Cautions, Prerequisites, and References

IT Asset Management (Cloud)

CAUTION:

Be aware that the Inventory Adapter Studio is an advanced tool, and incorrect use can result in data changes in your IT Asset Management environment that will affect your license position. If you are uncomfortable with performing these changes yourself, please contact the Flexera services team.

The Inventory Adapter Studio has the following requirements:

• Location. The Inventory Adapter Studio must be an inventory beacon that will run the downstream functions of the adapter, connecting to the third-party inventory source within your enterprise. The intermediate files collected on this inventory beacon are then uploaded automatically to the central server in the cloud.
• File access. On the beacon where it is installed, Inventory Adapter Studio requires permission to create and edit files in the C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Compliance\ImportProcedures directory.
• Downstream database access. Inventory Adapter Studio requires permission to access the source databases. Read-only access may be sufficient, depending on how you write the adapter: many adapters write temporary tables on the source database to allow joins with existing data (for example, to create differential inventory of changes since the last import). Clearly, testing adapters such as these means that Inventory Adapter Studio must have full access to the source database.
• Upstream database access. Inventory data gathered by the adapters created on the inventory beacon is uploaded automatically to the hosted service, and imported into the operations database there.

Operator Requirements

To use the Inventory Adapter Studio successfully, you will need:

• A working knowledge of SQL, so that you can modify queries in the templates provided.
• Some data analysis experience.
• To edit the SQL queries to collect data from the source database(s), you need to know where to get the data in those source databases is located. This probably requires read access to the database and also access to the inventory tool’s user interface for data validation.
• Direct access to theinventory beacon for adapter development and testing. This may be on the beacon console directly, or using terminal services.
• A detailed working knowledge of the IT Asset Management product. This is required so that data imports can be verified, along with the expected application installations.

Restrictions

Several inventory adapters are supplied as standard with IT Asset Management (these are sometimes referred to as "Tier 1" adapters). These live on the central server, and are automatically downloaded to inventory beacons as required. This means:

• You cannot modify Tier 1 inventory adapters.
• You cannot store anything else in the same folder on the inventory beacon used to store Tier 1 adapters distributed by the central server. Changes are always removed automatically within a short time, keeping the distributed adapters safe and in line with the latest versions stored on the central server.
• You can create custom inventory adapters on inventory beacons, using the Inventory Adapter Studio and the object adapter model described in the following topics. These are stored separately, and are not over-written by downloads from the central server. This also means that a custom inventory adapter is by nature restricted to the inventory beacon on which it is created. However, if you need the identical adapter operating from multiple inventory beacons, you can manually copy the adapter between beacons, always using the same file path (%CommonAppData%\Flexera Software\Compliance\ImportProcedures\ObjectAdapters).