Managing PowerShell Connections

As a top tier cloud service provider, AWS provides a range of instances that you may subscribe to. The PowerShell connector for AWS EC2 (known as the AWS EC2 connector) connects to standard APIs provided by AWS, extracting data on all current instances and (where the instance is a virtual machine) their hosts. After the data is uploaded to the central application server, gathered information is displayed in the Cloud Service Provider Inventory page. In addition, IT Asset Management automatically creates separate inventory device records for any hosts identified by AWS. If you collect additional inventory from the reported instances (for example, if you have Inventory Agent included in the images used to spin up your instances, or you import additional inventory details collected with a third-party tool), the inventory device record for that software and hardware inventory import is matched to the instance data imported from AWS. Matching is based on the instance ID where that is available, and otherwise on the MAC address. When this match is successful, the Cloud Service Provider Inventory page provides a direct link to each related inventory device record.

Tip:If a future import from AWS shows that an instance has been terminated, or that a host is no longer available, any linked inventory device records are automatically removed, so that they can have no further impact on your license consumption calculations. Depending on the last known state, instances may still be visible in the Cloud Service Provider Inventory page at this time.

The Citrix Cloud adapter, provided by Flexera, allows you to collect data from both persistent and non-persistent virtual desktop infrastructures (VDIs) in Citrix Cloud and import it into IT Asset Management. The combination of imported VDI data and application evidence gathered by the FlexNet Inventory Agent provides comprehensive visibility into the inventory running on the Citrix Cloud platform. It also provides licensing capabilities for all applications used by end-users on both persistent and non-persistent VDIs. For detailed configuration instructions, see Creating the Citrix Cloud Connector Connection in the Inventory Adapters and Connectors Reference.

Note:VDI is a technology that uses virtual machines to deliver and manage virtual desktops. VDI hosts desktop environments on a centralized server and deploys them to end-users on request.

The VMware Horizon virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) adapter, provided by Flexera, allows you to collect data from non-persistent VDIs in VMware Horizon and import it into IT Asset Management. The combination of imported VDI data and application evidence gathered by the FlexNet Inventory Agent provides comprehensive visibility into the inventory running on the VMware Horizon platform. It also provides licensing capabilities for all applications used by end-users on non-persistent VDIs. For detailed configuration instructions, see Creating the VMware Horizon Connection in the Inventory Adapters and Connectors Reference.

Note:VDI is a technology that uses virtual machines to deliver and manage virtual desktops. VDI hosts desktop environments on a centralized server and deploys them to end-users on request.

The Microsoft Intune Adapter, provided by Flexera, , allows you to collect inventory data from Microsoft Intune and import it into IT Asset Management. Microsoft Intune is a cloud-based endpoint management solution that manages user access and simplifies app and device management across all your devices, including mobile devices, desktop computers, and virtual endpoints. Data is collected from Microsoft Intune and imported into IT Asset Management, giving you visibility of managed devices, user data, and managed and unmanaged applications installed on corporate owned devices in your Microsoft Intune estate. IT Asset Management uses the imported data collected from Microsoft Intune to calculate license consumption. For detailed configuration instructions, see Creating the Microsoft Intune Connection in the Inventory Adapters and Connectors Reference.

Note:For application recognition to occur, application evidence must be recognized by the Application Recognition Library (ARL) and linked to the appropriate license. This linkage is essential for compliance calculations to proceed. For more information on application recognition, see the “Application evidence” section in What data is retrieved.

The OCI adapter serves two primary purposes:

For Compute instances, the OCI adapter is only one component of a complete Bring Your Own License (BYOL) management strategy for this cloud service provider. On its own, the adapter does not gather sufficient data for license management. For example, it does not gather software inventory for applications running on your cloud-hosted devices. For detailed instructions on configuring and managing the OCI connection, see Managing Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Connection.

There are two kinds of data exchange between ServiceNow and IT Asset Management:

While ServiceNow can return complete inventory from many different kinds of environments, it is currently not strong in discovery of (or, as we would say, collecting inventory from) partitioning technologies that provide virtualization on several UNIX-like platforms. If you are supporting these platforms, best practice is to install the Inventory Agent locally on them, reporting directly to your inventory beacon(s). This allows collection of all details needed for your license consumption calculations. This additional information integrates smoothly with the information collected from ServiceNow. In this case, it is best practice to set your Flexera inventory source as your primary source, so that the hardware information it gathers takes precedence over all other inventory sources (including ServiceNow).