Installing an Inventory Beacon

FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R2 (On-Premises Edition)

Accounts

To complete the following installation process, you must have both:
  • An account in FlexNet Manager Suite that is a member of the Administrator role (only administrators can see the necessary controls in the web interface)
  • An account with local administrator privileges on the computer that is to be your inventory beacon.
    Tip: After installation is completed, you also need an account with administrator privileges to run the FlexNet Beacon software. You can use the same account for installation and operation of FlexNet Beacon.
After installation and configuration, the FlexNet Beacon Engine operates as a long-running service to gather and upload data. During installation, this service is automatically configured to run under the local SYSTEM account (the default and recommended configuration). If you have reason to manually configure different credentials (perhaps to manage access through a proxy server), be aware that these manually-configured credentials for running the service are reset to SYSTEM at each automatic update to an inventory beacon. Therefore manually configured credentials must be manually reconfigured after each automatic upgrade of the FlexNet Beacon software.
Tip: From release 2014 R2, FlexNet Manager Suite supports automatic updating of inventory beacons (see Upgrading Inventory Beacons). Keep in mind that you can configure the automatic self-update behavior either:
  • For all inventory beacons (navigate to Discovery & Inventory > Settings > Beacon settings); or
  • For individual inventory beacons where that is more convenient (navigate to Discovery & Inventory > Beacons to edit the properties of your selected inventory beacon).

Other requirements

If this inventory beacon is to gather inventory from Office 365 in the cloud, the prerequisite software is available only for 64-bit architectures, so that this inventory beacon must be a 64-bit device. (Further details included in the process below, or review Prerequisites for Inventory Beacons.)

The installer for the inventory beacon software is downloaded from FlexNet Manager Suite. You may need to modify your browser security settings to allow trusted access to that URL.

Use the following process either for first-time installation of a new inventory beacon, or for manually updating an old inventory beacon.

To install an inventory beacon:

  1. Take note of the URL where you access FlexNet Manager Suite.
  2. Typically, because your application server and your inventory beacon are within the same enterprise, there are no security issues for web browser access from one to the other. On the other hand, if yours is a tightly locked-down environment, check the security settings on the browser on your inventory beacon to ensure that it can access your application server.
    For more information on configuring web browsers, see Configuring Your Web Browser.
  3. In your browser, navigate to the URL of your application server, logging in as required.
  4. In the Discovery & Inventory menu, under the Network group, select Beacons.
  5. Click Deploy a beacon.
    The Deploy a Beacon page appears. Ensure that the default Download a beacon section of the page is open.
  6. Click Download a beacon.
    Tip: This button is displayed only to members of the Administrator role.
  7. Use the web browser dialog to save the installer to a convenient directory (such as C:\temp).
    Tip: If you have not downloaded directly to your intended inventory beacon, you should now move the downloaded installer to that intended device.
  8. In Windows Explorer, navigate to the saved file on your inventory beacon, and double-click it to run the installer.
  9. Step through the install wizard to validate the proposed settings.
    Important: If this inventory beacon will import inventory collected by ILMT, or collect data from Oracle servers, follow the links provided in the wizard to ensure that the appropriate drivers are installed on the inventory beacon. In addition, if this inventory beacon is to collect inventory from an Office 365 connection, the following prerequisites must be satisfied (and noting that the order of installation of prerequisite software may be significant):
    • You have licensed the FlexNet Manager for Datacenters product (visible only on the central application server)
    • The inventory beacon that will collect inventory for Office 365 in the cloud has a 64-bit operating system: Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 or later, or Windows 7 SP1 or later (prerequisite software is not available for 32-bit architectures)
    • Microsoft .NET Framework version 4.7.0 or later
      Tip: If this is not already installed, the Skype for Business Online, Windows PowerShell Module (below) automatically installs it. Installation of this .NET version requires that the server is rebooted afterward.
    • PowerShell 5.1 or later, with the PowerShell execution policy set to RemoteSigned
      Tip: Run PowerShell with administrator rights to execute the following commands:
      To check the currently-installed version of PowerShell:
      $PSVersionTable.PSVersion
      To set PowerShell execution policy: 
         Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
    • Microsoft Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell is installed (Office 365 uses Azure Active Directory to manage user identities behind the scenes):
      1. Install the 64-bit version of the Microsoft Online Services Sign-in Assistant (available from https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=286152).
      2. Install the Microsoft Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell with these steps:
        1. Open an administrator-level PowerShell command prompt.
        2. Run the Install-Module MSOnline command.
        3. If prompted to install the NuGet provider, type Y and press ENTER.
        4. If prompted that the installer is not signed, type Y and press ENTER.
        5. If prompted to install the module from PSGallery, type Y and press ENTER.
        6. After installation, close the PowerShell command window.
    • Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable is installed on the inventory beacon
      Tip: This may be automatically installed by the installation of the PowerShell module above.
    • Skype for Business Online, Windows PowerShell Module 64-bit version (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39366)
    • An active Internet connection with JavaScript enabled allowing connection to the Microsoft Office 365 Portal at https://portal.office.com/admin/default.aspx.
    Additional notes:
    • In the Reporting Endpoint page, the Suite Path setting must remain at the default value Suite. Change this only if you have manually reconfigured the web server on your central application server.
    • On the Configure Scheduled Tasks page (in the standard installation), you are managing tasks for catch-up uploading of inventory and staged data imports. Select a service account that has access to the upload destination (either a parent inventory beacon, or the central application server).
  10. On the Ready to Install the Program page, click Install.
    When installation is complete, you must configure connections for this inventory beacon. Connections are needed to: