Hello,
bigfix does not keep historical property data in its database except some metrics for power history. but BFI can keep software inventory data historically in its own database. computer properties can be transfered from bigfix db to bfi db during bfi’s import process.
so, does it mean that computer properties are stored in bfi db historically ?
for example, if I configure bfi to get properties like disk, memory, processor, mainboard info … from bigfix db, can I report the changes in these values day by day ?
BFI only stores the most recent hardware property value in it’s database, same as BigFix proper, and then only for those properties configured to be captured in BFI. So both are simply snapshots of what was found during the latest scans and imports. Potentiall, you could grab this data daily, and store it in another database in order to build a history of property values over time. Or, you could capture this data with a tool like TADDM, which is designed specifically to work with a CMDB.
How can we see software usage history then? İs that data kept in clients itself and read for each scan?
BFI is designed specifically to track software usage, for software applications that can be linked via the software catalog to executables discovered on the endpoints.
When a software application (where usage can be detected) is discovered for the first time on an endpoint, the first used field gets populated with that date. As the software application continues to be discovered, the last seen field gets populated with the date of the data import (sometimes called ETL for extract, transform, load). This is the extent of software usage history in BFI.
For the All Metrics report, the “Metric Quantity History” daily value is calculated during the data import process, and is stored in a table with the date of the data import, so that the histogram can be displayed in the User Interface.
As you look at the various reports in BFI, it should give you a better idea of the kind of data it collects.