Setting up computer groups

Computer groups can be used to narrow down the scope of reports to computers that meet certain criteria or to share software discovered on one computer among all computers in the group, for example when a shared disk is mounted on multiple computers.

Before you begin

You must have the Manage Computer Groups permission to create a reporting computer group. You must be an Administrator to create a software template group.

1. In the top navigation bar, click Management > Computer Groups.
2. To create a computer group, click New.
3. Provide the name and description of the computer group.
4. Specify filters according to which computers are assigned to the group, and click Create.
   You can also create a group that is based on a computer group in the BigFix console. Choose Data Source Groups, in set, and select the computer group that you want to recreate.

   To view all the groups that are available in the BigFix console, ensure that you run a successful import of data.

   Restriction: The size of data returned by the specified filter cannot exceed 1 MB.
5. Choose the type of the computer group.
   • Choose Reporting to create a group used for limiting the scope of computers visible on reports.
     1. Specify whether you want to calculate usage of license metrics for this computer group. If you are not interested in this information, you can disable these calculations to improve import performance, especially in larger environments.
        • For version 9.2.18 and higher, select Enable license usage calculations to calculate usage of all license metrics that are supported by License Metric Tool.
        • For versions 9.2.5 to 9.2.17, select license metrics for which you want to calculate utilization in this computer group.

     2. Specify the number of days for which the data is to be calculated. This number defines the default period for which the data that is show on the All Metrics report is calculated and up-to-date.

        For example, when you set the value to 30 days, and then display a report for the last 90 days, the report shows the following data:

        • If you display the report for a newly created computer group, the report shows values for the last 30 days and is empty for the rest of the period.
        • If you display the report for an existing group, the values might be outdated.

        In both cases, recalculate the data.
     3. Optional: To export license usage data to Red Hat® Marketplace, specify the pull request. For more information, see: Uploading license usage data to IBM Software Central and Red Hat Marketplace.

     4. Optional: To configure scans for this computer group, select Create scan configuration. Choose the scan frequency, requested start date, and types of software scans that you want to run on the computers in this group.

        The option is available only if the definition of the group uses the Data Source Groups filter as the only condition based on which computers are assigned to this group. For more information about configuring scans from the License Metric Tool user interface, see: Changing scan configuration from the License Metric Tool user interface (BigFix scenario).

        

   • Choose Software Template to create a group used for sharing software discovered on one computer among all computers in the group. Such a group can be used for example to ensure that software discovered on a shared disk is reported on all computers on which the disk is mounted. Then, select software templates that you want to share between computers in this group.

     
6. To save the computer group, click Create.
7. To make the computer group available in License Metric Tool, wait for the scheduled import or run it manually.