VMs Inventory Gaps From vCenters Report

FlexNet Manager Suite 2022 R2 (On-Premises)

The VMs Inventory Gaps From vCenters report returns and displays all virtual machines (VMs) and corresponding inventory status from a vCenter import.

When vCenter data is collected by the Flexera Beacon, the vCenter server API returns information on clusters, hosts and VMs. During the import, VMs are matched against "fully inventoried VMs" (by the FlexNet Inventory agent or Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager) using the VMs UUID. VMs that are not matched are saved in the “Awaiting Inventory Virtual Machines” table.

The VMs Inventory Gaps From vCenters report groups the inventoried VMs information (including their vCenter) with the awaiting inventory ones, providing an opportunity for SAM Managers to contact the operation team(s) and request the deployment of inventory agents for VMs that are yet to be inventoried.

The following information provided by the report is key to resolving the gaps in the VMs inventory:

• The vCenter inventory date is important. If the date is recent, it can be trusted. If the date is outdated, there are two possibilities:
  • If the date is outdated, the vCenter inventory tasks maybe subject to an issue that requires fixing.

    Or

  • Another possibility is that vCenter may have been decommissioned in the past and the data pertaining to that vCenter should be ignored in the VMs inventory gap analysis.
• Host information (host domain, host corporate unit and so on) will help to identify management team(s) for non-inventoried VMs.

Generating the report

Note: This report is scoped to the data that each operator is entitled to see, according to their access rights on inventoried VMs and/or on VM host devices for non-inventoried VMs.

1. Navigate to Reports > SAM Operations > VMs Inventory Gaps From vCenters.
2. Click Run report to display the results. Note: No input is required in order to run this report.

All results are shown as of the latest inventory import and license reconciliation process, for which the date and time are shown in the right-hand end of the title bar, against Reconciled:

Reading the report

Columns in the report are grouped under the following headers that identify their underlying database object:

• Cluster
• Host
• vCenter
• Virtual Machine

The following table lists all the columns that are available in the report. Some of these columns, as indicated as "optional" in the table, are not displayed by default; however, you can make them visible by moving them out of the column chooser.

Column name	Description
Cluster
Name	For VM hosts that are grouped into clusters, this field shows the cluster name.
Host
Cores (Optional)	When the inventory device is a guest VM on the host in this row, this is the number of processor cores assigned to the VM. If the Host licensing column displays Sub-capacity, this count of assigned cores matches the Physical server CPU core sub-capacity value used to calculate the points consumed for this row. However, where the Host licensing was forced to Full capacity, those two values are different, with this column still showing the cores assigned, even though that number had to be ignored for full capacity calculations. (In those cases where this row is reporting consumption for the host itself, or for a stand-alone server, this is the number of processor cores available in the physical inventory device.)
Corporate unit	The corporate unit responsible for all costs incurred for this host server. This same value may also flow through to all guest VMs on this host (for example, for a departmental server); or the guest VMs may have independent values (for example, for a server room host that runs VMs for several different corporate units). This choice is determined by the setting for Update virtual machine cost center and corporate unit to match host properties in the system menu ( in the top right corner) > System Settings > Inventory tab. Be aware that changes to the host's corporate unit are data corrections, and that the current value is always reflected in the report regenerated as part of each night's license compliance calculations. Compare with Corporate unit for the inventory device. Editable in the Ownership tab of the inventory device properties.
Cost center (Optional)	The cost center responsible for all costs incurred for this host server. This same value may also flow through to all guest VMs on this host (for example, for a departmental server); or the guest VMs may have independent values (for example, for a server room host that runs VMs for several different cost centers). This choice is determined by the setting for Update virtual machine cost center and corporate unit to match host properties in the system menu ( in the top right corner) > System Settings > Inventory tab. Be aware that changes to the host's cost center are data corrections, and that the current value is always reflected in the report regenerated as part of each night's license compliance calculations. Compare with Cost center for the inventory device. Editable in the Ownership tab of the inventory device properties.
Device name	The system name of this device. You may click the hyperlinked name to open the inventory device properties for this host.
Domain name	The name of the domain to which the computing device belongs. Tip: Records fabricated for special purposes display special values: A dummy device record created for imports through your connector to Flexera SaaS Manager displays flexera.com A record representing an Oracle Database running in Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) shows the full DNS alias (excluding the actual machine name), such as clv8xj7busyg.eu-west-1.rds.amazonaws.com
Inventory device type (Optional)	Specifies the type of the inventory device, which may be any of the following values: Cluster — A cluster of several computers, typically managed by Kubernetes and with consumption reported by the IBM License Service (which does not allow for further breakdown, for example to individual hosts or VMs within the cluster) Computer — A computing device like a desktop, laptop, workstation, or a non-virtualized server. Mobile device — A mobile device like a tablet or smart phone. Product — Not a device type, but a pseudo-value used only in IBM VPC licenses to identify rows showing the licensed IBM product. This value may appear only if the Bundle consumption rules (in the license properties Use Rights & Rules tab, under License consumption rules) have the option Consume for each product on a device selected. Remote Device — The device is a remote device (not appearing in inventory) known to have accessed virtualized applications. This value is created automatically. VDI Template — The VDI template used to create the virtual desktop instance that was accessed from an inventory device (see Virtual Desktop Templates). This value is created automatically. Virtual Machine — A virtual machine running on a physical host machine. A physical host can run multiple virtual machines using virtualization technologies from VMWare, Oracle, Microsoft, and so on. Note that this value is also used for a record fabricated to represent an Oracle Database running on Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS). VM Host — A physical virtual host running one or more virtual machines using any virtualization technology, such as VMWare.
IP address	The IPv4 address of the discovered device. For discovered devices with multiple IP addresses (for example, those with multiple network cards), only the first validly-formed IP address displays. The IP address may be blank for reasons like these: The first (or only) IP address returned was in the IPv6 address family (and these addresses are not included) The device was discovered by NetBIOS queries, or through a TNSNames.ora file, that provided only a device name, and the DNS look-up did not return an IPv4 address for this device.
Location	The location within your enterprise that is responsible for this host device. The settings for guest VMs on this host may or may not inherit this value, depending on the setting for Update virtual machine location to match host location in the system menu ( in the top right corner) > System Settings > Inventory tab. Be aware that changes to the location are data corrections, and that the current value is always retroactive for the entire reporting period in the report regenerated as part of each night's license compliance calculations. Because the ownership location is used to link each inventory device to the appropriate IBM region, such a change may alter either the size or the date of regional peaks in the consumption report. Compare with Location for the inventory device. Editable in the Ownership tab of the inventory device properties.
Manufacturer	The company making and selling the computer hosting the relevant virtual machine.
Model	The manufacturer’s model name or number for this device.
Operating system (Optional)	The operating system running on the host device.
Processors (Optional)	The total number of central processing units (CPUs) available in this host.
Processor type (Optional)	The type of processor installed in this host. Processor type influences the selection of points from the points table linked to the IBM PVU license.
Serial number (Optional)	The serial number of the device, attempting to uniquely identify either the hardware (for a stand-alone device) or the virtualization container (for a virtual machine), as reported in inventory. Tip: This displays Flexera SaaS Manager with a numerical suffix in the special case where the inventory device is a dummy record created for linking with imports through your Flexera SaaS Manager connector.
Service pack (Optional)	The service pack number or ID reported by the operating system.
Total disk space (Optional)	The total disk size, in gigabytes, of all installed hard drives.
Total Memory (GB) (Optional)	Specifies the volume of Random Access Memory (RAM) used by this host device, in gigabytes.
vCenter
Device name	The device name of the vCenter computer that is managing this appliance.
IP address	The IP address of the vCenter computer that is managing this appliance.
Virtual Machine
Affinity enabled (Optional)	Indicates whether host affinity is enabled for this virtual machine. Host affinity enables you bind a virtual machine to the current virtual host.
Agent inventory date	The date when inventory information was most recently collected by the Inventory source for the inventory device.
CPU usage (Optional)	Specifies the volume of CPU processing power used by this virtual machine, in MHz.
Corporate unit (Optional)	The corporate unit responsible for all costs incurred for this virtual machine. This value may be inherited from the virtual host (for example, for a departmental server); or it may be an independent value. This choice is determined by the setting for Update virtual machine cost center and corporate unit to match host properties in the system menu ( in the top right corner) > System Settings > Inventory tab. Note: In the unlikely case that this virtual machine is linked to an asset, then the value remains independent of the virtual host, regardless of the system setting.
Cost center (Optional)	The cost center responsible for all costs incurred for this inventory device. This value may be inherited from the virtual host (for example, from a departmental server); or it may have an independent value. This choice is determined by the setting for Update virtual machine cost center and corporate unit to match host properties in the system menu ( in the top right corner) > System Settings > Inventory tab. Note: In the unlikely case that this virtual machine is linked to an asset, then the value remains independent to the virtual host regardless of the system setting.
Friendly name	The computer name of the VM provided by vCenter.
Installation Point (to verify) (Optional)	The VM configuration file location as provided by vCenter. For instance: /OVS/Repositories/0004fb000003000065cfbe330e7a169f/VirtualMachines/0007fb0000060000cf608149580ce9d1/vm.cfg
Inventoried	Indicates that the inventory information has been collected for this device, and the device appears in the All Inventory list. FlexNet Manager Suite may have collected this information through an agent or through discovery and inventory rules.
Last inventory source	If you have multiple overlapping inventory sources that report on the same device, it is possible for some inventory details to come from one source and other details from another source. This column identifies the most recent source of inventory for this device, so that the value may change as uploads from different sources are imported. Tip: Although this inventory source provided the most recent inventory import, it does not follow that every recorded hardware property value came from this source. One of your inventory sources may be nominated as 'primary', and any values imported from the primary source cannot be updated by other inventory sources (although those non-primary sources can fill the gaps and update properties that are missing from your primary inventory source). The inventory source names are system-provided, and cannot be modified. Most values are self-explanatory; some less obvious ones include: Data Platform — The inventory was imported from Flexera Normalize (previously BDNA Normalize, part of BDNA Data Platform) Flexera SaaS Manager — This is a dummy device created for linking with imports through your Flexera SaaS Manager connector ManageSoft — The inventory was collected by legacy versions of the FlexNet inventory agent, and saved in a separate inventory database Manual — You created this inventory device record manually, and no matching inventory has been received yet. SMS — The inventory was imported from Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (previously Microsoft SCCM). Tivoli Endpoint Manager — Inventory was imported from IBM Big Fix, or one of its earlier renamings (IBM Endpoint Manager, Tivoli Endpoint Manager). Tip: If you have custom inventory adapters, entries for these may also appear in this column as appropriate.
Location (Optional)	The location within your enterprise that is responsible for this virtual machine. This value may be inherited depending on the setting for Update virtual machine location to match host location in the system menu ( in the top right corner) > System Settings > Inventory tab. Note: In the unlikely case that this virtual machine is linked to an asset, then the value remains independent of the virtual host, regardless of the system setting.
Operating system	The operating system running on the virtual machine.
Total memory (GB) (Optional)	Specifies the volume of Random Access Memory (RAM) used by this virtual machine, in gigabytes.
UUID (Optional)	The unique identification number of the computer. This value is generated by FlexNet Manager Suite and you cannot change it.
vCenter inventory date	The date when inventory information was last collected for this virtual machine from vCenter.
vCenter objectID (Optional)	The unique identifier for this virtual machine in vCenter.