[BESAdmin-Announcements] IBM BigFix Inventory and IBM License Metric Tool application update 9.2.15 is now available

[Announcements for BES Administrators]

IBM BigFix Inventory and IBM License Metric Tool application update 9.2.15
is now available!

This  update  contains  features  that  extend  software discovery, enhance
license reporting and address security scenarios. The key features include:

      Preview feature*: New Software Summary (Preview) report

      The new Software Summary (Preview) report provides an overview of
      software inventory in your environment. Each row represents a set of
      software components in a given version that are related to the
      specified product grouped by the selected columns.

Benefits: Thanks to the new report, you get a single point of reference for
the high-level overview of your software inventory. The report is easy to
read and customize.



      Additionally, in BigFix Inventory, the report shows the usage
      statistics for your products, which are dynamically changed to ensure
      usage currency.
Note: The usage statistics that are displayed on the report are planned to
be enhanced in the future.

Benefits: Thanks to all usage statistics being available in one place, you
can quickly compare the total number of software instance that are
installed in your environment with the number of instances that are
actually in use. Thus, you can plan how to manage your software needs and
costs.


            * 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


      Extended support

   Support for the BigFix client on new platforms
      Windows 2019
      Oracle SPARC-M8 processor
      Ubuntu 18.04 on x86

   Support for new virtualization technologies
      vCenter   with   external  Platform  Services  Controllers  (PSC)  on
      different computers
      Support for Solaris Kernel zones on Oracle Solaris x86 and SPARC with
      nested virtualization


      Extended  reporting  of  usage  statistics for Java (BigFix Inventory
      only)

BigFix  Inventory  introduces  a  new  method  of  reporting usage for Java
Virtual  Machine and Runtime Environments. Paths to Java processes that run
on a computer are matched with paths in which the software is discovered.

Benefits:  Thanks  to  the  new  method  of  reporting BigFix Inventory can
determine exactly which Java instance is used. It allows you to distinguish
between usage of IBM and Oracle Java installed on a single computer.

      Enhanced Software Installations report

The  Software  Installation  report  is improved to provide consistent data
that is in line with other available reports.

Benefits: Thanks to the new data model, the report criteria are extended to
cover additional component instances.

      Extension of the To Do list for maintaining currency of your scanning
      actions

The  To Do list is extended and additionally displays information about the
outdated scanning actions that need to be restarted.

Benefits:  Thanks  to  the newly available information, you can monitor the
scanning actions from the Web interface and make sure that scanned data for
the related reports is accurate.

      Names  of  fixlets  in  the  BigFix console contain information about
      version

Starting  from  now,  names of all BigFix Inventory and License Metric Tool
fixlets include their version.

Benefits:  Thanks  to  the  clear  versioning, you can easily check if your
running  actions  are  up-to-date.  If  not,  you can decide to restart the
actions   to   make  sure  that  you  take  advantage  of  all  the  newest
improvements.

      Discovery   of   new   components   from,   among   others,   Citrix,
      Hewlett-Packard 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 9.2.15.
Below  is  the  list  some  of  the  newly  added components. To get a full
overview  of  additions  and  learn  about  their  exact  versions, use the
Software Catalog widget in BigFix Inventory to browse the catalog content.
      Extended discovery of Oracle Databases certified for Oracle Database
      18c: 18.3
      Added discovery capability for Citrix products
            Citrix XenApp
            Citrix XenApp Reports
            Citrix XenDesktop
      Added discovery capability for Hewlett-Packard products
            HP Business Process Monitor
            HP Business Service Management
            HP Operations Agent
            HP Operations Manager
      Added discovery capability for Oracle products
            Oracle Clusterware
            Oracle Linux
            Oracle SOA Suite
      Benefits:  More  visibility into deployed products and components and
      better   license  management  without  the  need  to  develop  custom
      signatures.
      Security enhancements
      On the server side:
            Rails is upgraded to version 5.0.7 to maintain security.

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_9215
License Metric Tool: https://ibm.biz/lmt_update_9215

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


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://bigmail.bigfix.com/pipermail/besadmin-announcements/attachments/20190326/853c0938/attachment.html>