Summary

When network adapter configuration details change on a managed device, a new partial inventory NDI file is generated and uploaded by the next IBM PVU inventory scan event, despite no meaningful change affecting PVU license consumption in hardware configuration taking place.

Details

When the an IBM PVU inventory scan is performed, the agent checks whether various hardware details in the inventory have changed. A partial inventory NDI file is generated and uploaded when a change is detected.

This issue results in a partial inventory NDI file being unnecessarily generated and uploaded when network adapter details change, despite there being no change in the computer's hardware configuration that has an impact on the calculation of PVU license consumption.

When this occurs, logging in the tracker.log file produced by the inventory gathering ndtrack process shows output indicating changes have been detected related to the Win32_NetworkAdapter, Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration or MGS_NetworkAdapterConfiguration hardware item. For example:

[2/3/2022 12:43:10 AM (G, 0)] {74693} Searching for changes in hardware inventory...
[2/3/2022 12:43:10 AM (G, 0)] {74693} Previous hardware item 'Win32_NetworkAdapter;Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX201 160MHz;Speed;137200000' not found in latest inventory
[2/3/2022 12:43:10 AM (G, 0)] {74693} Previous hardware item 'Win32_NetworkAdapter;Hyper-V Virtual Ethernet Adapter;MACAddress;00:15:5D:47:54:6A' not found in latest inventory
[...]
[2/3/2022 12:43:10 AM (G, 0)] {74693} Started generating inventory 'C:\ProgramData\ManageSoft Corp\ManageSoft\Tracker\Inventories\system on wkstn102.ndi'

This issue does not directly result in inaccurate data being reported, but may place additional unnecessarily load on server infrastructure to process the additional inventory NDI files.

Fix details

This issue has been fixed by adding the following classes to the default value for the HardwareChangesClassPropertyBlacklist preference:

• Win32_NetworkAdapter
• Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration
• MGS_NetworkAdapterConfiguration

Related information

See the following other known issues which have some similarities to this one:

• Unnecessary high-frequency PVU inventory NDI file uploads may be triggered from devices running Windows by variations in processor clock speed details (IOJ-1852613)
• Unnecessary high-frequency PVU inventory NDI file uploads may be triggered when Win32_OperatingSystem.LastBootUpTime or InstallDate changes (IOJ-2247786)
• Unnecessary high-frequency PVU inventory NDI file uploads may be triggered from devices running Unix-like operating systems by variations in processor clock speed details (IOJ-2258785)
• Unnecessary high-frequency PVU inventory NDI file uploads may be triggered by agent scheduled event changes (IOJ-2236677)

Fix status

This issue has been fixed in the following FlexNet Manager Suite releases: 2021 R1.4 / Mar 2022 (Cloud), 2022 R1 (On Premises)

Other information

Affected components: Agent, Inventory, SAM for IBM

Master issue ID: IOJ-2244446

Also known as: FNML-75104