SAM Software installed & reconciliation

[chuck Shmayel]

During reconciliation; where is the installed software information is coming from. IE: Computer (cmdb) record, or  Hardware asset record. 

i see the installed software tab on the computer (cmdb) record and it has a list of software installed. (from discovery or Intune API) 

I don't see the software installed on the Hardware asset record. Should it be there? should I add the info to the related list? 

I could allocate software to a device, then i can see the allocation on the hardware asset. but it does not make sense to go thru all software models and add allocation for every device.   

Just trying to understand the big picture

[Mike Whalley]

Software installations are CIs in their own right.

[Daniel Slocum]

Hello Chuck,

Software Installation records are written to the cmdb_ci_sw_install table by a properly configured discovery source integration such as ServiceNow Service Graph connectors or ServiceNow Discovery (there are more from ServiceNow and 3rd party vendors). As you identified, those records are related to records in the CMDB that are of the computer class or extended from the computer class. SW Installation records also have a link to a Discovery Model, which is normalized by SAM.  Reconciliation leverages detail (Discovery Map) on the Software Model to query the Discovery Model table for software installations related (those software installation records I mentioned above) to the Software Entitlement, which is also related to the Software model. 

Software Installation records are not assigned to a Hardware Asset. The hardware asset is a record where financial, and IMAC functions are tracked while the related CI, where the software installations are related, is where configuration is tracked.

Regarding Allocations, those should be managed against Software Entitlement records. Allocations identify which CI's are allocated one or more software licenses. This is an important step to SAM maturity.

All of these topics are covered in either the self-paced or instructor lead Software Asset Management training class offered by ServiceNow. If you or anyone else who may read this topic are struggling with these concepts, I would encourage you to take the class.