Software installations (SAM) or Software Installed when not using discovery

[mmgauvin]

Hello every one,

What's the best practice to define software installed on a computer when you are not using the discovery.   I understand that when you activate the SAM plugin, the cmdb_software_instance table is not used anymore and the new table cmdb_sam_sw_install is used instead.   But that looks to be right when you are using discovery for software.   In our case, we are using SCCM for desktops but we do not have any discovery tool for servers (and infrastructure) yet implemented.   But we still want to define some software installations on those servers.   How can we do it?   There is no way to add any software installations in the cmdb_sam_sw_install table. (Software Installations), but we still can define software installed through the "Software Installed" related list on the server.   That form populates the cmdb_ci_spkg and cmdb_software_instance tables.  

Should we use the "Software Installed" related list to populate our software installations for our servers (added manually) and use the new "Software Installations" related list (added automatically with SCCM) for our desktops?

Why can't we add any software installations in the new SAM tables?   Just want to make sure that we are using the right tables.

Thanks,

Martin.

[A Westervelt]

Since SAM is built specifically for software license compliance, you wouldn't want to "corrupt" the data that can only come from a Discovery source.

Maybe a simple CI relationship like Server "Installed:Installed On" Software Package might be more useful until you have a Discovery source to populate the data.