Creating and Registering an Inventory Beacon

IT Asset Management (Cloud)

After you have downloaded and installed the FlexNet Beacon software on your beacon server by following the instructions in Installing an Inventory Beacon, you can now create an inventory beacon on this beacon server and register the beacon to set up the “upstream” connection which allows it to upload collected inventory to Flexera One.

Note: If you are installing a hierarchy of inventory beacons, so that some 'child' beacons report to 'parent' beacons rather than to the central application server, you must register them top down through the hierarchy. Parent beacons must be registered before their children. As well, for a parent inventory beacon, you must choose between:
  • Using an IIS web server, or the built-in simplified web server, to manage communications with downstream devices (whether inventory devices or child inventory beacons)
  • Using Windows authentication, anonymous authentication, or a local account on the parent inventory beacon to run the web service managing those communications.
You may implement your choice of web server only after you have registered this inventory beacon.

To create and register an inventory beacon:

  1. Run the inventory beacon interface (for example, Start > FlexNet Beacon).
    Tip: Remember that running the inventory beacon requires an account with administrator privileges.
    By default, the interface should first display the Parent connection page (linked from the Beacon configuration group in the navigation bar). Ensure that this page displays.
  2. Ensure the Enable parent connection check box is selected.
    This enables the controls in this page.
  3. Find the Beacon UID field, click Copy, and paste the copied string into a text editor.
  4. In a Web browser, access one of the following URLs and log in with your Flexera credentials: https://app.flexera.com, https://app.flexera.eu, or https://app.flexera.au.
  5. In the Flexera One UI, go to Data Collection > IT Assets Inventory Tasks > Beacons.
  6. Click Configure A Beacon.
  7. Does this inventory beacon connect directly to the central application server, or does it report to another inventory beacon in your hierarchy?
    • If this beacon reports to the central application server, skip the Parent beacon field, ensuring that it is empty.
    • If this beacon reports to another inventory beacon in your hierarchy, identify that higher beacon in the Parent beacon field:
    1. If you already know its name, enter (part of) the name in the field; but if you are not sure, leave the field blank.
    2. Click Search.
      A fly-down lists the available inventory beacons (matching your text entry, if you used one).
    3. Ensure that the appropriate parent beacon is selected (with the check box on its left end), and click Select.
      The beacon name appears in the Parent beacon control.
  8. Configure the following settings.
    • Name—Input a name for the beacon. This name will be used to identify this new inventory beacon in future listings.
    • Unique ID—Paste in the Beacon UID that you copied from the FlexNet Beacon application. This is the unique ID for the beacon.
    • Upgrade Mode—Select the upgrade mode from the following options:
      • Manual—The beacon will never be automatically upgraded. This is the default and recommended option.
      • Always upgrade to approved version—The beacon will always be automatically upgraded to the approved version. The version number of the approved version is also displayed for your information.
      • Always upgrade to latest version—The beacon will always be automatically upgraded to the latest version.
      • Use a specific version chosen for this beacon—If you select this option, a list of all available beacon versions are displayed for you to select a specific version, and the beacon will be automatically upgraded to this version.
  9. (Optional) If you want the beacon to be enabled right after it is created, select the Enabled checkbox.
  10. Click Save to create the beacon.
  11. Click Download Configuration, and in the confirmation dialog, click YES. A configuration file in the XML format will be downloaded. If you are logged into the Flexera One Platform on a separate workstation than the beacon server, you must copy the downloaded beacon configuration file to the beacon server.
  12. On the beacon server, go to the FlexNet Beacon application.
  13. On the Parent connection page, click Import configuration.
    Important: Do not use the Download configuration button. This function will soon be deprecated and the button will be removed.
  14. Browse to the location of the downloaded configuration file, select it, and click Open.
After this registration process, your inventory beacon knows how to "phone home". To make it operational, you must now:
  • Add the downstream connections from which data is to be collected (as described in the following topics)
  • Ensure that it remains enabled. Operation of each inventory beacon can be enabled/disabled both from the beacon itself, and from the web interface for IT Asset Management. By default it is enabled at both ends.
This individual inventory beacon is now configured for its upstream communications. However, if this inventory beacon is typical, and either:
  • Is a 'parent' inventory beacon through which others are to upload, or
  • Is to collect inventory uploaded by installed instances of FlexNet Inventory Agent, or by the zero footprint inventory collection method (as defined in Gathering FlexNet Inventory, available at https://docs.flexera.com/)
you must now choose the kind of web server to use on this inventory beacon, the kind of authentication, and the account credentials to use (if necessary). These details must be in place before you can repeat the configuration process for any child inventory beacons that are to connect here; and before any inventory files can be uploaded. For more details, see Configuring Inventory Collection.

IT Asset Management (Cloud)

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