Modules > Asset Management > Software License Management > Licenses > Software License Allocation

Consolidate versions 7.8.9 and later will update the MSLnoOS column of the ATdataAssets table with the MSLno of the ATdataManagedSoftware entry for the operating system discovered on the asset. Prior to this version of Consolidate, there was no direct way from an asset record to the managed software list for identifying the operating system.

There are two Consolidate mechanisms that will maintain the MSLnoOS column:

1.The default is for Consolidate to automatically use the OS_Version column of the asset to check for recognition training normalized to an operating system MSL entry. This is the behavior when the setting ConsCopyOSInfoAsInstalledSW is 0 (the default).

2.If using the feature of Consolidate that automatically creates an authorization for the discovered, operating system, Consolidate will now also update the new MSLnoOS column in the assets table as it recognizes the operating system. This is the behavior when the setting ConsCopyOSInfoAsInstalledSW is -1, which is not the default.

Default Consolidate Behavior

By default, Consolidate will now update the MSLnoOS column as part of a new processing phase that is performed before processing staged software. This behavior occurs when the ConsCopyOSinfoAsInstalledSW setting is 0 (the default). In order to populate and maintain MSLnoOS using the default mechanism, the following steps are required:

1.The setting ConsCopyOSinfoAsInstalledSW should be 0 (the default).

2.Run Consolidate to populate the MSLnoOS columns. After running Consolidate, look in the log for information regarding the process. You can search for the string “Starting update of Operating System MSLno for assets table” for the information.

a.Examine the counts of assets updated and assets that already had the correct MSLnoOS.

b.Look for information indicating which, if any, operating system entries did not have recognition mappings. The log also indicates how many assets exist for each non-mapped operating system.

3.If a significant number of assets exist that aren’t mapped to a particular operating system (or systems), go to the recognition training screen to train the entry to an MSL that describes the operating system. Note that, when added to the master products table by Consolidate, the manufacturer name is fabricated as “O/S Copy.”

4.After training the necessary master product entries, re-run Consolidate and examine the log to verify that the MSLnoOS columns of the assets were correctly updated.

Sample Consolidate log entry related to updating the MSLnoOS column:

0.00:01:21.570 ***** Starting update of Operating System MSLno for assets table

0.00:03:15.819 Number of assets updated for correct MSLnoOS =83750

0.00:03:15.820 Number of assets missing OS_Version info =5058

0.00:03:15.820 Number of master products added from OS_Version info =9

0.00:03:15.821 The following 12 OS_Version entries are not mapped and require recognition training:

0.00:03:15.821 "ERROR" (5 assets)

0.00:03:15.822 "Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate" (6 assets)

0.00:03:15.823 "Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro" (1 assets)

0.00:03:15.823 "Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Server 2003 Enterprise Edition" (7 assets)

0.00:03:15.824 "Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Server 2003 Standard Edition" (22 assets)

0.00:03:15.824 "Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition" (1 assets)

0.00:03:15.825 "Microsoft?? Windows Server?? 2008 Enterprise" (22 assets)

0.00:03:15.825 "Microsoft?? Windows Server?? 2008 Standard" (146 assets)

0.00:03:15.826 "Microsoft?? Windows Server?? 2008 Standard without Hyper-V" (2 assets)

0.00:03:15.826 "Microsoft?? Windows Vista??? Business" (1 assets)

0.00:03:15.827 "Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Ultimate" (1 assets)

0.00:03:15.827 "undefined" (1 assets)

0.00:03:15.828 ***** Finished update of Operating System MSLno for assets table. Duration 00:01:54.2577056

Using ConCopyOSInfoAsInstalledSW

In order to populate and maintain this column using the existing feature of Consolidate in which an authorization is created for the discovered operating system, several steps are required:

1.The setting ConsCopyOSinfoAsInstalledSW must have a value of -1. This setting causes Consolidate to copy the discovered operating system title to the software staging table, effectively manufacturing a raw software header that can later be recognized and used as the source of a generated authorization. To be precise, this value comes from the OperatingSystem column of the staging table. When copied to the software staging table, Consolidate uses a pseudo publisher name of “(O/S Copy)” and a NULL version.

2.Recognition training is required for matching the operating system name to the MSL. The publisher will always be “(O/S Copy)” and the version will be NULL. Normally, the description will be as reported to the discovery tool, assuming the tool uses the Caption column of the Win32_OperatingSystem class returned by WMI (this is the most logical place to collect the info for Windows operating systems). Note that most titles have already been trained and are in the Wiki. However, if the imported data has already been normalized in a customer-specific way, it will be necessary to do recognition training in order to associate the raw header with the operating system MSL.

3.The source of the stage table entry must be a catch point associated with the Auto-Discovery Role. This can be set/verified with the Catch Point form of the MIE UI.

When all of the above requirements are in place, Consolidate will automatically maintain the MSLnoOS column of the ATdataAssetsTable. This column is available for reports, for export files, for exporting into Data Insights, and so forth, but may not be directly set by any mechanism other than auto-discovery and normalization.

OS Allocation from Assets table

OS Allocation from Assets table