Concept

FlexNet Manager Suite 2020 R1 (On-Premises)

Inventory beacons act like relay stations. They collect inventory data from the staging database on the SAP Admin module systems or from independent SAP systems by running the SAP Inventory Agent and transfer the data to the FlexNet Manager Suite processing server for analysis and optimization.

The workflow usually comprises the following steps:

  1. You register the inventory beacon to enable it to communicate with FlexNet Manager Suite. For more information, see Registering an Inventory Beacon.
  2. On the inventory beacon, you create a connection to an SAP Admin module or an independent SAP system for the SAP inventory collection.
  3. You schedule the collection of SAP data on the beacon or trigger an immediate import. The SAP Inventory Agent is executed and collects SAP data. For information on scheduling connections, see Scheduling Page.
    Note: It is recommended to import SAP inventory (user and consumption data) once every month. In addition, the task for collecting SAP inventory should be scheduled to occur on different dates for different SAP Admin module and independent SAP systems.
  4. The extracted data is stored in a package of data files, in an intermediate format. The packages are located in %AppData%\Flexera Software\Beacon\IntermediateData\ (for example, on Windows Server 2008 R2, %AppData% is ProgramData). The file naming convention is S[T=Tenant ID][S=SAP System IDSAP Client ID]_Inventory Timestamp.zip.
  5. If the inventory beacon is online, the inventory packages are uploaded to the FlexNet Manager Suite processing server immediately after data collection has been completed. This upload is triggered by the Microsoft scheduled task Upload third-party inventory data.
  6. On the FlexNet Manager Suite processing server, the Microsoft scheduled task Import SAP inventories resolves the intermediate data packages into the operations database. The data is now ready for analysis in FlexNet Manager for SAP Applications.
  7. After the analysis and optimization of the license data, you release license recommendations to the SAP Admin module or the independent SAP system. These recommendations are automatically uploaded from FlexNet Manager Suite to the inventory beacon. The SAP Admin module or the independent SAP system connects to the inventory beacon via a web service to retrieve the recommendations. You can then process the recommendations on the SAP Admin module or the independent SAP system (that is, change user and/or license data as required and update the user master data).

The collected data usually comprises the following: user names, user roles, the transaction codes that are included in user roles, user consumption (CPU time), module names, transaction codes of the system, the license-type hierarchy, and evidence of indirect access.

Package measurement data includes the package name, package ID, and package consumption data.

For more information about the data that is collected by the SAP Inventory agent, see the section Tables Read and Data Collected by the SAP Inventory Agent in the FlexNet Manager for SAP Applications User Guide PDF. For details of the scheduled tasks controlling these processes on the inventory beacon, see Scheduled Tasks for Inventory Beacon.

Important: Package-measurement and activity-checks data can be collected only after a package measurement or activity checks analysis has been executed on the dependent SAP system. Package-measurement or activity-checks data is available in the staging database of the SAP Admin module after the Staging Database Monitor has launched the USMM remotely, or after the Package Analysis and Activity Checks have been run.

FlexNet Manager Suite (On-Premises)

2020 R1