Raw utilization of license metrics

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9.2.1 Available from 9.2.1.

Raw data about utilization of license metrics is collected for products that deliver .slmtag files and is shown on the Resource Utilization report. The data that is shown on the report is not aggregated. It means that if a product can use five license metrics, five rows are shown on the report for that product. What is more, all metrics that are available for a product are displayed, not only metrics that are defined by your license agreement.

To collect raw utilization data, run the resource utilization scan. The scan is scheduled automatically if you enabled the default scan configuration, completed the All-in-One installation, or use disconnected scanners. Otherwise, enable it manually. For more information, see: Initiating software scans (BigFix scenario).

For the list of IBM products that deliver .slmtag files, see: IBM products that deliver SLM tags.

If data for a software item is shown on the Resource Utilization report, and you expect to see corresponding data on the All Metrics report, but the data is not available, see: Raw utilization of a license metric is shown on the Resource Utilization report but corresponding license usage is not shown on the All Metrics report.

Resource Utilization report
1 Retention period setting
To reduce the amount of resource utilization data, set the retention period after which the data is removed from the database. For more information, see: Configuring data retention period for raw utilization data.
2 Export History
History provides initially processed data about the average and maximum utilization of each license metric for each product for a specified period. It is different from export to CSV or PDF that includes only data that is visible on the user interface.
3 Metric Type and Metric Subtype
The type and subtype of license metrics that a product uses. The report does not show products that use license metrics for which utilization is calculated. To view these products, open the All Metrics report.
4 First Measured and Last Measured
The first and last time when each metric was reported.
5 Maximal Trend Value
The maximum utilization of each license metric over the last 30 days. If a particular product is unused, no resource utilization data is available, or the data is older than 30 days, the value is 0.
6 Maximal Trend Value History
Trend value of the maximum utilization over the last 30 days. When the graph shows 0 for a specific period, it means that there is no data, or there was no license utilization during this period. To recognize which is the case, click Export History to save the report to a file. Then, open the file, and check if the entries that show 0 in the user interface also show 0 in the file. If they do, it means that the license utilization during this period equals 0. If there are no such entries, the data from this period was not reported.

Aggregating the data

If you want to aggregate the data according to your license agreement, export the history of license metric utilization and aggregate it outside of License Metric Tool. Apply all necessary filters on the Resource Utilization report, and click Export History. The csvhistory.zip file is downloaded to your computer. It contains the export_history.csv file that provides initially processed data about the average and maximum utilization of each license metric for each product.

Example

IBM Product is an application that is licensed based on the number of users who simultaneously log in to that application per hour. Figure 1 is a visualization of the license metric utilization that is retrieved from the .slmtag file specific for the IBM Product.
Figure 1. License metric utilization data retrieved from the .slmtag file for IBM Product
A bar chart that represents utilization of the license metric that is retrieved for IBM Product.
The data undergoes initial processing during which the average daily utilization of the license metric is calculated. Information about the maximum utilization, including its value and time, is preserved. Figure 2 is a visualization of the license metric utilization data for IBM Product after initial processing. It shows that on average, four users were simultaneously logged in to the application. The maximum utilization occurred between 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. when 10 users were simultaneously logged in to IBM Product.
Figure 2. License metric utilization data for IBM Product after initial processing
A bar chart that represents utilization of the license metric for IBM Product after initial processing.
The export_history.csv file contains license metric utilization data after initial processing. It does not contain all data that was collected from the endpoints in your infrastructure. Table 1 shows a fragment of the export_history.csv file that corresponds to the data that is presented in Figure 2. The first row corresponds to the average license metric utilization before the peak. The second row corresponds to the peak value. The third row corresponds to the average utilization after the peak value.
Table 1. A fragment of the export_history.csv file
Computer Name Software Name Metric Type Metric Subtype Start Time (UTC 0) End Time (UTC 0) Value
VMW00912 IBM Product CONCURRENT_USER   2015-06-20 00:00:00.0 2015-06-20 14:00:00.0 4
VMW00912 IBM Product CONCURRENT_USER   2015-06-20 14:00:00.0 2015-06-20 15:00:00.0 10
VMW00912 IBM Product CONCURRENT_USER   2015-06-20 15:00:00.0 2015-06-21 00:00:00.0 4