Ability to restrict FlexNet inventory agent communication to selected inventory beacons

This release of FlexNet Manager Suite introduces the concept of inventory groups that can be used to restrict FlexNet inventory agent communication to a subset of inventory beacons. Limiting which inventory beacons can be contacted by which FlexNet inventory agents may help reduce infrastructure overhead, giving you more control over the load balancing of communications, uploads, and network traffic.

A new Inventory group settings section has been added to the Inventory Settings page (Discovery & Inventory > Settings > Inventory group settings). Here, you can combine the following:

• A target set of one or more installed FlexNet inventory agents
• One or more inventory beacons.

Tip: Targets are created and managed on the Targets tab of the Discovery & Inventory > Discovery and Inventory Rules page. For example, if you specify a subnet address in the target definition, the target identifies all the devices that are within that subnet.

The resulting inventory groups are distributed to locally-installed FlexNet inventory agents through policy. Once updated, each FlexNet inventory agent chooses the best inventory beacon to contact from within its assigned group; and does not go outside its inventory group. If a FlexNet inventory agent falls into multiple inventory groups, it is then able to communicate to any beacon in those inventory groups. If an inventory device is not covered by any target in any inventory group, that inventory device remains able to communicate with all inventory beacons.

Within the Inventory group settings section, creating an inventory group is a two-step process. First, select one or more inventory beacons, and then select one or more targets of inventory devices. This combination forms the inventory group. The Inventory group settings section gives you the ability to create, edit, or remove inventory groups.

Important: To use this feature, you must upgrade your FlexNet Beacons to the version shipped with 2019 R2 or later.

For more information, refer to the Inventory group settings page in the online help.