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June 2024

Flexera One introduced the following new features and enhancements this month.

Automation​

Automation released the following feature in June 2024.

Azure Rightsize Synapse SQL Pools policy​

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This feature is available with Automation.

The Azure Rightsize Synapse SQL Pools policy has been introduced that provides recommendations for cost reduction and performance optimization of the Synapse SQL pools.

Dedicated SQL pools incur substantial costs for provisioned compute resources. This feature ensures that the Azure Synapse SQL pools are being used efficiently, and you are informed about potential monthly cost-saving opportunities through the pool size recommendations based on the usage patterns. Depending on the usage data, the following recommendations are provided:

  • Pausing a dedicated SQL pool —This recommendation involves pausing an SQL pool that has no connections after analyzing its activity over a certain period of time. By pausing the pool during these periods of inactivity, you can conserve compute resources and reduce costs associated with provisioned resources.

  • Downsizing a dedicated SQL pool —This recommendation involves downsizing an SQL pool based on Data Warehouse Units (DWU) usage. If the usage falls below a certain threshold, the pool is downsized. Downsizing the pool aligns the allocated resources with the actual workload demands, optimizes resource utilization, reduces costs, and maintains performance.

For more information about the policy, see Azure Rightsize Synapse SQL Pools.

Cloud Cost Optimization​

Cloud Cost Optimization released the following enhancements in June 2024.

Group by capability in recommendations tables​

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This enhancement is available with Cloud Cost Optimization.

In the Rate Reduction and Usage Reduction recommendations tables (Cloud > Cloud Optimization > Optimization and Cloud > Cost Optimization > Billing Centers), you can now group recommendations by relevant properties (columns) to draw additional insights.

This enhancement enables you to efficiently analyze and compare the recommendations by identifying groups of recommendations with the highest potential savings. To group recommendations, simply drag the relevant properties (columns) in the Group by panel. The Group by panel is located above the recommendations table and can also be accessed by clicking the Columns button. Some of the properties (columns) by which you can group recommendations are:

  • Account Name

  • Resource ID

  • Resource Type

  • Recommended Resource Type.

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You cannot group recommendations by Utilization and Tags properties (columns).

For more information about Rate and Usage Reduction recommendations, see the following Flexera One Help topics:

Support for Azure’s improved exports experience​

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This enhancement is available with Cloud Cost Optimization.

Previously, Flexera One only supported the old Azure Portal exports experience but not the latest improved exports (preview) experience in the Azure Portal.

With this enhancement, users can export data using Azure’s latest improved exports experience, which helps with easily creating multiple exports for various cost management datasets to Azure storage.

For details about the new experience, see Microsoft Azure Enterprise Agreement (Legacy) in the Flexera One Help.

Showing Savings Plans for Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services​

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This feature is available with Cloud Cost Optimization.

FinOps teams can now see a comprehensive list of purchased savings plans including cost, utilization percentage, and expiration dates for both Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services on the Savings Plans page (Cloud > Commitments > Savings Plans). This page provides an in-depth, 30-day view of the savings plans, enabling you to track and analyze your financial commitments more effectively. For more information, see Savings Plans in the Flexera One Help.

Previously, you could only track your Reserved Instances (RI).

As part of this feature, the following additional changes have been made:

  • Commitments has been added as a separate menu item (Cloud > Commitments). For more information, see Commitments in the Flexera One Help.

  • Reserved Instances has been moved from the Cost Optimization menu (Cloud > Cost Optimization > Reserved Instances) to the Commitments menu (Cloud > Commitments > Reserved Instances). For more information, see Reserved Instances in the Flexera One Help.

  • View reserved instances role has been updated to the View commitments role. For complete descriptions of each role available in Flexera One, see Flexera One Roles.

Turbonomic policies updated to improve authentication using OAuth 2.0​

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This feature is available with Cloud Cost Optimization.

Turbonomic integration policies have been updated to improve the authentication process for accessing the Turbonomic instance by using the Turbonomic OAuth 2.0 client. Flexera One supports the client_secret_basic client authentication method. To authenticate the client, you must create the basic authentication credentials using the client ID and client secret. The audience value configured for a Turbonomic instance can be provided as a policy parameter when requesting a token. This token is used to access the Turbonomic APIs. For more information about Turbonomic policies, see Cost Policies.

As part of this feature, the hyperlinks in the incident export table, when clicked, direct you back to the Turbonomic User Interface (UI). This enables users to quickly access relevant details within the Turbonomic UI. For more information, see Incident Message and Email Templates in the Flexera One Help.

Change in View budgets role​

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This enhancement is available with Cloud Cost Optimization.

With this enhancement, the View budgets role has been modified. Now, users with this role can only view the budget dashboard segments for which they have cost access. Cost access is granted at the billing center or organization level, ensuring that the budget details are accessible only to authorized users. By restricting access, organizations can have better control over budget management. For complete descriptions of each role available in Flexera One, see Flexera One Roles.

Previously, the users with the View budgets role could view cloud budgets and view cloud billing data for the entire organization.

For information about viewing budgets, see Viewing a Budget Dashboard in the Flexera One Help.

Flexera One Platform​

Flexera One released the following platform enhancement in June 2024.

Ability to Revoke API Refresh Token From Flexera One Interface​

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This enhancement is available with Flexera One.

The Flexera One interface now provides a way to revoke Flexera One API refresh tokens. Previously, you could only revoke refresh tokens using the command line. With this enhancement, you can also view a complete list of your API refresh tokens that have not yet expired.

For more information, see the Revoking an API Refresh Token topic in the Flexera One Help.

Flexera One ServiceNow app​

Flexera released an updated version of the Flexera One app in the ServiceNow Store in April 2024.

Flexera One app version 1.3 available now in the ServiceNow Store​

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This app is available with IT Visibility.

Flexera helps you improve the value you derive from your ServiceNow investment from aggregation, normalization, and enrichment of hardware, software, SaaS, and cloud IT asset inventory data to IT service delivery. With Technopedia®, the most trusted source of IT product information in the world, Flexera enhances IT service management (ITSM), Configuration Management Systems, and Software Asset Management with a reliable foundation and accurate data.

The current version of the Flexera One ServiceNow app includes the following new capabilities.

This version of the Flexera One App ServiceNow app includes two new datasets: Hardware Model Profile and Hardware Model Power. The addition of these datasets provide content to the Flexera One App that delivers greater visibility into the sustainability of your IT estate.

The new attributes include:

  • Hardware Model Profile: Volume

  • Hardware Model Profile: DepthMax

  • Hardware Model Profile: HeightMax

  • Hardware Model Profile: WeightMax

  • Hardware Model Profile: WidthMax

  • Hardware Model Power: AcPowerMax

  • Hardware Model Power: AcPowerMax/ACVoltageLowMin (Calculated Current)

  • Hardware Model Power: ACVoltageLowMin

  • Hardware Model Power: IsEnergyStar

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There is a new integration property that allows these new attributes to be enabled in the Flexera One App: Enable Flexera Hardware Specification Mappings. Customers can take advantage of these new attributes by installing the latest version of the Flexera One App and clicking Yes for Enable Flexera Hardware Specification Mappings in Flexera One Integration Properties.

These attributes are mapped to the Hardware Model table in the Flexera One App. (Customers can download the current data model from the Data Model page in the Flexera One App help library.) The attributes are also used to add visualizations to the Flexera Hardware dashboard for Current Consumption, Voltage Consumption, and Power Consumption.

Additional details about the attributes in the Hardware Model Power and Hardware Model Profile datasets are available in the Flexera One API documentation on IT Visibility Insights Datasets:

IT Asset Management​

IT Asset Management released the following feature and enhancements in June 2024.

The Kubernetes Inventory Agent can now recognize KubeVirt virtual machines installed on a worker node in a Kubernetes cluster​

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This feature is available with IT Asset Management.

The Flexera Kubernetes Inventory Agent has been further enhanced to now recognize KubeVirt virtual machines installed on a worker node in a Kubernetes cluster. KubeVirt is a Kubernetes extension that allows running traditional virtual machine workloads natively side by side with container workloads.

Prior to this enhancement, only virtual machine inventory data pertaining to the Kubernetes container was collected by the Flexera Kubernetes Inventory Agent and viewable on the All Containers page in IT Asset Management. From this release onwards, inventory data is now collected for KubeVirt virtual machines installed on the actual worker node that the Kubernetes container is deployed to.

After KubeVirt virtual machine inventory is collected, inventory data is mapped over and visible from three new pages in IT Asset Management: Kubernetes Nodes, Kubernetes Containers and Kubernetes Virtual Machines. You can access these pages under Inventory in IT Asset Management:

  • Kubernetes Nodes—Displays the total number of worker nodes within a Kubernetes cluster and associated information such as cluster name, node name, number of pods and so on. Clicking on the number of VMs or containers in this page will allow you to drill-down into a detailed view of the VMs/containers which are currently running on that node.

  • Kubernetes Containers—Displays all the Kubernetes inventory devices that have been imported into IT Asset Management with associated information such as node name, container pod name, image ID and so on for each container.

  • Kubernetes Virtual Machines—Displays all the Kubernetes virtual machines that have been imported into IT Asset Management with associated information such as cluster name, node name, VM name and so on for each virtual machine. If inventory has been received for a virtual machine, then that particular virtual machine in the VM name column is hyperlinked. By clicking on a hyperlinked VM name, the user is redirected to the corresponding Inventory Device Properties page.

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A new field titled Worker node stating the name of the worker node that the virtual machine belongs to is now present in the VM Properties tab on the Inventory Device Properties page. Clicking the hyperlinked worker node name will redirect the user to the Inventory Device Properties page for that worker node (a worker node itself is a computer or virtual machine that runs containerized applications).

In order to collect inventory data for KubeVirt virtual machines running in a Kubernetes cluster, four new classes called MGS_KubernetesKubeVirtVirtualMachine, MGS_KubernetesKubeVirtVirtualMachineInstance, MGS_KubernetesKubeVirtVirtualMachineInstanceReplicaSet and MGS_KubernetesKubeVirtVirtualMachinePool have been added to the k8s-inventory-clusterId-timestamp.ndi file.

This enhancement is supported by the Standard Flexera Kubernetes Inventory Agent (often referred to as the "full" Flexera Kubernetes Inventory Agent), and the Lightweight Kubernetes Inventory Agent. KubeVirt virtual machine inventory data will be updated to reflect new inventory, and inventory that is no longer present will be removed each and every time the Flexera Kubernetes Inventory Agent collects inventory from a Kubernetes cluster(s) in your environment.

For more information on these new classes, see Kubernetes Inventory Uploads in the Gathering FlexNet Inventory user guide. For information on how to download and install the Flexera Kubernetes Inventory Agent, see Download Flexera Kubernetes Inventory Agent in the Help.

Track compliance on column removal from Device compliance page​

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This enhancement is available with IT Asset Management.

The Track compliance on column has been removed from the Device Compliance page due to limitations in its logic, which restricted users to managing only 32 asset types. This limitation prompted feedback from customers requesting the ability to manage more than 32 asset types.

As a result of this update, users will no longer have the option to configure specific asset types for history tracking. Instead, all device types (laptops, servers, workstations, and mobile devices) will now be tracked by default.

IBM sub-capacity reports are now scoped to location and business entity​

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This enhancement is available with IT Asset Management.

From this release, IBM sub-capacity reports are now scoped to a business entity with the peak consumption contributed by the hosts in that location/entity.

Prior to this enhancement, when running any of the IBM sub capacity audit reports, the totals for the license consumption did not apply to user scoping, and the overall peak value for each license for all resources in all locations were reported on. For example, if you were restricted to the EU region you would still see the global license in the report.

Following this enhancement, IBM sub-capacity reports are now scoped to report on the peak consumption and location for the individual user who is running the report. Furthermore, the report summary file will state the location/entity in the region.

Improved performance of verified Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) data collection​

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This enhancement is available with IT Asset Management.

Prior to this enhancement, the verified Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) data collection might cause performance issues depending on the size of EBS databases.

Following this enhancement, the performance of the EBS data collection has been improved. You can also choose to disable or enable the EBS data collection by using the Enable collection of Oracle EBS audit data checkbox on the Data Collection > IT Asset Inventory Tasks > Inventory Settings page. This option is disabled by default.

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This enhancement requires FlexNet Inventory Agent version 22.0.0 or later, and you must have downloaded InventorySettings.xml version 75 or later, which contains the updated Oracle GLAS scripts. The version number of this file is included in its first line, and the file is updated as part of the regular download of the Application Recognition Library (ARL).

FlexNet Inventory Agent version 22.0.0 changes​

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This enhancement is available with IT Asset Management.

See FlexNet Inventory Agent version 22.0.0 changes

Inventory Beacon 22.0.0 changes​

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This enhancement is available with IT Asset Management.

See Inventory Beacon 22.0.0 changes

IT Visibility​

IT Visibility added the following new feature in June 2024.

Download platform-specific bootstrapping file templates for Windows and Linux directly from the Installers page​

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This feature is available with IT Visibility.

For Windows and Linux platforms, you can now download bootstrapping installer templates directly from the Installers page (Data Collection > IT Visibility Inventory Tasks > Installers). On the Installers page, the Agent Installer section shows a link for downloading a bootstrapping file template. The link changes as you change the Platform setting. As support for this is currently provided for Windows and Linux, the download link can be among the following:

  • Download bootstrapping file template for Windows

  • Download bootstrapping file template for Linux (i386)

  • Download bootstrapping file template for Linux (x86_64)

These links download msgsetup.ini (Windows) or msgsetup.in.sh (Linux).

See Manual Inventory Agent Download in the Flexera One Help Library for more information about the Installers page.

Inventory extensions version settings available among Agent Configuration options​

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This feature is available with IT Visibility.

This release includes a number of Agent Configuration changes with the most significant change being the addition of Inventory extensions version settings among the Agent Configuration common settings.

Inventory extensions version settings control the version of the InventorySettings.xml file that is used by the inventory agent. InventorySettings.xml provides additional queries and rules used in the inventory collection process. You can now set the version for Inventory extensions within the Default Agent Configuration common settings. Common Settings reside within the Inventory Agent Options tab of the Default Agent Configuration (Data Collection > IT Visibility Inventory Tasks > Agent Configurations > Default Agent Configuration).

In addition to the new Inventory extensions version settings, the common settings now also include both the Oracle Audit Data Scanning and Container Scanning settings, as well, along with the IBM Reporting and Archiving settings and Encryption settings that were already present.

For details about the Inventory extensions version settings, see Managing Inventory Extensions Versions in the Flexera One Help Library.

For more about Agent Configuration common settings, see Editing Inventory Agent Common Settings.

Support for file evidence in ILMT as a data source​

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This feature is available with IT Visibility.

This month, we have added file evidence support for customers who use ILMT as an inventory data source. With this enhancement, software assets in ILMT (IBM License Metric Tool) can be recognized by their IBM SWID tags.

Previously, file evidence was supported for Flexera Inventory, SCCM, and Data Platform extractors. With this release, the inventory data sources that support file evidence includes the following:

  • Flexera Inventory

  • IBM License Metric Tool (ILMT)

  • Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM)

  • Data Platform Extractors

With the feature now enabled you will see changes on your software recognition dashboard showing data from ILMT being recognized from file evidence.

SaaS Management​

SaaS Management added the following new features and enhancements in June 2024.

Excluding Salesforce customer community and partner user licenses from license activity metrics​

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This enhancement is available with SaaS Management.

The Salesforce integration with SaaS Management includes an Overview tab (SaaS > Managed SaaS Applications > Salesforce All Orgs > Overview) and an Orgs tab (SaaS > Managed SaaS Applications > Salesforce All Orgs > Orgs) for the Salesforce All Orgs view. With this enhancement, Salesforce customer community and partner user licenses are no longer included in the users' activity count. Excluding these users, who are not listed in an organization's HR Roster, provides more accurate activity metrics on the Overview tab and more accurate license assignment and usage on the Orgs tab.

The SaaS Dashboard (Dashboards > SaaS) provides insight into how application licenses are used across organizations, so organizations can right-size application licenses to optimize spend. The Application Usage widget within the SaaS Dashboard displays usage data for the top 5 applications with the highest annual spend. For Salesforce applications, users with community and partner user licenses are now excluded from the Application Usage widget. Excluding these users provides more accurate Salesforce license usage across your organization.

Flexera One Help Resources​

For more information on the exclusion of Salesforce customer community and partner user licenses, see the following Flexera One Help topics:

Excluding Salesforce customer community and partner user licenses from suspicious activities​

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This enhancement is available with SaaS Management.

The Salesforce integration with SaaS Management includes a Suspicious Activities tab (SaaS > Managed SaaS Applications > Salesforce > Suspicious Activities) for the individual Salesforce org. With this enhancement, Salesforce customer community and partner user licenses are no longer counted as suspicious activities. Excluding these non-malicious users, who are not listed in an organization's HR Roster, increases the efficiency of threat detection and decreases the risk of overlooking genuine security concerns. For more information, see the Suspicious Activities Tab for the Individual Salesforce Org View in the Flexera One Help.

Out-of-the-box catalog of preconfigured settings for SaaS data ingestion utility​

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This feature is available with SaaS Management.

The Flexera SaaS Management (FSM) Data Ingestion Utility is a client-based Windows desktop tool to help upload data from your organization's multiple SaaS applications on a regular schedule. This utility now offers an out-of-the-box catalog of preconfigured settings for ingesting and processing SaaS usage data.

These preconfigured settings offer the following benefits:

  • Simplified onboarding process.

  • Configuration validation to help minimize the risk of configuration errors and data integrity issues.

  • Scalability to add new SaaS applications without significant constraints.

  • Data compatibility that enables ingested data to be transformed, formatted, and structured in a way that aligns with the specific requirements of downstream data processing and analysis.

  • Security and data privacy that ensures sensitive data is handled in a compliant and secure manner.

For more information, see the KB article Flexera SaaS Management Data Ingestion Utility.

Redesigned Licenses tab for SaaS licenses​

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This feature is available with SaaS Management.

The SaaS Management Licenses tab has been redesigned for organizations to more effectively track SaaS licenses. With the new Licenses tab design, all sections can be sorted and filtered. License data from all the Licenses tab sections can now be exported. You can now create a customized license to override and add missing SaaS licenses. For auto-populated SaaS licenses, you can now override the provisioned license count with the purchased count. Miscellaneous fees can now be deleted. You can add multiple notes and track them. For more information, see the Licenses Tab and Managing SaaS Licenses topics in the Flexera One Help.

Shadow IT insights provided using Power BI reporting for Broadcom CloudSOC CASB​

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This feature is available with SaaS Management.

SaaS Management now provides Shadow IT insights using Power BI reporting for the Broadcom CloudSOC Cloud App Security Brokers (CASB). Data from Broadcom’s CloudSOC CASB helps discover and manage Shadow IT, investment in third-party IT solutions, including cloud apps and services, without oversight from your IT organization.

With this feature you have the ability to:

  • Ingest information obtained from Broadcom’s CloudSOC CASB

  • Allow the identification and categorization of applications:

    • Identify who accessed the application

    • Identify when and where the application was accessed

    • Identify potential risks associated with the access:

      • Personal device

      • Public wireless network

      • Geographic location

    • Link the data to procurement details for determining how the access to the application/vendor was procured.

Specifying values for unmapped fields within the FSM Data Ingestion Utility​

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This enhancement is available with SaaS Management.

When using the FSM Data Ingestion Utility, you can now specify values for fields that are not mapped to an API or CSV source. This enhancement makes it possible to pass static values as part of the SaaS data ingestion configuration. For more information, see the following Flexera One Help topics:

Usage insights for Salesforce consumption-based licenses​

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This feature is available with SaaS Management.

SaaS Management now offers granular usage insights for Salesforce consumption-based licenses. You can now identify potential license overages or under utilization. These insights helps align your organization’s Salesforce licensing strategies with actual usage, potentially leading to financial efficiencies and minimizing compliance risks.

Salesforce consumption-based licenses insights resources​

The Salesforce consumption-based licenses insights can be found on the following SaaS Management UI pages:

  • The new Consumption Licenses table widget has been added to the Overview tab for the individual Salesforce org view (SaaS > Managed SaaS Applications > Salesforce).
  • The new Consumption Licenses tab has been added to the Salesforce All Orgs view (SaaS > Managed SaaS Applications > Salesforce).

For more information, see Analyzing User and License Activity Data Within the Salesforce Workspace in the Flexera One Help.

SBOM Management​

Flexera One has added a new capability in June 2024.

SBOM Management added to Flexera One in the North American Region​

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This capability is available with SBOM Management in the North American Region. Support for EU and APAC will be added at a future time.

Flexera SBOM Management gives organizations the ability to manage security and legal risk of their assets by maintaining a complete, accurate SBOM of the Open Source Software and other non-native code used in the assets. This cloud SBOM management solution is hosted by Flexera on Amazon Web Services (AWS). It aggregates the SBOM over multiple assets and sources and provides full visibility to security and legal teams as well as to supply chain partners.

Currently SBOM Management is supported the North American region only. Support for

For more information, see the Getting Started with SBOM Management topic in the Flexera One Help.