IBM License Metric Tool application update 9.2.20 is now available!

Content

This update includes the following key features:

• Audit snapshot is updated to better support counting license usage across hybrid environments (containerized and non-containerized product deployments)
  The audit snapshot is extended with a dedicated file that provides daily values of license metric utilization for the installed products.
  Benefits: You can use this file to consolidate data from License Metric Tool and License Service and obtain overall license consumption across containerized and non-containerized environments. Alternatively, you can use the License Advisor that is a part of the Cloud Pak for Multi-cloud Management and provides the same aggregation capability by automated gathering of data from License Metric Tool and License Service via REST APIs.
• Improving software classification by declaring software entitlements
  Software entitlements are products that you own and thus are entitled to install and use. You can declare your software entitlements, either manually or by importing part numbers, to improve default classification of the discovered components.
  Benefits: Discovered components are by default assigned to products that are marked as your software entitlements. As a result, less manual classification is required.
• Simplified way of ensuring currency of the software catalog
  A new version of the software catalog is released every quarter and delivered together with each application update of License Metric Tool. When you upgrade the License Metric Tool server, a new catalog is also uploaded. There is no need to update the catalog separately. Because manual upload of the software catalog is no longer necessary, the following items are removed.
  • The fixlet Software Catalog Update (<version>) is removed from the IBM License Reporting (ILMT) fixlet site.
  • The Catalog Upload panel is removed from License Metric Tool.

• Support for new platforms and virtualization technologies
  • SLES 15 SP1 on Power
  • vSphere 7
  • Disconnected scanner on Red Had Enterprise Linux 8.1 on Power
  • Disconnected scanner on Ubuntu 20 x86
• Security enhancements
  For more information, see: Security enhancements.

Other important changes:

• Improved navigation of the All Metrics report
  Navigation of the All Metrics report is unified for all products. When you click a link in the Product Name column, a list of components that are assigned to this product is displayed. When you click a link in the Metric Quantity column, a report that is specific for the particular license metric is displayed. If License Metric Tool does not provide such a report, the value in the column is not a link.
   
• Extension of the To Do list
  The To Do list is extended and displays information about using an obsolete version of the database.
   
• Removed content
  The Inventory Exploration report that was deprecated in the previous application update is now entirely removed from License Metric Tool. You can view analogical information on the Software Summary report.
   
• End of support for some operating systems
  Support is dropped for IBMi 6.1. If you are using this version of the operating system, upgrade to a newer version that is supported by License Metric Tool.
   
• Deploying the VM Manager Tool in disconnected mode
  If you want to deploy the VM Manager Tool on a computer on which you cannot install the BigFix client, use the disconnected mode. Deploying the VM Manager Tool in this mode requires approval from IBM Compliance.
   
• Separate scripts for running software scans and packing scan results generated by the disconnected scanner
  In the previous versions of the disconnected scanner, running the software scan and packaging results of the software and capacity scans was done by a single script. Now, you can run the software scan and pack scan results independently.
   
• Increased limit of custom bundling rules
  The number of custom bundling rules that you can create was increased from 10 to 50.

Action to take
To learn how to get the application update and deploy it as well as to view the full list of new features and APARs that were fixed in this application update, see: Release Notes.

Questions
If you have any product-related questions, post them on the License Metric Tool forum: https://ibm.biz/LMT-support-forum.