How-to

How to maintain the Software Catalog

Use Case

The Software Catalog is a centralized repository that keeps track of detailed information for all the software across your organization. Most likely you do not want to track all the software products that have been discovered, and you have to clean up the catalog from time to time. To remove unwanted records from the Software Catalog without disrupting the software management process, it is important to understand how the catalog works. To begin with, Alloy Navigator Express supports two Software Catalog modules: one catalog is included in Network Inventory and the other one is a part of Alloy Navigator. This article describes a few use cases for maintaining the Service Catalog in Alloy Navigator and Network Inventory.

Network Inventory Software Catalog

All software discovered during the audit end up in the Network Inventory Software Catalog. However, that Software Catalog is not just a repository of Software Product records; it is also a storage of software recognition rules. Network Inventory (namely, the Automation Server) uses those rules to identify software products when processing audit snapshots.

Network Inventory populates the Software Catalog automatically. Then, you should manually maintain the catalog: add, modify, and delete recognition rules and Software Product records. For instructions, see Network Inventory Guide: Managing the Software Catalog. As a part of regular maintenance, you may want to delete records of those software products that no longer have discovered installations.

Delete records of products with no discovered installations

The Software Catalog is a central repository of all software ever discovered across your organization, and software stays there even after being uninstalled. See how you can clean up the catalog and delete records of software products no longer installed, i.e., do not have any discovered installations.

To delete software products with no discovered installations:

  1. In the Network Inventory, select Tools > Software Catalog from the main menu.

  2. In the grid, right-click any Software Product record which has "null" as the value in its Discovered Installation field and choose Filter > Filter by selected Field from the pop-up menu.

  3. Select all records and click Delete.

Alloy Navigator Software Catalog

Every time an Network Inventory Synchronization job runs, the Network Inventory Connector synchronizes data in the Alloy Navigator Software Catalog with the data from Network Inventory. In the Alloy Navigator Software Catalog, you can only track auto-populated data.

The Network Inventory Connector synchronizes data as follows:

  1. The job adds records that exist in Network Inventory Software Catalog but are missing in Alloy Navigator Software Catalog.

  2. The job deletes records that are not associated with either Discovered Installations or Tracked Software.

Delete unwanted product records

Alloy Navigator does not track Software Products installed on retired Computers. Those records can not be deleted automatically during Network Inventory Synchronization even if they have no associated Discovered Installations. If you are not satisfied with the automatic maintenance of the Software Catalog in Alloy Navigator, you can delete any unwanted record manually.

To delete unwanted Software Product records:

  1. In Alloy Navigator Web App or Desktop App, go to Software > Software Catalog.

  2. Open a Software Product record you want to delete and remove all Discovered Installations and Tracked Software associated with this record.

    Repeat the previous step for each Software Product record you want deleted.

  3. Wait when the next synchronization job session deletes the records.

View products installed on retired computers

When computers are retired, the Software Catalog continues to store records of Software Products installed on those computers. You may want to see whether your Service Catalog has such products.

To display software products installed on retired computers:

  1. In Alloy Navigator Web App or Desktop App, go to Software > Software Catalog.

  2. Right-click anywhere in the grid and select Customize View from the pop-up menu.

  3. On the Advanced Filter tab, click Switch to SQL Mode

  4. Copy this SQL query and paste it to the text box:

    [ID] in (select [Soft_Product_ID] from [Detected_Software_Products] where [Object_ID] in (select [ID] from [Computers] where [Status_ID] = '{3417FB44-7DF7-4C9F-9A25-AAB4CC4C43E6}'))

  5. Apply the changes.

Delete records for products installed on retired computers

If your Software Catalog contains a lot of software products discovered on retired computers, you may want to clean up and get rid of them.

To delete software products installed on retired computers:

  1. Open the SQL Server Management Studio.

  2. Connect to your Alloy Navigator Express database.

  3. Click New Query from the toolbar.

  4. In the opened dialog box, run the following SQL script:

    SQL Query 
    use [your Alloy Navigator database name]
    go
    delete [Detected_Software_Products]
    where
    [Soft_Product_ID] in -- not associated with Tracked Software
    (
    select [ID] from [Soft_Product_List]
    where [Tracked_Software_ID] is null
    )
    and
    [Object_ID] in -- installed on retired machines
    (
    select [ID] from [Computers] where [Status_ID] = N'3417FB44-7DF7-4C9F-9A25-AAB4CC4C43E6'
    )
    go

    where:

    • your Alloy Navigator database name - the name of your Alloy Navigator database

NOTE: This script removes Discovered Installations on retired Computers but preserves associations with Tracked Software, if any. We do not recommend you to update Tracked Software automatically as it may affect license compliance calculations.

Related Information:

Network Inventory Help: Managing the Software Catalog

Alloy Navigator Web App Help: Software Catalog