Windows OS Licenses Report

Often, IT administrators had to keep track on the servers on which Windows OS licenses are expiring and had already expired. This helps administrators in ensuring license compliance, prepare for software audits, assess inventory and Asset management, detect unauthorized installations etc. For the use of such administrators, eG Enterprise offers the Windows OS Licenses report.

To generate the report, do the following:

1. Select the Windows OS Licenses option by following the menu sequence: REPORTS BY FUNCTION -> Domain-specific Reports -> Security and Compliance.

2. Figure 1 then appears. In Figure 1, select a criteria for analysis from the Analyze By list box.

   

   Figure 1 : Specifying the criteria for generating the SSL Certificates report

3. Using this report, you can analyze the validity of Windows OS licenses of the managed components, or those that are part of a zone, service or segment. The options provided by the Analyze By list box are discussed hereunder:

   • Component: Select this option to choose the component(s) from across all the managed components in the environment.
   • Zone: To generate a report for one/more components that are included in a zone, pick the Zone option. A Zone drop-down list will then appear, from which you would have to select the zone to which the components of interest to you belong. A Sub zone flag also appears. Indicate whether the components present within the sub-zones of the chosen zone are also to be to be considered for report generation, by setting the Sub zone flag to Yes.
   • Segment: If you want to generate a report for one/more chosen components that belong to a segment, select the Segment option from Analyze By list box, and then pick the Segment from the drop-down list that appears.
   • Service: If you want to generate a report for one/more components involved in the delivery of a service, select the Service option from Analyze By, and then pick the required Service from the drop-down list that appears.
4. Next, from the Component Type list, pick the component type for which the report is to be generated. By default, All Component Types option is chosen from this list.
5. The Components list will now be populated with all the components that are managed in your environment for the chosen component type. If the Components list consists of too many components, then viewing all the components and selecting the ones you need for report generation could require endless scrolling. To avoid this, you can click the button next to the Components list. A Components pop up window will then appear using which you can view almost all the components in a single interface and Select the ones to be included in this report.

6. In addition to the settings discussed above, this report comes with a set of default specifications. These settings are hidden by default. If you do not want to disturb these default settings, then you can proceed to generate the report by clicking the Run Report button soon after you pick one/more components for report generation. However, if you want to view and then alter these settings (if required), click on the icon. The default settings will then appear in the More Options drop down window (See Figure 2). The steps below discuss each of these settings and how they can be customized.

   

   Figure 2 : The default settings for generating the report

7. eG Enterprise offers the flexibility of allowing the administrators to view the expiry of the Windows OS licenses from the generated report at a single glance. This can be achieved by providing a threshold limit of your choice i.e., providing a value in the Days to Expire (for warning) text box. By default, 10 is specified in this text box indicating that, whenever the Windows OS licenses had expired or is nearing expiry within the specified number of days, the DAYS TO EXPIRY column in the generated report will be highlighted with a pale orange color. This way, you can easily identify the hosts on which Windows OS licenses are nearing expiry in your environment.

8. In large environments, reports generated using months of data can take a long time to complete. Administrators now have the option of generating reports on-line or in the background. When a report is scheduled for background generation, administrators can proceed with their other monitoring, diagnosis, and reporting tasks, while the eG manager is processing the report. This saves the administrator valuable time. To schedule background processing of a report, you can either select the Background Save - PDF option or the Background Save - CSV option from the Report Generation list. To process reports in the foreground, select the Foreground Generation - HTML option from this list.

   Note:

   • The Report Generation list will appear only if the EnableBackgroundReport flag in the [BACKGROUND_PROCESS] section of the eg_report.ini file (in the <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\manager\config directory) is set to Yes.
   • The default selection in the Report Generation list will change according to the Timeline specified for the report. If the Timeline set is greater than or equal to the number of days specified against the MinDurationForReport parameter in the [BACKGROUND_PROCESS] section of the eg_report.ini file, then the default selection in the Report Generation list will be Background Save - PDF. On the other hand, if the Timeline set for the report is lesser than the value of the MinDurationForReport parameter, then the default selection in the Report Generation list will be Foreground. This is because, the MinDurationForReport setting governs when reports are to be processed in the background. By default, this parameter is set to 2 weeks - this indicates that by default, reports with a timeline of 2 weeks and above will be processed in the background.
9. Click the Done button once you have made the necessary changes to the More Options drop down window.
10. Finally, click the Run Report button to generate the report.

11. If the Report type is Foreground Generation - HTML, then Figure 3 will appear as soon as you click the Run Report button.

    

    Figure 3 : The generated Windows OS Licenses report

    The generated report (see Figure 3) displays the following sections:

    • The Summary section reveals at a single glance the total number of servers in the target environment, the count of licenses that had expired already in the target environment, the count of licenses that are about to expire, the count of permanently activated licenses and the count of time-based licenses (licenses with a defined expiry date) in the target environment.

    • The Permanently Activated Licenses section (see Figure 3) reveals the name of servers, the host IP of those servers and the product channel bundled with the license. A product channel refers to the method or pathway through which a software product or license is distributed, activated, or updated. This product channel is generally pre-defined.

    • The Time-based Licenses section (see Figure 3) reveals the name of servers, the host IP of those servers and the product channel bundled with the license. Also, this section reveals the number of days that are remaining for the license to expire. For easy identification, if the number of days is equal to or less than the value specified in the Days to Expiry (for warning) text box in Figure 2, then, the DAYS TO EXPIRE column will highlight the number of days that are remaining for the license of the server to expire with a pale orange color code.