[BESAdmin-Announcements] LMT and BFI application update 9.2.8 is now available!

[Announcements for BES Administrators]

IBM BigFix Inventory and IBM License Metric Tool application update 9.2.8
is now available.
This update contains features that extend software discovery and enhance
license reporting. The key features include:



   ·	Reporting of the Single and Dual Physical Processor license metrics
      for Microsoft Windows Server operating systems (BigFix Inventory
      only)


      BigFix Inventory measures utilization of the Single Physical
      Processor and Dual Physical Processor metrics for Microsoft Windows
      Server. You can use the information to calculate the license demand
      for this product. The feature is supported for Windows Server 2008 R2
      Datacenter, Windows Server 2012 Datacenter, and Windows Server 2012
      R2 Datacenter.


      Benefits: You can calculate the demand for Microsoft Windows Server
      licenses.





   ·	Enhanced reporting for Oracle Database servers with additional
      support for the Oracle Processor Core metric (BigFix Inventory only)


      Reporting of Oracle Databases is enhanced by processing the core
      factor and measuring utilization of the Oracle Processor Core metric.
      You can use the information to calculate the license demand for
      Oracle Databases. The feature is supported for all versions of the
      Oracle Database that is discovered by BigFix Inventory.


      Benefits: You can now use reports provided by BigFix Inventory to
      calculate the demand for Oracle Database licenses without the need to
      manually calculate core factors and tires.





   ·	Reporting software installed on shared disks based on software
      templates


      To ensure completeness of software discovery, it is necessary to
      collect data from shared disks. The solution that was available in
      the previous application updates was in place for some time. However,
      it could be resource-consuming when shared disks were used
      extensively.


      The new solution is based on creating software templates - one of the
      computers on which the disk is mounted is scanned to create a
      software template. Then, the template is replicated within a computer
      group that contains other computers on which the same disk is
      mounted.


      Benefits: Discovery of software that is installed on shared disks is
      done without impacting performance of the infrastructure.





   ·	Collecting executable files based on application usage (BigFix
      Inventory only)


      To improve software discovery on Linux and Solaris systems, you can
      now use files associated with processes that have been run on the
      computers in your infrastructure, regardless of the file extension.
      These files, with supplementing information such as their path and
      size, are available on the Scanned File Data report and can be used
      to create custom discovery and usage signatures for software
      components.


      Benefits: Improved discovery of software on Linux and Solaris.





  ·	Enhanced REST APIs for software and hardware inventory


      New REST APIs for software inventory (api/sam/v2/software_instances)
      and hardware inventory (api/sam/v2/computers) provide complete
      information about software classification, including product to which
      the component is assigned and its license metric as well as the
      status of confirmation, exclusion, and suppression. The REST APIs
      provide historical information about uninstalled software and removed
      computers. They also provide associations that allow for retrieving
      additional hardware inventory information, computer health or usage
      data with a single REST API call.


      The REST APIs are planned to substitute the following existing APIs:
      software_inventory and computer_systems.


      Benefits: You can retrieve complete information about software and
      hardware inventory through REST API for integration or automation of
      processes.





  ·	Automatic decommissioning of computers that are inactive for a
      specified period


      When infrastructure management policy makes a process of deleting the
      clients decommissioned in BigFix difficult or impossible, you can
      enable automatic decommissioning of inactive computers directly in
      BigFix Inventory or License Metric Tool.


      Benefits: Inactive computers are decommissioned after a specified
      period, and are no longer included in metric calculation.





  ·	Configuration of user account lockout


      To increase BigFix Inventory security, you can set conditions under
      which user account is locked. You can set the maximum number of
      failed login attempts, the period within which these attempts must
      occur for the account to be locked, and the period for which the
      account is locked.


      Benefits: BigFix Inventory and License Metric Tool can be configured
      to follow the account security policy of the company.





   ·	Stand-alone scanner for monitoring isolated Solaris computers


      If some of your Solaris computers cannot be managed from a central
      location due to security reasons, you can discover software and
      hardware inventory by using disconnected scans. Scan results are
      placed in files that can be later on used to import the collected
      data to the BigFix Inventory or License Metric Tool server.


      Benefits: You can collect software and hardware inventory data from
      computers that cannot have the BigFix client installed.





  ·	Assigning a new license metric to an existing product


      	When your license terms define that a product uses a specific
      license metric but such a relation is not available in the software
      catalog, you can assign any of the license metrics available in
      BigFix Inventory or License Metric Tool to any of the products.


      Benefits: More flexibility to accommodate the assignment of license
      metrics to products in accordance with contract terms and, when
      available, to also get related license metric utilization reports.




   ·	Support for new operating systems and public clouds


      You can install the application server on Windows Server 2016. You
      can also identify computers as running on Google Compute Engine
      public cloud.


      Benefits: You can calculate PVU demand for software that is installed
      on computers that run on the Google Compute Engine public cloud.





   ·	Discovery of new components from Oracle, SAP, and Red Hat


      The software catalog is extended to discover a number of new
      components from Microsoft, SAP, and Oracle. To discover the
      components, ensure that you upload the software catalog published in
      June 2017, and upgrade BigFix Inventory to version 9.2.8.


      Below is the list of the newly added components. To learn about their
      exact versions, use the Software Catalog widget in BigFix Inventory
      to browse the catalog content.


      · Added signatures for Oracle products


            o Oracle Linux


            o Oracle Data Integrator


            o Oracle JDeveloper


            o Oracle Service Bus


      · Added signatures for SAP products


            o SAP SQL Anywhere Personal Database Server


            o SAP SQL Anywhere Network Database Server


            o SAP SQL Anywhere High Availability Option


      · Added signatures for Red Hat products


            o Red Hat JBoss Fuse


            o Red Hat JBoss Developer Studio


            o Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform


            o Red Hat JBoss Web Server


      ·	Added signatures for TIBCO Rendezvous


      ·	Added signatures for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP
      Applications





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:


BigFix Inventory: http://ibm.biz/lmt_update_928


License Metric Tool: http://ibm.biz/lmt_update_928


During the upgrade, new versions of the software catalog and PVU table are
uploaded. The versions that are uploaded are the newest ones that were
available during the release of the application update to which you are
upgrading.





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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