[BESAdmin-Announcements] IBM BigFix Inventory and IBM License Metric Tool application update 9.2.13 is now available
Announcements for BES Administrators
besadmin-announcements at bigmail.bigfix.com
Fri Sep 28 03:25:47 PDT 2018
IBM BigFix Inventory and IBM License Metric Tool application update 9.2.13
is now available.
This update contains features that extend software discovery, enhance
license reporting and address security scenarios. The key features include:
· Reporting the Registered User metric for Microsoft Office 365 (BigFix
Inventory only)
BigFix Inventory reports utilization of the Registered User metric
for Microsoft Office 365. The information is extracted during regular
software scans directly from computers where components of Office 365
are installed. Based on the scan results, the Registered User metric
is calculated, and its utilization is displayed on the All Metrics
report. Detailed information about users is shown on the Software
Users report.
Benefits: Thanks to this feature, you can track licenses for Office
365 in BigFix Inventory to analyze trends, define thresholds and
optimize costs by identifying users of unused instances.
· Version currency of Internet browsers and other selected software
that changes frequently (BigFix Inventory only)
BigFix Inventory automatically detects all versions of a number of
software components on Windows. These components include Internet
browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Opera) as well as components
such as Adobe Air, Adobe Flash Player, Slack, and other. The
components are detected by generic signatures while their versions
are automatically retrieved from files or packages that caused
detection.
Benefits: Thanks to the newly introduced approach towards detection
of software that is frequently updated, full discovery currency is
ensured.
· Preview Features
The Preview features give you a chance to take a sneak peek at what
we are currently developing. You can try them out and provide your
feedback to influence how they work when they are officially
released. You can provide your feedback about the dashboard by
clicking the Send Feedback button on the Home Page.
· Preview feature: Visibility of Common Vulnerabilities and
Exposures (CVEs) (BigFix Inventory only)
· Information about CVEs is shown on the Software
Classification report on which CVEs are matched with
software components through component detailed versions.
· The details of CVEs are extended to include a link to a
description of the CVE in the National Vulnerability
Database as well as the version of the CVSS, either 2.0
or 3.0.
· Information about CVEs can be filtered and sorted by the
CVE name. The filter shows the software that meets the
specified criteria by searching through the full list of
CVEs of each reported software instance.
Benefits: Thanks to the improvements in showing information
about CVEs you can better identify, monitor, and analyze
potentially vulnerable software and at the same time prevent
potential threats.
· Preview feature: Security dashboard and reporting (BigFix
Inventory only)
New Security Dashboard shows a preview of security features in
the form of widgets that show the following information:
· The number of software installations that are out of
support
· The number of software installations for which support
ends within the next three months
· The number of software installations that are vulnerable
· The number of software installations that were discovered
within the last two weeks and are vulnerable
· The overall number of software installations
To view the new dashboard, click Go to New Dashboard &
Reporting on the home page.
Benefits: Summary of the most important security information
available at a single view.
· Reporting utilization of FlexPoints
FlexPoint is a license metric unit that can be used to determine the
cost of IBM products that are purchased as part of FlexPoint bundles.
Each product from a bundle is licensed based on a different license
metric but all metrics are converted into FlexPoints. Products that
are currently available as part of FlexPoint bundles are products
from the IBM Cloud and IBM Analytics brands.
Benefits: BigFix Inventory and License Metric Tool allow you to
calculate the current license utilization of IBM FlexPoints, based on
the most recent data. For some product that are included in FlexPoint
bundles and cannot be automatically measured by BigFix Inventory or
License Metric Tool, manual input of the base metric is
required.nThanks to this feature, you can make sure that you are
prepared for audits, and that the number of purchased FlexPoints fits
your needs.
· New To Do list on the top navigation bar
The top navigation bar is extended with a To Do list that, at
present, displays the information about:
· Failed imports of data
· Availability of a new version of the application
· The need to configure connections to virtualization hosts for
some of the computers
Benefits: Thanks to the To Do list you are informed about issues that
might affect the accuracy of your reports and thus, immediately take
actions to avoid miscalculations. At the same time, you can be
up-to-date about the newest application releases.
· Support for BigFix Inventory and License Metric Tool server on MS SQL
2016
MS SQL 2016 is now supported as a database for BigFix Inventory and
License Metric Tool. If you used MS SQL 2016 with earlier versions of
BigFix Inventory or License Metric Tool your environment was
non-compliant from IBM perspective. The data that was stored in the
database might have been invalid and the historical data cannot be
fixed. However, data collected after the upgrade to BigFix Inventory
or License Metric Tool 9.2.13 will be valid and compliant from IBM
perspective.
Benefits: You can use the MS SQL 2016 edition as a database.
· Discovery of new components from Citrix, Symantec, and Oracle (BigFix
Inventory only)
The software catalog is extended to discover new components from
Citrix, Symantec, and Oracle. To discover the components, ensure that
you upgrade BigFix Inventory to version 9.2.13.
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 discovery capability for Citrix products
o Citrix Edgesight
o Citrix Presentation Server
o Citrix XenDesktop
· Added discovery capability for Symantec products
o Veritas Cluster Enterprise Agents
o Veritas Cluster ServerVeritas Cluster Server Bundled
Agents
o Veritas Cluster Server Disk Reservation Modules and
Utilities
· Added discovery capability for Oracle products
o Oracle Clusterware
o Oracle GoldenGate
o Sun Cluster HA for WebSphere MQ
Benefits: More visibility into deployed products and components and
better license management without the need to develop custom
signatures.
· Information about the end of support dates is refreshed (BigFix
Inventory only)
The information about the end of support dates is refreshed for your
IBM software components for which the dates were announced since the
last update of the list. The data is based on the information
contained in IBM Lifecycle in September.
Benefits: The information about the end of support dates for the IBM
software used in your organization is up-to-date and thus, you can
prepare for the forthcoming software updates.
· Security enhancements
· On the server side:
o Java is upgraded to the newest version to maintain
security.
o TLS 1.2 is enabled in IBM Java by default.
o WebSphere Application Server Liberty is upgraded to
version 18.0.0.2 to address CVE-2018-1553.
· On the endpoint side:
o Update of the Xerces library to version 3.2.1 on Windows
to keep the scanner secure and reliable.
· · Support for new virtualization technologies
· vSphere ESXi 6.7 and vSphere vCenter Server 6.7.
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: https://ibm.biz/bfi_update_9213
License Metric Tool: https://ibm.biz/lmt_update_9213
Questions
If you have any product-related questions, please post them on one of the
following forums:
https://ibm.biz/BFI_Forum
https://ibm.biz/ILMT_Forum
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