Software catalog

A software catalog is a document used to store knowledge base data and share it between different applications or between different instances of the knowledge base. A software catalog can be imported into Control Desk, where it is saved in the Maximo® database. The software catalog records are then viewed and managed from the Software Catalog application.

You can import knowledge base software catalog data directly by downloading the canonical XML file that is provided monthly by IBM® on an FTP site. If you have the optional Tivoli® Asset Discovery for z/OS® component, you can import its catalog of mainframe software from that component.

A software catalog can be shared with different applications or between different instances of the software knowledge base. For example, it can be used by the discovery tool IBM Tivoli Asset Discovery for Distributed to efficiently locate distributed software.

The information that a software catalog contains can also be used to help analyze the structure of software bundles and determine the licensing dependencies between the enclosing software and its bundled products and components. For example, a definition of a software bundle that consists of multiple products and components will contain information on all the bundled software, their licensing in relation to the enclosing product, and every signature used to detect them as installed or running on computer systems in a given environment.

Because it is portable, a software catalog can be imported into the Maximo database. From there it can be used by Control Desk to identify deployed software products in Licenses and other applications.

If you are importing the software catalog provided by IBM, you can download the canonical XML file directly from the IBM site. An administrator typically automates this action using a cron task.

To create a customized software catalog import file, an administrator uses an installed component for distributed software, or the (separately purchased) Asset Discovery for z/OS product for mainframe software. Working in one of those environments, an administrator creates the catalog file in XML format. Working from Control Desk, an administrator then imports the software catalog into the Maximo database using integration framework.

Administrators can automate the importing of a software catalog.

To retrieve the published catalog, a Control Desk administrator sets up a cron task to send an automatic request on a regular schedule to an IBM FTP site. The cron task then retrieves the published software catalog of distributed data from the designated import directory.

Similarly, another cron task can be set up to import a software catalog of mainframe data from Tivoli Asset Discovery for z/OS. The mainframe catalog cannot be downloaded automatically. The Tivoli Asset Discovery for z/OS administrator must export it to a file system location that Control Desk has access to. Then the cron task can retrieve the software catalog of mainframe data from the file system location. If there is no new data, the cron task imports nothing and checks again at the next scheduled time.

An administrator can import other, less robust, noncatalog software information into the Maximo database from other databases populated by either IBM or non-IBM discovery tools. This alternative would be typical for businesses that only use Control Desk, without the optional IBM Tivoli Asset Discovery for Distributed component (which works with the knowledge base), or without the optional Tivoli Asset Discovery for z/OS product. These other imports, from discovery databases, are done using Integration Composer instead of integration framework. As with software catalog data, the imported discovery data is displayed in the Software Catalog application, where it is used by Licenses and other Control Desk applications.

All IBM distributed software definitions must be maintained, and all IBM mainframe software definitions must be maintained in the Tivoli Asset Discovery for z/OS product. The software definitions imported into the Maximo database from these external software catalogs are read-only. Therefore it is not possible to create or modify the definitions for IBM software from within Control Desk. Businesses that only use Control Desk, and do not use Asset Discovery for z/OS as a source for IBM software definitions, can import IBM software data from other sources, such as discovery tool databases.