Managing PowerShell Connections
FlexNet Manager Suite integrates with PowerShell-connected tools to give you a single cohesive view of your license compliance. For each such external system, you need to define a PowerShell connection to allow data collection.
Supported PowerShell connections for import of inventory data include:
- Amazon Web Services Elastic Compute Cloud (AWS EC2)As a top tier cloud service provider, AWS provides a range of instances that you may subscribe to. The PowerShell connector for AWS EC2 connects to standard APIs provided by AWS, extracting data on all current instances and (where the instance is a virtual machine) their hosts. After the data is uploaded to the central application server, gathered information is displayed in the Cloud Service Provider Inventory page. In addition, FlexNet Manager Suite automatically creates separate inventory device records for any hosts identified by AWS. If you collect additional inventory from the reported instances (for example, if you have FlexNet inventory agent included in the images used to spin up your instances, or you import additional inventory details collected with a third-party tool), the inventory device record for that software and hardware inventory import is matched to the instance data imported from AWS. Matching is based on the instance ID where that is available, and otherwise on the MAC address. When this match is successful, the Cloud Service Provider Inventory page provides a direct link to each related inventory device record.Tip: If a future import from AWS shows that an instance has been terminated, or that a host is no longer available, any linked inventory device records are automatically removed, so that they can have no further impact on your license consumption calculations. Depending on the last known state, instances may still be visible in the Cloud Service Provider Inventory page at this time.
- Microsoft AzureInventory information from Microsoft Azure can be imported into FlexNet Manager Suite. When combined with inventory collected using FlexNet inventory agent (recommended) or using other inventory tools, this additional information is retrieved by calling Azure PowerShell modules, and then mapped to inventory devices using the Universal Unique Identifier (UUID). You can open the Cloud Service Provider Inventory page to view a direct link to each related inventory device record.Tip: The Universal Unique Identifier (UUID) is also called the Azure VM unique ID or vmId.Note: The Microsoft Azure connector is designed to connect to the Azure Resource Manager, and does not collect virtual machine inventory for virtual machines managed by Microsoft's classic deployment model. For these devices we recommend you use an alternative such as the inventory spreadsheet upload or simply through editing manually.
- Microsoft Office 365 Online Account
Microsoft Office 365 is a set of office tools available online (through a cloud-based subscription) and offline (installed locally). To import the users, licenses, and usage information from the Microsoft Office online account, an inventory beacon requires an inventory connection for Office 365. When created and configured successfully, this connector downloads all this information from the Office 365 online service account and uploads it to FlexNet Manager Suite for compliance calculations. For more information on creating an Office 365 connection, Creating Connections to Microsoft Office 365. For more about Office 365 support, see the FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 System Reference PDF, available through the title page of online help.
- Salesforce.com Subscription Management
Salesforce.com subscriptions come at a significant cost for large organizations and licensing is complex. FlexNet Manager Suite's integration with Salesforce provides you with ways to better stay in charge of your Salesforce licensing and consumption. FlexNet Manager Suite provides an inventory adapter so you can import Salesforce license allocations and usage data so that you can leverage FlexNet Manager Suite's tools to help you manage Salesforce licensing and consumption costs. With FlexNet Manager Suite's integration with Salesforce, customers can easily see unused Salesforce subscriptions that then allows you to reduce costs at subscription renewal. For more information on creating a connection to Salesforce, see Managing Connections to Salesforce.com. For more about Salesforce support, see the FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 System Reference PDF, available through the title page of online help.
To enable FlexNet Manager Suite to interpret the inventory data being imported from a source database, the inventory beacon needs to know:
- The type of database in which the data is stored
- The name of the database
- The location of the database
- The security permissions required to access the database
- When (if ever) the data from this database should be considered stale.