Reporting processor info for physical nodes of cluster

I am having difficulty getting the CPU count, # of cores, and CPU model for the physical computers or nodes that form a cluster (mostly VMware). There are software licenses that must be calculated and allocated to these physical computers but neither the software not the computer reports in BigFix Inventory is reporting this data. This is essential to managing the software licenses in IBM Control Desk/Maximo.

I would really appreciate any guidance on getting this data.

I have not received a response from my contact or on this forum, It is looking like we must add another discovery/reporting tool to supplement BigFix reporting gaps.

Have you looked at the CPUPackage inspector? I really cannot emphasize how valuable the BigFix Developer site is:
https://developer.bigfix.com/relevance/reference/cpupackage.html

We use

count of cpupackage

and

(core of it*count of it) of cpupackage

To determine physical CPU count and core count, respectively.

Note that these are physical cores, not logical ones. So for example, my dev box with two E5-2695v2 Xeon processors reports 2 CPUs, with a total of 24 cores. Each CPU technically has 12 physical cores and 24 virtual cores, so when I virtualize guest operating systems I can account for 48 virtual cores on one machine.

I have not really investigated what would be a way to determine logical cores, since technically this could be enabled/disabled, but I’m sure this is possible somehow.

Unfortunately I don’t think that will help the OP

If the OP is looking for VMWare host information then it would be through a Proxy Agent and a Management Extender called VEM so I’m not sure of what information that can pass back.

The Server Automation product does have an analysis of VMWare Host Overview which might give you the information you are asking for

I saw the CPUPackage information but not sure how it is to be used. I am a Software Asset Manager with access to BigFix Inventory to run reports. BigFix also feed IBM Control Desk/SCCD/Maximo through ITIC. We have an administrator but don’t really have a BigFix developer. I believe the impression was that BigFix was already developed. RVTools (free) provides exhaustive information about the hardware and cluster configurations but that is another sourdce to keep up with and it does not feed ICD. We are paying a lot of $$ for BigFix and expect it to provide this very basic information.

Please understand that this forum is not the same as IBM Support. Most of the folks in this forum, including myself, are customers and enthusiasts trying to help each other out and learn. Those here who do work for IBM are generally not here in an official capacity and this forum is not part of their job.

For guidance for your specific situation, identifying the products you need to configure, hands-on help, and custom solutions, you should start by opening a PMR request or engaging your account manager. In the most extreme case where you might need custom development, IBM Proserv can help.

But that’s not what you’d need for your scenario, I think. I believe you should be able to collect what you want by configuring the VMWare Management Extender. I know it’s included in the Bigfix Lifecycle license, and probably in others. The VMWare Management Extender uses the VMWare VCenter API to communicate with VCenter, and can collect information on your physical ESX hosts and virtual machines, and cam send commands such as ‘create a vm’, ‘clone a vm from template’, ‘take/restore snapshot’, and lots of other goodness to automate the datacenter.

:edit: As you mentioned you are using BigFix Inventory, it’s very likely you have the Lifecycle license (which also includes Inventory).

I just installed Inventory last week, and I see that there are some VMWare Management tasks to configure. I suspect these use the same VMWare Management Extenders to pull data into Inventory specifically, but I can’t say for sure as I haven’t configured it yet.

Also this should help

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SS6MER_9.5.0/com.ibm.bigfix.patch.doc/Patch/Patch_Virtual_Endpoint_Man/c_configure_management_extender.html

(I’m not using the management extenders any more in my environment. Can anyone confirm the extender does retrieve processor/core info from the ESX hosts?)

This was harder to find than I expected, but according to this post I think you should be able to get host processor information via the VMWare management extender

Hi @ITSAM,

Take a look at the BFI Infrastructure report called Hardware Inventory. This is where BigFix reports the physical node information (aka “servers”). The Computer reports provide data for virtual machines, or physical machines not running a hypervisor (aka “computers”).

BFI > Reports > Hardware Inventory
check configure view for additional columns, it should give you the data you need