CIS Datacenter (Windows Server Datacenter) optimal calculation

[1__ElieB]

Hello!

I have entitlements of both CIS Standard and Datacenter.  Both are in Use, perpetual, with a Per Core (with CAL) license metric from Microsoft and the default DMAP already setup.

Our normalization is 100% completed, we see several thousands of Windows Server installations that are all normalized correctly.

Although I don't see any Licenses required calculated and no mapping errors nor any unlicensed installs. 

Am I wrong to think that SAMPro is supposed to calculate the Rights needed automatically and optimally based on the number of virtualized machines per cluster or do we ABSOLUTELY need to tell the tool on which machines it needs to calculate the consumption by doing individual allocations on every single ESX host?

Please tell me SAMPro can do it automatically!

[dreinhardt · Accepted solution]

Hi @1__ElieB,

Edit: Check out the following blog article and video by Srinivas from ServiceNow about the CIS Suite Components Setup: Software Suite Inference on ServiceNow SAM Pro - ServiceNow Community

we had a similar situation and solved it with the following adjustments.

• Open your CIS Datacenter software model (same for Standard required)
• Navigate to the "Suite Components" menu tab and check the following details (see screenshot)
  (Inference percent must be 75)
  

• Open the Suite child "Microsoft System Center Datacenter" software model

• Navigate to the "Suite Components" menu tab and check the following details (see screenshot)
  (Inference percent must be 0) 
  
• Run a MSFT reconcile and review the results

Why do we set the percentage from 75 to 0 for our System Center software model?

With the default setup of 75, 6 of 8 installations must be recognized so that the model is assigned and an installation of system center is recognized. I've never seen a server with all system center components installed and that's the reason to set it down to 0.  In this way, we "force" any detected suite component to end up in a recognized System Center installation, so that our condition for CIS is fulfilled (Windows Server + System Center).

Best, Dennis

[1__ElieB]

Hello, it seems to have partially worked.  Thank you for your suggestion.

However, I'm confused with the 8VM Cores per VM Metric attribute.  Since when can you calculate CIS DATACENTER on a virtual machine and more specifically only 8 cores required per VM?  Microsoft's documentation doesn't say that.

It's my understanding Datacenter is licensed only on physical machines and right now, I have half of our vms being compiled under a Datacenter license which I believe is fundamentally an incorrect calculation.  It should license the ESX hosts, not the VMs.

I believe there is a new licensing condition exception for Windows Server 2022 STANDARD edition for which you can apply the licensing on the VM level, but only for Standard Edition. Not Datacenter.

Thank you!

[1__ElieB]

I also wanted to reiterate that although it helped reconcile the Datacenter licenses required, the CIS Standard hasn't generated any consumption at all.  I was hoping the low density clusters to be covered by CIS Standard and it wasn't quite the case.

[dreinhardt]

Hi @1__ElieB 

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@1__ElieB wrote:

However, I'm confused with the 8VM Cores per VM Metric attribute.  Since when can you calculate CIS DATACENTER on a virtual machine and more specifically only 8 cores required per VM?  Microsoft's documentation doesn't say that.

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I can understand your statement and this attribute is not necessary for a data center license. Due to the other metric attributes with the value “Attribute value is unlimited = True", the VM core = 8 attribute should be less critical. A guess - it may be needed for the internal calculation during the recon or for optimization decisions. For further details, you should open a support case and ask for the details (@SrinivasRamanu1 are you able to help us?) 

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@1__ElieB wrote:

I also wanted to reiterate that although it helped reconcile the Datacenter licenses required, the CIS Standard hasn't generated any consumption at all.

---

Perhaps some of these approaches will help you to narrow down the problem:

• Did you run/review the ITAM Health Check and fix all the issues related to Windows Server?
• Did you review all "Install actions required" linked with your for your CIS and Windows Server Standard software models?
• Did you check the software model recognition to ensure Windows Server Standard and System Center components are detected/normalized as expected and calculated as CIS Standard instead of two separate models
• Is the installed System Center component recognized correctly or is it possible that the required product is not part of the System Center Suite?

Best, Dennis