Oracle Database inventory improvements

FlexNet Manager Suite version 2018 R2

Earlier releases allowed for an inventory beacon to connect directly to an Oracle Database server and gather inventory from any container database (for Oracle 12c or later) and any pluggable databases available through your chosen discovery method (such as a TNSNames.ora file); and this functionality remains available unchanged. However, a locally-executing copy of ndtrack (the core inventory component) running on the Oracle server could not previously discover and collect inventory from the pluggable databases.

This functionality has now been added for ndtrack, regardless of how the tracker is delivered to the target inventory device (the Oracle server). Thus, you can now collect inventory from pluggable databases using:

• The complete FlexNet inventory agent, whether installed automatically during ‘adoption’ of the inventory device, or installed by third-party tools/techniques
• The lightweight FlexNet Inventory Scanner (for UNIX-like platforms, this is packaged as the ndtrack.sh shell script)
• The zero-footprint method, where an inventory beacon installs ndtrack on the target device, executes it, and removes it immediately afterwards (leaving zero installation footprint).

After inventory upload and import to the compliance database (which typically happens overnight), the pluggable databases are displayed in the Oracle Instances page of the web interface for FlexNet Manager Suite:

• The container instance has ~CDB_ROOT attached to its instance name
• Each pluggable database displays the same instance name, a tilde character, and the name of the pluggable database: containerInstance~pluggableDBName.

On UNIX-like platforms, collection of Oracle inventory may be configured to require the FlexNet inventory agent (which must run as root) to impersonate other trusted accounts with lower privilege levels (for details see the Common: Child Processes on UNIX-Like Platforms topic in the Gathering FlexNet Inventory PDF, available through the title page of online help). The impersonation has been improved at this release, increasing both reliability and security.