VMs Inventory Gaps Report

The VMs Inventory Gaps From vCenters report returns and displays all virtual machines (VMs) and corresponding inventory status for all virtualization technology inventory sources, including the vCenter import and other imports such as Oracle Virtual Machine, Hyper-V, Solaris Zones, and so on.

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 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 If the date is outdated, there are two possibilities:
• The vCenter inventory tasks may be subject to an issue that requires fixing.
• The 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.

To generate the report, perform the following steps.

To generate a VMs Inventory Gaps report:

1. Go to the VMs Inventory Gaps page (Reporting > Operations Reports > VMs Inventory Gaps).
2. Click Run report to display the results.

Note:No input is required in order to run this report.

Reading the Report

Properties in the report are grouped under the following headers that identify their underlying database objects:

• Cluster
• Host
• vCenter
• Virtual Machine

The following tables list all the properties that are available in the report. Some of these properties are not displayed by default; however, you can make them visible by moving them out of the column chooser.

Cluster Properties

The following cluster properties are available.

VMs Inventory Gaps From vCenters Report - Cluster Properties

Property

Description

Name

For VM hosts that are grouped into clusters, this field shows the cluster name.

Host Properties

The following host properties are available.

VMs Inventory Gaps From vCenters Report - Host Properties

Property

Description

Name

For VM hosts that are grouped into clusters, this field shows the cluster name.

Cores

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 Inventory tab in the IT Asset Management Settings General page.

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

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 Inventory tab in the IT Asset Management Settings General page.

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

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 cost center and corporate unit to match host properties in the Inventory tab in the IT Asset Management Settings General page.

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

The operating system running on the host device.

Processors

The total number of central processing units (CPUs) available in this host.

Processor type

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

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

The service pack number or ID reported by the operating system.

Status

The current state of the VM’s host. Possible values are:

• Active—Inventory information is received from an inventory source for this device.
• Archived—This device is in transition pending deletion, but is currently on hold because of its historical impacts on IBM PVU sub-capacity retrospective calculations.
• Awaiting Inventory—This device is a place-holder that has not yet appeared in the imported inventory from any source.
• Ignored—This device is not managed. An ignored device is not considered in license consumption calculations.

Total disk space

The total disk size, in gigabytes, of all installed hard drives.

Total Memory (GB)

Specifies the volume of Random Access Memory (RAM) used by this host device, in gigabytes.

vCenter Properties

The following vCenter properties are available.

VMs Inventory Gaps From vCenters Report - vCenter Properties

Property

Description

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 Properties

The following virtual machine properties are available.

VMs Inventory Gaps From vCenters Report - Virtual Machine Properties

Property

Description

Affinity enabled

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

Specifies the volume of CPU processing power used by this virtual machine, in MHz.

Corporate unit

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 Inventory tab on the IT Asset Management Settings General page.

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

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 Inventory tab on the IT Asset Management Settings General page.

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.

Device name

The system name of this device. You may click the hyperlinked name to open the inventory device properties for this virtual machine.

Friendly name

The computer name of the VM provided by vCenter.

Installation Point

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. IT Asset Management 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.

Last known state

The status of the virtual machine most recently reported by your cloud service provider. It may be one of:

• Started—The virtual machine was running at the last import.
• Stopped—The virtual machine has been stopped, releasing all its resources to the host. Some cloud service providers allow for a virtual machine to be restarted from this state.
• Suspended—The virtual machine has been put to sleep mode. All the running processes still consume resources, and the machine can quickly resume.
• Terminated—(Value available from AWS) The virtual machine has been permanently deleted and cannot be restarted. At the next full import and compliance calculation, which by default happens overnight, any matching inventory device record will be removed (unless you have taken the most unusual step of linking that inventory device record to an asset record). Removing the inventory device record prevents the terminated virtual machine having any future impact on license consumption calculations. See the tip below.
• Unknown—The state is unknown.

Tip:Some inventory sources take time to clean up inventory records, so that inventory imports may unavoidably include stale inventory in that period between the instance termination and the inventory clean-up. To help resolve any confusion, terminated instances remain available in the Cloud Service Provider Inventory page so that you can check there, confirming that the instance's inventory device record is correctly suppressed because the instance was terminated.

Location

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 Inventory tab on the IT Asset Management Settings General page.

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)

Specifies the volume of Random Access Memory (RAM) used by this virtual machine, in gigabytes.

UUID

The unique identification number of the computer. This value is generated by IT Asset Management and you cannot change it.

vCenter inventory date

The date when inventory information was last collected for this virtual machine from vCenter. Technically, this is the date of the VM hosts inventory. The inventory date of an ESX host is the date when it was last reported by vCenter (together with its links to VMs and clusters).

vCenter objectID

The unique identifier for this virtual machine in vCenter.

VM type

The type of the virtual machine.

Editable in the VM properties tab of the inventory device properties for the virtual machine (for manually-created records). The value may be overwritten by incoming inventory.