Creating and Registering an IT Asset Management Inventory Beacon
Registering the beacon sets up its communications to IT Asset Management. Complete this process after installing the inventory beacon software.
Note:If you are installing a hierarchy of inventory beacons, so that some 'child' beacons report to 'parent' beacons rather than to the central application server, you must register them top down through the hierarchy. Parent beacons must be registered before their children. As well, for a parent inventory beacon, you must choose between:
|
•
|
Using an IIS web server, or the built-in simplified web server, to manage communications with downstream devices (whether inventory devices or child inventory beacons) |
|
•
|
Using Windows authentication, anonymous authentication, or a local account on the parent inventory beacon to run the web service managing those communications. |
You may implement your choice of web server only after you have registered this inventory beacon.
There is one way to register the beacon and that is registering an Inventory Beacon using the Flexera One user interface. Follow the instructions in the following subsection, Registering an Inventory Beacon Using the Flexera One User Interface.
Registering an Inventory Beacon Using the Flexera One User Interface
This section describes how to register an inventory beacon using the Flexera One user interface.
To register an inventory beacon using the Flexera One user interface:
|
1.
|
On the beacon server, run the inventory beacon interface (for example, Start > FlexNet Beacon). |
Tip:Running the inventory beacon requires an account with administrator privileges.
By default, the interface should first display the Parent connection page. Otherwise, go to this page.
|
2.
|
Ensure the Enable parent connection checkbox is selected. |
This enables the controls in this page.
|
3.
|
Find the Beacon UID field, click Copy, and paste the copied string into a text editor. |
|
5.
|
After logging in, if you have access to several organizations, make sure you select the correct one in the Select an Organization section to the left of your user profile. |
|
6.
|
Go to the IT Assets Inventory Tasks Beacons page (Data Collection > IT Assets Inventory Tasks > Beacons). |
Note:Keep in mind that you should not go to the IT Visibility Beacons page. The IT Visibility Beacons page is for use with IT Visibility application only.
|
7.
|
Click Configure A Beacon. |
|
8.
|
Does this inventory beacon connect directly to the central application server, or does it report to another inventory beacon in your hierarchy? |
|
•
|
If this beacon reports to the central application server, skip the Parent beacon field, ensuring that it is empty. |
|
•
|
If this beacon reports to another inventory beacon in your hierarchy, identify that higher beacon in the Parent beacon field: |
|
a.
|
If you already know its name, enter (part of) the name in the field; but if you are not sure, leave the field blank. |
A fly-down lists the available inventory beacons (matching your text entry, if you used one).
|
c.
|
Ensure that the appropriate parent beacon is selected (with the check box on its left end), and click Select. |
The beacon name appears in the Parent beacon control.
|
9.
|
Configure the following settings. |
|
•
|
Name—Input a name for the beacon. This name will be used to identify this new inventory beacon in future listings. |
|
•
|
Unique ID—Paste in the Beacon UID that you copied from the FlexNet Beacon application. This is the unique ID for the beacon. |
|
•
|
Upgrade Mode—Select the upgrade mode from the following options: |
|
•
|
Manual—The beacon will never be automatically upgraded. This is the default and recommended option. |
|
•
|
Always upgrade to approved version—The beacon will always be automatically upgraded to the approved version. The version number of the approved version is also displayed for your information. |
|
•
|
Always upgrade to latest version—The beacon will always be automatically upgraded to the latest version. |
|
•
|
Use a specific version chosen for this beacon—If you select this option, a list of all available beacon versions are displayed for you to select a specific version, and the beacon will be automatically upgraded to this version. |
|
10.
|
(Optional) If you want the beacon to be enabled right after it is created, select the Enabled checkbox. |
Tip:Selecting Disabled stops the inventory beacon executing the centrally-determined rules for discovery and inventory gathering by remote execution or with installed Inventory Agents. Other beacon functionality, such as downloading updated rules and settings, collecting and uploading third- party inventory, Active Directory data, or business information (in short, any connections defined on the inventory beacon itself), continue unchanged.
|
11.
|
Click Save to create the beacon. |
|
12.
|
Click Download Configuration, and in the confirmation dialog, click YES. A configuration file in the XML format will be downloaded. If you are logged into the Flexera One Platform on a separate workstation than the beacon server, you must copy the downloaded beacon configuration file to the beacon server. |
|
13.
|
On the beacon server, go to the FlexNet Beacon application. |
|
14.
|
On the Parent connection page, click Import configuration. |
Important: Do not use the Download configuration button. This function will soon be deprecated and the button will be removed.
|
15.
|
Browse to the location of the downloaded configuration file, select it, and click Open. |
|
16.
|
When the configuration details are changed, the inventory beacon runs a background check on the connection, and displays the results on the page. If there are problems listed, you can address these and (if required) click Test connection to retry. |
|
a.
|
Check that your web browser on the inventory beacon server can still access your central application server. |
|
b.
|
All communications from the inventory adapter to require the HTTPS protocol. |
|
c.
|
If the network connection is still good, repeat the Test connection in the inventory beacon interface. If the error persists, we have established that it was not a momentary intermittent problem. |
|
d.
|
Validate that you did not edit the GUID in steps 2-3, and that the inventory beacon name you created contains only alphanumeric characters. If either of these problems is possible, repeat this process from step 2 to create a different configuration file, with new credentials. |
|
e.
|
Have a system administrator review the beacon log file located in C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Compliance\Logging to look for further information about the failure. Ask the system administrator whether there are any network settings (such as proxies) that prevent a web service accessing a website that a browser is allowed to access. |
|
f.
|
If the problem is still not resolved, contact Support at Flexera. |
After this registration process, your inventory beacon knows how to “phone home.” To make it operational, you must now:
|
•
|
Add the downstream connections from which data is to be collected (as described in the following topics) |
|
•
|
Ensure that it remains enabled. Operation of each inventory beacon can be enabled/disabled both from the beacon itself, and from Flexera One. By default it is enabled at both ends. |
This individual inventory beacon is now configured for its upstream communications. However, if this inventory beacon is typical, and either:
|
•
|
Is a 'parent' inventory beacon through which others are to upload, or |
|
•
|
Is to collect inventory uploaded by installed instances of Inventory Agent, or by the zero footprint inventory collection method (as defined in Gathering FlexNet Inventory) |
Then you must now choose the kind of web server to use on this inventory beacon, the kind of authentication, and the account credentials to use (if necessary). These details must be in place before you can repeat the configuration process for any child inventory beacons that are to connect here; and before any inventory files can be uploaded. For more details, see Configuring Inventory Collection.