Software Installations not showing in Licenses Required. (Inferred Suite interference?)

[Kelly Logan]

We are testing out SAM Pro on our Dev instance, have installed the Service Graph Connector for Microsoft SCCM as well as the Microsoft Publisher Pack. We also have Horizontal Discovery running, though we are set to rely on SCCM for software information. 
We have been getting Software Installations and Discovery models created, primarily from SCCM.
We imported a Microsoft License Statement and it created entitlements as expected, using PPNs. 
After reconciliation however, there seems to be a gap that is not immediately clear to me. 

(Note: I am using the Published Products feature, so only the currently needed products are being displayed.)

The primary question is - what determines the Licenses Required value? When there are many software installations connected, why would this be zero?

For example, Looking at Windows Server, the "Any Version and/or Edition" product listing, we see a User CAL for 93 Licenses, but 0 Licenses required. (No installs requiring action.)

If I look at the software model, "Microsoft Windows Server", I see that it is linking with 86 Discovery Models. So far so good.

If I then look at one of the Discovery Models with software installations, like "Windows Server 2022 Standard 10.0.20348", I see 82 Software Installations directly connected.

So, if 82 software installations are connected to a discovery model, which is connected to a software model, which is connected to an entitlement, why is that entitlement showing zero Licenses Required?

I noticed the Inferred suite/product and added it to the published products and that seemed to get all the license required connections.

But isn't a suite only supposed to be used if it's more advantageous licensing, and component licenses supposed to be used if none are available? 

Also, regarding the Installations requiring action - This is also odd and perhaps related. The Software Installs listed have many, many duplicate Discovery models for no reason I can discern. They are for the exact same version of Windows 10 or 11, but each software installation of the same version created a separate model for each. 

Each one is normalized, with the same values, but only one or two software installations each.

Shouldn't these all be sharing the same Discovery model? 

[dreinhardt]

Hi @Kelly Logan,

CAL Usage: CALs are not imported/assigned out-of-the-box with your Software Model. Since Xanadu ITOM Discovery is able to read CAL usage for Windows and SQL Server, but do not process the data! User device license consumption fields. It's required to review the data manually and add a Client Access Record for your software model Add a software client access record

The second "issue" seems to be related to you Visual Studio license setup, which is consuming all covered Microsoft products. Could you please review the following docs about VS and ensure the setup is as expected.

• Manage licenses for Microsoft Visual Studio
• Visual Studio & SAM Pro Whitepaper by ServiceNow (see attachment)
• Microsoft Visual Studio License Compliance Support... - ServiceNow Community
• Software Suite Inference on ServiceNow SAM Pro - ServiceNow Community

Best, Dennis

[Kelly Logan]

Thanks, Dennis!

So, I can use SCCM to discover Adobe software installations, which automatically generate License Required entries, but if I use the Microsoft discovery product to discover Microsoft software installations, I have to create the usage records manually? That sounds profoundly disfunctional and breaks the entire ServiceNow concept of SAM Pro automating the licensing and reconciliation process. No company could pass an audit saying the primary software they use is dependent on somebody remembering to update every license manually. 

What am I missing here?



 

[dreinhardt]

Hi @Kelly Logan,

Methods to discovery software installation data to get install records and license required entries are covered by:

• ServiceNow ITOM Discovery (Server),
• ServiceNow ITOM ACC-V Agent (Server, Client)
• SCCM/MECM (Server/Client)

methods to discover software usage data to get SAMP software usage records are covered by:

• ServiceNow ITOM ACC-V Agent (Server, Client)
• SCCM/MECM (Server/Client)

Hope this helps to answer your question.

Best, Dennis

[Kelly Logan]

Hi @dreinhardt 

It might help if you explained this statement in more detail: "CAL Usage: CALs are not imported/assigned out-of-the-box with your Software Model. Since Xanadu ITOM Discovery is able to read CAL usage for Windows and SQL Server, but do not process the data! "

It seems like you're telling me that if Microsoft's User CAL is used, it creates the need for a manual process. That's what I questioned in my response: If the system has installation information that can be used to determine usage, and it has the User CAL metric, both supplied directly by Microsoft, why don't these work together? Where specifically is the gap?