Inventory and License Management

The Business Problem

Managing software and hardware assets in today’s large, distributed enterprise networks is a challenging IT governance issue. Ensuring that the organization isn’t paying for unused software licenses while verifying that the organization isn’t using software to which it is not entitled is both a cost containment and legal compliance issue. Software inventory, usage, and license management is particularly difficult in modern distributed networks that feature many mobile, remote or transient computers.

The BigFix Solution

BigFix helps IT better manage computing assets, save money on under-used software, and reduce software license compliance costs. Here, IT departments can precisely assess license compliance based on a real-time reporting software installation status on endpoint devices network-wide regardless of asset location or frequency of network logon. Detailed information can even be retrieved from within the software, including versions, license keys, and other application-specific information. BigFix Inventory and License Management products provide:

• Complete and accurate internal software audits for up-to-date, trustworthy knowledge concerning compliance with corporate policies, governmental regulations, and software license agreements
• Ability to monitor and track software usage, even when computers are mobile and disconnected from the network
• Ability to immediately act on software inventory information, such as uninstalling unused applications or redeploying application licenses to meet end-user needs
• Detailed information on hardware properties and peripherals for Windows, Unix, Linux, and Mac OS X computers, including vendor information, serial numbers, populated bus slots, RAM, attached peripherals (and, on Windows computers, tracking for removable USB drives)
• A current view of Internet protocol (IP) -based network assets, including the ability to detect assets that newly added to the network and restricted devices such as wireless access points
• On-demand, web-based inventory and usage reporting and graphs that enable IT to assess and demonstrate compliance at any time
• Open application programming interfaces to enable BigFix integration with custom/legacy software and other third party asset inventory management solutions

Buying Guide

BigFix Enterprise Suite Inventory and License—Software inventory discovery and tracking, and usage reporting.

BigFix Enterprise Suite Asset Discovery—Discover and track both BigFix-managed and unmanaged/undocumented network assets.

BigFix Enterprise Suite Asset Connector—Integrate asset information from external asset management tools and other sources with BigFix-generated asset data for enhanced grouping, targeting, and reporting flexibility.

BigFix Enterprise Suite platform—The highly scalable, real-time foundation for BigFix configuration management and security solutions. The BigFix Enterprise Suite platform is a prerequisite for all BigFix Inventory and License Management products.

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