Managing licenses


BMC Discovery has a simple basic licensing model, though, with the introduction of cloud and storage discovery, license usage has become more complicated to track and manage. BMC Discovery provides a licensing page that enables you to:

  • enable cloud discovery and determine the number of licensable cloud resources discovered
  • determine the number of licensable hosts discovered
  • enable Sync for ServiceNow CMDB
  • see whether a Storage TKU is installed, and if so, which version

The system queries the datastore once each day to extract data and construct graphs of license usage for cloud resources and for hosts. Each graph provides a More Detail button which enables you to see the datastore queries used to construct that graph. You can also:

  • download a signed license report,
  • download raw license data so you can process and report on license usage according to your company practices,
  • upload raw license data so that you can choose a single appliance from which to perform your own licensing audit.

To access the licensing details, from the main menu, click the Administration icon admin_icon.png. From the Appliance section, click Licensing. The licensing page is shown in the screen below:

licensing224.png

To enable or disable cloud discovery

The Cloud Resources field at the headline of the page has Enable and Disable buttons which enable you to enable or disable cloud discovery.

  • To enable cloud discovery, click the Enable button. 
    The system displays a dialog requiring you to confirm that you are licensed to use cloud discovery and that you have sufficient licenses to cover your usage. 

BMC Discovery for Multi-Cloud is a separately licensed product. By enabling Cloud Discovery, you are confirming that your organization is properly licensed for a sufficient number of Cloud Resources.

  • To disable cloud discovery, click the Disable button.
    The system displays a confirmation dialog.

When you disable cloud discovery, no more cloud data is discovered. None of your discovered cloud data is deleted, though you must have a license that covers your past usage.

To enable or disable Sync for ServiceNow CMDB

The Sync for ServiceNow CMDB field at the headline of the page has Enable and Disable buttons which enable you to enable or disable Sync for ServiceNow CMDB.

  • To enable Sync for ServiceNow CMDB, click the Enable button. 
    The system displays a dialog requiring you to confirm that you are licensed to use Sync for ServiceNow CMDB. 

 Sync for ServiceNow CMDB is a separately licensed product. By enabling  Sync for ServiceNow CMDB, you are confirming that your organization is properly licensed for its use.

  • To disable Sync for ServiceNow CMDB, click the Disable button.
    The system displays a confirmation dialog.

When you disable Sync for ServiceNow CMDB, you can no longer use the feature. No data is deleted, though you must have a license that covers your past usage.

In previous versions, Mainframe Connection Linking was a separately licensed product that required you to enable it. Starting with version 22.4, Mainframe Connection Linking is no longer a licensed product and is enabled by default.

The number of hosts discovered and the status, that is, installed or not, and if installed, which versions is displayed in the headline along with the cloud discovery control.

To download a signed licensing report

You can download a digitally signed licensing report showing the current licensing status of your BMC Discovery appliance. To do so, from the Actions menu, select Download License Report.

Click here to show an example signed license report...
-----BEGIN LICENSE REPORT-----
License report
==============

Report start time: 2020-05-02 12:46:41.217700+00:00
Report end time  : 2021-11-02 12:46:41.217729+00:00

Highest monthly average capacity for Cloud Resources: 67 (2021-10)
Highest monthly average capacity for Hosts: 238 (2021-11)

Aggregating data from these directories:
/usr/tideway/var/license_data - local data of Cloud_scanner (12.0.0.0)
/usr/tideway/var/license_data/a6bae4377be1fc53276289485e9444f8 - Backup restore from: 2021-11-02 15:50:25.055168
/usr/tideway/var/license_data/a6bae4377be1fc53276289485e9444f8/40942d3773dc12064f6689485e943b70 - Backup restore from: 2021-11-02 10:47:55.187875
/usr/tideway/var/license_data/a6bae4377be1fc53276289485e9444f8/40942d3773dc12064f6689485e943b70/7f7749370080d3ec10c27f0000014655 - Backup restore from: 2021-11-02 14:35:03.050099

Installed additional content:
TKU-Storage-2021-10-1-ADDM-12.3+ (First seen: 2021-11-02, Last seen: 2021-11-02)
EDP-2021-10-1-ADDM-12.3+ (First seen: 2021-11-02, Last seen: 2021-11-02)

Cloud Hosted Software (Cloud Resources)
---------------------------------------
Average numbers per month:
    2021-10 - 22
    2021-11 - 22

Cloud Virtual Machines (Cloud Resources)
----------------------------------------
Average numbers per month:
    2021-10 - 45
    2021-11 - 45

Hosts (Hosts)
-------------
Average numbers per month:
    2021-08 - 12
    2021-09 - 19
    2021-10 - 208
    2021-11 - 238


-----BEGIN LICENSE REPORT SIGNATURE-----
qN3ZJaLeUMXvPCbJrfg5rUt3SXjtvYOU7cMoo0VfXFRSZ2+YSGv0ZOOuoK3tLaOs6KQS15/qTylJ
YN02PrmC1+qhe+KIABgs6rpGTF2ryyxvem4rGXu//9QrsXo8nXE/LyB85DCZD8tLrmpLYZg5fbgb
XrCfnTbdgzxu2q2W/LVrcnQAJjZnSdKUV13SkBC966NeWoVvCK1IjFaEakL51d8CuUuj3c+JzH12
A6Edaj7BTSUf6af0Z9D1Hvhu26+GkgYpmxfP73mURbAoyhRgf4IZoR05ossclK1IHjcqgUGUClby
9VpSIqtf+jmmi0tgZxypeyC8GX6UitDFdbs3wg==

-----END LICENSE REPORT-----

To download raw licensing data

To produce licensing reports for your company's records, download the raw data showing the current licensing status.

  • From the Actions menu, select Download Raw License Data as CSV.
  • To download the plain text raw data, from the Actions menu, select Download Raw License Data.

The files are downloaded as zip archives.

To upload raw license data to another appliance

To produce a consolidated report of all licensing data from multiple appliances, upload the raw license data files downloaded from other appliances to a single appliance from which you can download consolidated versions of the license reports and data.

To upload the raw license data files:

  1. From the Actions menu, select Upload Raw License Data.
  2. From the file browser, select the downloaded zip files, and click Upload.


 

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