The role of BMC BladeLogic Client Automation and how it discovers data

BMC BladeLogic Client Automation helps IT departments ensure end-user security and corporate policy adherence by automating client management processes. This solution reduces repetitive administrative tasks by establishing enforceable, role-based policies that provision, deprovision, and maintain applications, deploy updates and patches, conduct inventory scans and track software usage — automating processes for proactive and continuous client management across the enterprise.

How application discovery works in BMC BladeLogic Client Automation

As an initial step in Software License Management (SWLM), BMC BladeLogic Client Automation discovers CIs in your environment. It collects hardware, software, system, and logging information about IT assets including servers, desktops, laptops, and mobile devices across major platforms, and sends this configuration data to the Inventory database in BMC BladeLogic Client Automation.

The following table contains the types of CIs that are discovered by the Scanner Service that are transferred to the BMC Atrium CMDB:

CI types and attributes discovered by the Scanner Service

For additional details about the CI types and their attributes, see BMC Atrium Integration Engine CI class mappings section in the BMC BladeLogic Client Automation Configuration Discovery Integration for CMDB Getting Started Guide.

The Scanner Service in BMC BladeLogic Client Automation uses the software title discovery method to run an inventory scan. The results are saved in the inventory database. The discovery method looks for installed applications in entries listed in the Add or Remove Programs section of the Microsoft Control Panel, and it searches for executables under the Program Files folder. Filters and reconciliation rules act on the collected software titles to eliminate noise and duplicates. Title data provided by software title discovery includes the discovery of suites, not just executables. Because applications are not always installed in a standard manner, the software titles discovery can find duplicate entries or entries that are not applications. The filtering and reconciliation performed before generating the final list of titles handles most of these issues.

Because the software title method does not return individual file information, but already has full application suite information, you might not need to prepopulate this data in the Product Catalog prior to normalization. You could, instead, choose to let this dataset extend the Product Catalog, as described in Configuring a dataset for normalization.

The Scanner Service helps you to identity patches that are installed on endpoints. The Patch service helps identify patches that are not installed on endpoints. For example, if you want to install a specific patch across the company, you can query for endpoints that do not have the patch, create platform-specific patch groups that target only those endpoints using the Policy service. After the Patch Service installs patches and enhances the inventory information, the Scanner Service runs an inventory scan and sends the newly acquired inventory information to the database. Next, it checks the Patch Service to ensure that the patch installation is in compliance and invokes the Policy Service to compute the compliance for policies set by the Policy Manager. Finally, the Scanner Service contacts the database and uploads the compliance information computed by the Policy Service.

For more information on patch management, see the BMC BladeLogic Client Automation Patch Management User Guide.