Uploading Inventory Data Into IT Visibility
Important:For most users, the inventory data already being collected in their environment is automatically available in IT Visibility. However, there are some cases in which new IT Visibility customers will need to take steps to ensure their inventory data is being uploaded from their environment to Flexera One. (The steps for new customers of IT Visibility that are also IT Asset Management customers differ slightly from the steps for new IT Visibility-only customers.) Similarly, existing FlexNet Manager On-Premises users must use an IT Visibility Importer tool to extract their inventory data from FlexNet Manager On-Premises and import it to IT Visibility for consumption. For more information, refer to Importing Inventory Data From FlexNet Manager On-Premises Into IT Visibility.
IT Visibility leverages Flexera One’s powerful streaming normalization engine. The data sources for IT Visibility are your enterprise’s various discovery platforms. For a complete list of inventory data sources IT Visibility supports, see Inventory Data Sources Supported for IT Visibility.
As part of the normalization process, your data is deduplicated and then standardized and enriched using Flexera’s proprietary data intelligence library, Technopedia. It is then analyzed and presented in IT Visibility.
Any changes to the Technopedia contents (either in the global Technopedia catalog or in the Private Catalog) automatically trigger the re-normalization process and the normalized data against the updated Technopedia contents will be available in IT Visibility within hours.
The following subsections provide the various ways to upload data to IT Visibility:
| • | Using IT Visibility Inventory Beacons to Upload Data |
| • | Using the Custom Inventory Importer to Upload Data |
| • | Using Data Platform Extractor on the Beacon Server to Upload Data Using Customized Configurations |
| • | Using Cloud-Based Connections to Upload Data |
Using IT Visibility Inventory Beacons to Upload Data
An inventory beacon is a computer located within your organization that gathers software inventory that you specify, and uploads the data to Flexera One. This is the most common method you will use to upload data into IT Visibility.
Note:For help deciding which beacons to use, refer to Which Beacons to Use.
To set up non-cloud-based connections to your discovery sources, you will use the IT Visibility Inventory Beacon. For more information, see the following topics in the Getting Started IT Visibility Inventory Beacons and Agents section of the documentation:
| • | Creating an Inventory Connection |
| • | Scheduling Inventory Imports |
Once you have set up a connection to IT Visibility Inventory Beacon and the data is imported and normalized, your data will appear automatically in IT Visibility.
Using the Custom Inventory Importer to Upload Data
Flexera provides a Custom Inventory Importer tool that can be used to import custom inventory data in the form of flat files or CSV files like any other data source. For details and to obtain a Windows or Linux version of the tool, refer to the Custom Inventory Importer Knowledge Base article.
Using Data Platform Extractor on the Beacon Server to Upload Data Using Customized Configurations
IT Visibility supports a variety of data source imports out-of-the-box, requiring no additional configuration. IT Visibility also supports data sources that require additional configuration using the Data Platform Extractor tool.
Starting from beacon version 14.2.0, Data Platform standalone extractors can be executed on beacons to collect data using specific loader configurations. The data will be imported into IT Visibility. For complete information and to obtain a zip of supported configuration files, refer to Installing Data Platform Extractor to Upload Data to IT Visibility Knowledge Base article.
Using Cloud-Based Connections to Upload Data
IT Visibility supports the integration of various cloud-based connections. Uploading inventory data from cloud-based connections does not require beacons. For details about the supported types of cloud-based connections and how to use them, see Managing Cloud-Based Connections.
Related Information
The following topics are included in this section:
| • | Inventory Data Sources Supported for IT Visibility |
| • | Uploading Inventory Data to IT Asset Management for New IT Visibility Customers |
| • | Uploading Inventory Data for New IT Visibility-Only Customers |
| • | Importing Inventory Data From FlexNet Manager On-Premises Into IT Visibility |
Note:For any existing IT Asset Management customers who do not see their inventory data in IT Visibility after IT Visibility is enabled for their account, contact Flexera support.