for BES Administrators]

IBM BigFix Inventory and IBM License Metric Tool application update 9.2.5 
is now available.
This update contains key features that extend software discovery and 
enhance reporting capability to help customers reduce software costs. The 
key features include:
?       Software discovery for IBM i (aka OS/400 of IBM iSeries Servers) 
Software discovery is officially available on IBM i systems. There is no 
BigFix agent for IBM i and the discovery is based on a semi-automatic 
procedure that uses scripts to initiate software and capacity scans. 
Because there is no direct connection between the IBM i systems and the 
BigFix server, the scans that are initiated on these systems are called 
disconnected scans. 
Benefit: Thanks to the introduction of software discovery on IBM i, all 
customers that are using IBM iSeries Servers can now fully migrate from 
License Metric Tool and Tivoli Asset Discovery for Distributed v7.x 
without any further limitation.
?    A new reporting capability for comparing the number of deployed 
instances with specified thresholds (BigFix Inventory) 

The All Metrics report is now available as part of IBM BigFix Inventory. 
The report lists both IBM and non-IBM products. For products licensed 
based on the number of computers on which it is installed, you can set a 
threshold. The threshold can indicate the upper limit of license metrics 
about which a company wants to be informed when they are exceeded as well 
as internal charge back or allocations. They can also represent the 
maximum number of license entitlements available on contracts. When you 
combine this function with email notifications, you can get immediate 
attention to non-compliance situations. 
Benefit: Customers are now able to better manage compliance, avoid 
over-deploying products for which they do not have enough entitlements as 
well as identify products that are highly under-deployed to look for cost 
reduction or optimization.   
?    Preview Feature: Enhancements of the Software Classification panel 
A preview feature is a new capability, fully supported and certified, that 
can be optionally enabled in the product. It is enhanced in stages and 
made available to get customer feedback and recommendations for its 
further development.
The Software Classification panel introduces a new way of looking at 
software inventory and relations between the discovered components and 
licensable products. It provides a flat structure with software 
installations broken into single components, which makes it easier to view 
software assets and manage relations between them. 
The preview panel is extended with the following functions:
?       Selecting multiple components to speed up their assignment 
?       Confirming and unconfirming the assignment of components
?       Classifying products from vendors other than IBM (only in BigFix 
Inventory)
The panel also shows a preview of options that are planned to be 
implemented. You are welcome to share your opinions and suggestions about 
these options. 
Benefit: You can easily classify multiple components, and confirm or 
unconfirm the assignment. Thanks to extending the panel to non-IBM 
products, you can also classify software from other vendors and get a 
clear overview of your software assets. 
?       Improving software classification with bundling tags
Bundling tags facilitate the process of software classification. They 
contain information about the part number of a product to which the 
instance of a component should be assigned. Thus, they increase the 
accuracy of automated bundling. 
Creating bundling tags is most effective when your company uses a process 
of packaging software installers. In this case, you can add a bundling tag 
to the packaged installer, and automatically place it on the computers 
during the installation.
Benefit: You can save time and effort related to analyzing to which 
product a particular component belongs by distributing bundling tags 
together with packaged installers.
?       Software discovery in Docker containers
Docker is a platform that allows for automating the deployment of 
applications inside software containers. BigFix Inventory discovers 
software that is installed inside Docker containers. It also measures 
license metric utilization of the discovered IBM products.
Benefit: You can discover software that is installed in Docker containers. 
 
?       Information about processor brand string 
Information about the processor brand string is available on the Hardware 
Inventory report. It contains a full specification of the processor 
including its brand, model, and speed as read from the computer operating 
system. 
Benefit: You can use this information to apply vendor Core Factor values 
and calculate Oracle and Microsoft license demand.

Action to take:
To learn how to get the application update and deploy it as well as to 
view the full list of new features and APARs that were fixed in this 
application update, see the following links:
IBM BigFix Inventory: http://ibm.biz/bfi_update_925 
IBM License Metric Tool: http://ibm.biz/lmt_update_925 

Questions
If you have any product-related questions, please post them on one of the 
following fora:
http://ibm.biz/BFI_Forum
http://ibm.biz/ILMT_Forum

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