Validation and Operation

IT Asset Management (Cloud)

Normal operation of the adapter relies on the following sequence of events:

1. BMC Discovery gathers inventory using the enhanced patterns you have enabled (details: Installing Optional Patterns, and Rediscovering Affected Computers).
2. At the time you scheduled (Installing and Configuring the Staging Tool), the adapter reads the current content of the BMC Discovery database and stages the new data in the staging database (previous data is first removed with a single truncate statement). The resulting status is flagged within the database.
3. Following the schedule on the central compliance server, and provided that the staging status is Success, the import reader uploads this content to the inventory database.
4. The next inventory import brings the final data set into the compliance database, where it is automatically taken into account for compliance calculations. As always, the inventory records must be recognized by the Application Recognition Library, and you must have the resulting application records linked to the appropriate license, for compliance calculations to proceed.

To validate operation of the adapter:

1. Wait until BMC Discovery collects new inventory, so that the enhanced collection patterns are exercised. For further details, see the BMC Discovery documentation.
2. Manually trigger the adapter executable.
   By specifying a different method parameter in the command line, you have a one-time override of the default you set in the settings XML file. For example:

   C:\Program Files\Flexera Software\ADDMAdapter\FnmpADDMStage.exe 
                       -f "C:\temp" -m staged

   This will write XML files under your C:\temp directory for review. As well, it writes data into the staging database.
3. Inspect the saved XML files to validate the inventory gathered.
4. Use SQL Server Management Studio to validate that the data is written to the staging database. Also review the StagingState property in the ADDMStagingDatabaseConfiguration table in the staging database. Possible values are Running, Failed, or Success. This value must be Success before the BMC Discovery data can be uploaded from the staging database to the central inventory database.
5. Wait (for example, overnight) until the next inventory import and calculations have run.
6. Use IT Asset Management to validate that new evidence has been recovered. Identify which evidence has been recognized by the ARL and which new rules are required. Link the applications to appropriate licenses.