Evaluating license and product usage trends
You can track your usage of TrueSight Server Automation agents and view trends in agent deployment through the Health and Value Dashboard and by generating reports using BLCLI commands. Since RSCD agents do not need to be explicitly licensed, the agent usage information that you obtain in these reports can be used for the evaluation of your product licenses.
The topic includes the following sections:
The video at right demonstrates the process of generating and interpreting license and agent usage reports.
List of license types
The following table lists the types of licenses and corresponding entitlements.
License | Applies to these job types |
|---|---|
BMC BladeLogic Server Automation Suite | All types of jobs |
TrueSight Server Automation - License Add-on | All types of jobs |
BMC BladeLogic Server Automation – Compliance Module | Compliance, SCAP, Audit, Snapshot |
TrueSight Server Automation – Compliance License Add-on | Compliance, SCAP, Audit, Snapshot |
BMC BladeLogic Server Automation – Configuration Module | NSH, Deploy |
TrueSight Server Automation – Configuration License Add-on | NSH, Deploy |
BMC BladeLogic Server Automation – Provisioning Module | Bare Metal , Virtual Guest Job |
TrueSight Server Automation – Provisioning License Add‐on | Bare Metal , Virtual Guest Job |
TrueSight Server Automation – Patch License Add‐on | Patch Analysis |
Licensing considerations in server management
Any server that you add in TrueSight Server Automation and on which you installed an RSCD Agent is counted for licensing purposes. As you manage your servers over time, ensure that you follow the proper procedures for adding and decommissioning servers, so that the licensing status of servers is updated accurately.
The following table provides guidelines for special scenarios in server management:
Scenario | Guidelines |
|---|---|
The server was registered with an incorrect name or IP address, and you want to correct the server name. OR You want to change the server name to a fully qualified name. | First decommission the server that you originally registered, and only then add the server with its new name. Otherwise, both the old and new server will be counted as two separate servers for licensing purposes. |
A server is being deleted from the environment. | You need to delete a server from your environment. For example, you are deleting a VM from an ESX server or removing a physical server. In such a case, remember to decommission the server. Otherwise, the deleted server will continue to be counted for licensing. |
Evaluating product usage trends
On the Health and Value Dashboard, select the Product Usage Trends option:
When you select the Product Usage Trends option, the following report is displayed. There are two sections to the report:
- License Usage Trends –This graph provides information about the number of TrueSight Server Automation licenses purchased against the number of licenses actually being used each month, for a period of one year (by default). The threshold line represents the number of TrueSight Server Automation Suite Level licenses that you have purchased. Note that a device that has a valid TrueSight Server Automation agent installed or deployed is considered for license counts. A device that is enrolled but does not have an active agent installed on it, is not considered for license counts, although some jobs are run against such a device.
- Agent Deployment Trends –This graph provides information about the number of TrueSight Server Automation agents that have been added (commissioned) against the number of agents that have been removed (decommissioned) each month, for a period of one year (by default).
You can also perform the following tasks for the graphs:
Task | Description |
|---|---|
To populate or refresh the graphs | To populate or refresh the dashboard, do one of the following:
Once the job or command completes successfully, the report will be populated. |
To change the time period for the License Usage Trends graph | Run the following command using the TrueSight Server Automation Application Server Administration console (the blasadmin utility): Dashboard LicenseInfoDisplayTimePeriod <months> Where <months> is the number of months for which you want the report displayed. The default is 12 months. |
Displaying the number of licenses trend line in the License Usage Trends graph
Run the following commands using the blasadmin utility:
Command | Used to... |
|---|---|
show licenseusage | Provide a list of types of licenses. |
set licenseusage <licenseSKUType> <no. of licenses> | Set number of licenses for a particular module type, where <licenseSKUType> is one of the following:
For example: |
Generating summary and detail reports in CSV format for license usage
You can use the following BLCLI commands to generate license usage reports:
- Utility agentLicenseUsageReportByRelativeDateRange - Use to generate a report within a specified relative date range.
- Utility agentLicenseUsageReportByAbsoluteDateRange - Use to generate a report within a specified absolute date range.
If you have multiple TrueSight Server Automation installations (sites) in your environment, run the usage report for each site from any of the site-specific Application Server.
Before you begin
To generate license reports, the Health and Value Dashboards must be active and populated with data. If this is not the case, perform one or both of the following actions:
- Activate the Health and Value Dashboards as described in Importing out-of-box content and enabling the dashboards and quick start page.
- Populate the dashboards with data.
Generating reports within a specified relative date range
To generate summary and detail reports of active agents, and the kinds of jobs performed on these agents within a specified relative date range, enter the following BLCLI Utility command:
Where:
- reportFilePath is the path to the location where you want to write the CSV report and the filename. The report names will have _summary.csv and _details.csv as suffixes. For example: using /tmp/reportName would output reports names reportName_summary.csv and reportName_details.csv in the /tmp dir.
- relativeRangeValue is the number of days, months, or years
- daysMonthsOrYears is the relative time frame to use for the reports. You can choose day(s), month(s), or year(s)
The following example shows how to use this command to obtain a report for the last month.
Generating reports within an absolute date range
To generate summary and details report of active agents and the types of jobs performed on these agents within an absolute date range, use following BLCLI Utility command:
Where:
- reportFilePath is the path to the location where you want to write the CSV report and the filename. The report names will have _summary.csv and _details.csv as suffixes. For example: using /tmp/reportName would output reports names reportName_summary.csv and reportName_details.csv in the /tmp dir.
- startDateString is the start date for the report, enclosed in double quotes. Use the format "yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ssZ", where Z indicates the UTC timezone.
- endDateString is the ending date for the report, enclosed in double quotes. Use the format "yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ssZ" or "" (an empty string) to indicate the current date and time.
The following example shows how to use this command to obtain a report for a specific date range:
Summary report example
The following is an example of a summary report that is generated in CSV format.
Reading the Summary report
The Summary report presents monthly data for your servers, one row for each month, with the following columns:
Column | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
yyyymm | Year and month | 2015-9 |
Max managed servers | Maximum number of servers active during the month. | 16 |
Servers running configuration | Number of servers that used the Configuration feature during this month | 4 |
Servers running compliance | Number of servers that used the Compliance feature during this month | 0 |
Servers running provisioning | Number of servers that used the Provisioning feature during this month | 4 |
Servers running patching | Number of servers that used the Patching feature during this month | 0 |
# of servers added | Number of new servers that were added this month | 16 |
# of servers decommissioned | Number of servers that were decommissioned this month | 3 |
Detailed report example
The following is an example of the detailed report that is generated in CSV format.
Reading the Detailed report
The Detailed report presents monthly data for each server that was added or decommissioned during the month, in chronological order of commissioning/decommissioning. Each row presents data for one server during a specific month. For each server row, the following columns of data are displayed:
Column | Description |
|---|---|
yyyymm | Year and month |
Time stamp | The date and time (month/day/year and HH:MM) that the server was added |
Device ID | The device ID of the RSCD agent on the server |
Server name | Server host name or IP address |
Date created | The date and time that the agent was commissioned on the server |
Date modified | The date and time that server definitions were modified most recently |
Activation | |
Activation index | Indication of server activation status:
Note that the servers are organized in chronological order of commissioning/decommissioning. |
Cumulative managed server count | A running total of the number of managed servers (that is, a row-by-row sum of activation indexes) |
Configuration module | |
Configuration index | Indication of usage of the Configuration module:
|
Configuration Last Run1 | The date and time that the Configuration module was used most recently |
Cumulative Configuration | A running total of the number of servers using the Configuration module (that is, a row-by-row sum of Configuration indexes) |
Compliance module | |
Compliance index | Indication of usage of the Compliance module:
|
Compliance Last Run1 | The date and time that the Compliance module was used most recently |
Cumulative Compliance | A running total of the number of servers using the Compliance module (that is, a row-by-row sum of Compliance indexes) |
Patching module | |
Patching index | Indication of usage of the Patching module:
|
Patching Last Run1 | The date and time that the Patching module was used most recently |
Cumulative Patching | A running total of the number of servers using the Patching module (that is, a row-by-row sum of Patching indexes) |
Provisioning module | |
Provisioning index | Indication of usage of the Provisioning module:
|
Provisioning Last Run1 | The date and time that the Provisioning module was used most recently |
Cumulative Provisioning | A running total of the number of servers using the Provisioning module (that is, a row-by-row sum of Provisioning indexes) |
1 The date columns for the TrueSight Server Automation modules were introduced in Service Pack 1 (version 8.9.01).