Customizing Asset Manager for Managed Services Providers (MSP) Software Asset Management

Transcription

1 HP Asset Manager Customizing Asset Manager for Managed Services Providers (MSP) Software Asset Management How To Manage Generic Software Counters and Multiple Companies Legal Notices... 2 Introduction... 3 Overview of the global solution... 3 SAM counters as a solution for MSPs... 3 A unique set of counters providing compliance for each external customer... 3 Tree structure in count results to group by customer... 4 In software counters details... 4 In software counters list... 5 Implementation... 5 For more information... 6

2 Legal Notices Copyright Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Confidential computer software. Valid license from HP required for possession, use or copying. Consistent with FAR and , Commercial Computer Software, Computer Software Documentation, and Technical Data for Commercial Items are licensed to the U.S. Government under vendor's standard commercial license. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. Adobe, Adobe logo, Acrobat and Acrobat Logo are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated. Corel and Corel logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Corel Corporation or Corel Corporation Limited. Java is a US trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows Mobile and Windows Vista are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.

3 Introduction Asset Manager is delivered out of the box to manage the Portfolio of a single company. Yet the ability to customize the database structure and the global administration make it easy to design a database that can store the Portfolio and all dependent processes of many companies. That is the main requirement of the MSP, or Managed Service Provider. There are two common MSP situations: A service company that manages many customers in one database A company (usually a rather large one) whose departments and subsidiaries are considered internal customers of the IT department (which is sometimes itself a subsidiary) The following sections extend the previously published white paper entitled Customizing Asset Manager for Managed Service Providers (MSPs), and discuss how you use the Software Asset Management Module (SAM) in Asset Manager to support multiple customers/companies using generic software counters. With a limited amount of effort (managing a set of Software Counter), Manage Services Providers can deliver a high value software compliance to each of their customers. Overview of the global solution The main point is to partition the database into separate entities whose users are not able to see the information of other entities. To that end, a new field or link needs to be added to tables that may contain data that needs to be secured; or to tables that have little information in common from one entity to another. There are a few possible implementations; refer to the Customizing Asset Manager for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) white paper for a complete explanation. SAM counters as a solution for MSPs A unique set of counters providing compliance for each external customer. Managing compliance for an MSP-configured database must be as dynamic as possible, so that you do not have to manage a specific counter for each specific model, for each specific customer. The proposed solution shows how to implement generic counters, with one counter per model for all companies; and how restrictions can be applied in order to have the results displayed based on the logged customer. SAM counter results are based on employees, cost centers, portfolios, and so forth; in an MSP configuration all are linked to a specific customer. The referenced object in the counter result is identified with a typed link where the table name and its referenced object ID are stored. Using this link, the customer can be identified and linked to the counter results. To do so, the counter result calculation action needs to be updated in order to link each result to a customer. Because counter results are linked to specific customers, by applying a restriction on the counter result table, you can display only the result from the current user company without any other customizations. Regarding the global results screen, the list of counters and their results, the counts for rights, entitlements, installations and unused installations need to have restrictions applied as well. To do so, those fields must be replaced by calculated fields; and the Counter screen must be replaced by another screen that uses those calculated fields.

4 Tree structure in count results to group by customer The administrator may want to see the counter results with sub-totals at the Counter and Customer levels. To do so he has to create a tree structure in the counter result table (amrightsusescount) and update the counter calculation action above so that it manages the creation/update of Counter and Customer headers where the various counters (rights, installations, ) would be displayed. As a result you could see In software counters details

5 In software counters list A general view on amrightsusescount table will allow the Managed Services Company to get a consolidated view of Software Compliance, at global level for each software counter, company by company, CostCenter by CostCenter (if the Group by chosen is the cost centers). Implementation For detailed implementation steps and code for reflecting the Counter / external Companies / counter group by tree view, SAM module is necessary. If you purchased this module, please contact your Sales Representation who will contact Asset Manager Product team.

6 For more information Please visit the HP Software support Web site at: This web site provides contact information and details about the products, services, and support that HP Software offers. HP Software online support provides customer self-solve capabilities. It provides a fast and efficient way to access interactive technical support tools needed to manage your business. As a valuable support customer, you can benefit by being able to: Search for knowledge documents of interest Submit and track progress on support cases Submit enhancement requests online Download software patches Manage a support contract Look up HP support contacts Review information about available services Enter discussions with other software customers Research and register for software training Note: Most of the support areas require that you register as an HP Passport user and sign in. Many also require an active support contract. To find more information about support access levels, go to the following URL: To register for an HP Passport ID, go to the following URL: Limited responsibility clause Asset Manager is integrated with several third-party applications. Examples: Database engines, Web servers, single sign-on software, load-balancing and clustering hardware and software solutions, reporting software such as Crystal Reports, etc. Support for these applications is limited to their interface with Asset Manager. Support does not cover installation problems, setup and customization problems nor malfunctioning of the third-party application. White papers contain examples of implementations that may work in your environment with or without customization. There is no guarantee that this will be the case. It could also be that some of the solutions covered by white papers appear as standard features in a future release of the software. When this is the case, there is no guarantee that you will be able to upgrade the solution you implemented based on the white paper to the equivalent standard feature Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. Itanium is a trademark or registered trademark of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries and is used under license. Customizing AM for MSPs Software Asset Management.doc