Job Management Partner 1/Software Distribution Description and Planning Guide

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2.2.7 Uses of inventory information

Inventory Viewer provided by JP1/Software Distribution Manager enables you to manage and use acquired inventory information for a variety of purposes. This subsection provides an overview of the uses of inventory information. For details about how to use inventory information, see 2.3 Managing inventory information.

Organization of this subsection
(1) Counting inventory information
(2) Outputting to a CSV file
(3) Printing inventory information
(4) Managing inventory information from HP NNM

(1) Counting inventory information

You can count the total number of hosts corresponding to each type of inventory item. Obtaining the totals for different types of inventory information is useful for managing software licenses and managing hardware usage in the network. You can also display the counting results as graphs.

(a) Counting hosts by software program

You can count the number of hosts at which each software program is installed. This information enables you to determine whether any license limitations have been exceeded.

(b) Counting hosts by system information

You can count the number of hosts to which various types of system information are applicable.

This information helps you manage hardware resources and utilization status.

The following are examples of system information counting:

(c) Counting the number of relay systems and clients

You can count the number of relay systems and clients. This information helps you understand the size of the network managed by JP1/Software Distribution.

(d) Counting hosts by user inventory

You can obtain the number of applicable hosts for each user-managed inventory item, such as by the number of client users in each department or project.

(2) Outputting to a CSV file

You can export the collected inventory information to a CSV file. You can open this CSV file with a spreadsheet program, so you can easily sort the information or create management documents.

You can use Inventory Viewer or the CSV output utility to export inventory information to a CSV file. For details, see 4.5.2 Exporting to a CSV-formatted file and 9.1 Using the CSV output utility to output information to a file in the manual Administrator's Guide Volume 1.

(3) Printing inventory information

You can print acquired inventory information in list format. By adding a header, footer, and other additional information, you can create a finished document or report.

For details about how to print inventory information, see 4.5.3 Printing in the manual Administrator's Guide Volume 1.

(4) Managing inventory information from HP NNM

The HP OpenView linkage enables you to manage inventory information from outside the managing server that manages JP1/Software Distribution.

For details about how to manage inventory information for JP1/Software Distribution by linking with HP NNM, see 3. Managing JP1/Software Distribution from HP NNM in the manual Administrator's Guide Volume 2.