This announcement describes upcoming changes to the distribution of BigFix Inventory packages.
BigFix Inventory Server and Tools
Important!
Starting from July 2024, the newest version of BigFix Inventory server and tools will be available for installation and update on a new site. The same applies to the catalog which will be available on a dedicated site.
Note: It is advised to update to the latest versions as every update may bring important security updates.
New BigFix Inventory and BigFix Inventory Discovery sites will be available and the previous BigFix Inventory v10 site will be marked as Deprecated for better visibility of required actions.
Note: After the BigFix Inventory v11 announcement, refresh the license dashboard, enable new sites to get access to the new content, and then subscribe the endpoints.
The upgrade process and maintenance actions will be the same as before when packages and tasks are available from the new sites. Note that BigFix Inventory v11 is simply a continuation of the BigFix Inventory v10 line. One-time action to subscribe endpoints to the new site is required to get future content updates and new capabilities. This process can be done incrementally, as the new BigFix Inventory v11 server will gather inventory data collected by both v10 and v11 actions.
For a smooth transition, the Computers report will offer new information if the computer is subscribed to the new BigFix Inventory site. Inventory reports will continue to report data coming from v10 actions.
With this change, users will also get visibility onto computers that may require corrective action as managed by BigFix but not configured to report inventory.
All changes are related to the BigFix Inventory Team’s commitment to move HCL Catalog and BigFix Inventory server to the next level.
Site content that is no longer needed and was there for backward compatibility, will be available only from the deprecated site. In case of the new site, only current actions will be listed in the BigFix console.
This change allows for server and tool simplification, and eliminates unnecessary workload on the end-user side.
Catalog processing and related data generation will be optimized on the server side. Duplicated products related to publisher clean-up will be addressed. The Catalog package will be optimized, and its size reduced, which will result in lower network bandwidth utilization.
There will be specific updates in catalog content definitions to clean up orphan records. The change is key to eliminating noise, especially for those deployments which did not follow previous catalog updates covering this operation in time.
Due to those changes, all subsequent catalog updates will require BigFix Inventory v11 or higher.
Review the next server release notes for details.
BigFix Inventory Catalog
BigFix Inventory server version 10.0.16.0 was the last one with aligned catalog and server publication dates. Starting from the next server version, future catalog updates will be independent of the BigFix Inventory server and server package will include the latest public catalog available at the package creation time.
The BigFix Inventory server package will continue to include updates to licensing definitions for IBM products.
There is also a change related to BigFix Inventory Catalog distribution. See the related forum announcement for details BigFix Inventory and HCL Catalog changes - Release Announcements / Inventory (Release Announcements) - BigFix Forum.
Questions or Concerns
Please contact your Technical Advisor or visit the Inventory forum to address questions or concerns.
– The BigFix Inventory Team