The Architecture of Compliance Importer

FlexNet Manager Suite 2020 R2 (On-Premises)

Compliance Importer is the framework within which inventory adapters function, and therefore dictates the requirements for each adapter.

The Compliance Importer is the software that executes inventory adapters to import data into FlexNet Manager Suite. It is a generic data import framework, but specific procedures are provided to import inventory data from source databases.

Once data is imported, it is matched to existing information in FlexNet Manager Suite, the Application Recognition Library is applied, and license compliance is calculated.

The overall model of the Compliance Importer is as follows:

• A set of procedures is defined for the import process. Procedures are grouped by their purposes as Readers, Writers and Export procedures.
• Tables are defined as intermediate storage and workspace for data used by each procedure. In most cases these staging tables are shipped as part of the FlexNet Manager Suite database schema.
• The main purpose of readers is to read data from a source database, and use it to populate the staging tables in the operations database. To fulfill that function, readers in connected mode may also load data into the source database to be used as context in their queries. This contextual information should use temporary database tables so that there is no permanent change to the source database. When operating in disconnected mode on an inventory beacon, the readers work in two stages: writing the gathered data to an intermediate package on the inventory beacon for later upload to the central application server; and subsequently loading the intermediate package data into the staging tables.
• Readers may also perform operations on data in the FlexNet Manager Suite or source database, usually to prepare data before returning results.
• Writers update the operations database, using the data in the staging tables to determine the changes to make.
• The Export step extracts data from the FlexNet Manager Suite database into a data warehouse for presentation in reports that track changes over time.

Understanding the function of the Reader procedures is especially important to preparing inventory adapters.