Software Usage Concepts; Software That Is Tracked; When Usage Data Is Collected - Novell ZENWORKS 10 CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT SP3 - REFERENCE 10.3 30-03-2010 Reference Manual

Software Usage Concepts

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Tracking application use in an organization can be useful yet challenging. Knowing the demand for
an application can help you better predict how many licenses you really need. Does it make sense to
order 10 new license for ProductA when four installations of the product are not being actively
used? Or does it make more sense to reallocate licenses and order fewer new licenses?
®
ZENworks Asset Management helps you make better decisions by tracking software usage on
devices throughout your Management Zone. You can view basic usage data directly in ZENworks
Control Center or generate detailed reports for analysis.
The following sections introduce the concepts you should understand to effectively use Asset
Management to monitor software usage:
Section 17.1, "Software That Is Tracked," on page 131
Section 17.2, "When Usage Data Is Collected," on page 131
Section 17.3, "Basic Usage Data vs. Detailed Usage Data," on page 132

17.1 Software That Is Tracked

Asset Management tracks usage for the following software:
Installed Discovered Products: Software products, defined in the ZENworks Knowledgebase,
that are installed on devices in your Management Zone.
Local Software Products: Installed software products that you define because they are not
registered as discovered products in the ZENworks Knowledgebase. In essence, they are
administrator-defined discovered products. When they are defined, they are displayed in the
Discovered Products list.
Software Files: Installed software files that are not included in the ZENworks Knowledgebase
and for which no local software products have been created.
Web Applications: Web applications or pages that are hosted on either internal or external
Web sites. Web applications are not discovered automatically; you must create them.
Asset Management tracks executable (
thin-client applications launched from Citrix* servers and Windows Terminal Servers. It tracks the
thin-client usage itself, just not the applications run within the thin client.

17.2 When Usage Data Is Collected

Usage data is collected from devices during software inventory scans. You can schedule regular
software inventory scans to control how often usage data is collected. For instructions, see
"Scanning Managed Devices" in the
Reference.
) files to collect usage data. Therefore, it does not track
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ZENworks 10 Configuration Management Asset Inventory
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Software Usage Concepts 131