JP2019220096A - Asset management device and asset management program - Google Patents

Abstract

To provide an asset management device that resolves cumbersome chores for installing software.SOLUTION: An asset management device comprises: a hardware management ledger database that, in association with a hardware asset ID for identifying hardware targeted for management, stores information on the hardware; a software management ledger database that, in association with a software asset ID for identifying software targeted for management, stores information on the software including Yes or No of installation automatic approval; a license management ledger database that, in association with a license management ID for identifying a license targeted for management, stores information on the license including the information on the software corresponding to the license; an installation processing unit that performs installation automatic approval processing for automatically approving approval of software installation with respect to the hardware; and a transmission/reception unit that communicates with the hardware targeted for the management.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 4

Description

  The present invention relates to an asset management device, an asset management method, and an asset management program for managing asset information on hardware and software.

  In recent years, companies have a large number of IT resources such as hardware including server devices and client terminals that use the server devices, and software including operating systems (OSs) and applications. It is a common issue. The IT resource management system is a system for appropriately managing such IT resources, ensuring compliance, optimizing IT investment, and the like (for example, see Patent Document 1).

  Specifically, the IT asset management system includes a current status information collection function for collecting current status information such as hardware specifications and settings on a network in an organization and software installation information, and has a hardware and software and a possession license. Function to manage the status that should be done, function to compare the information collected by the current status information collection function with the status that should be, to identify the discrepancy between the two, function to limit the users who can use each software, and software and patches It has the function of distributing

JP 2008-015845 A

  In such an IT resource management system, it is necessary to appropriately grasp and manage software installed in hardware and its license. Therefore, the user is not allowed to freely install the software, and to install new software on the hardware, it is necessary to go through an application and approval process for installing the software. However, when such an application / approval process is required, there is a problem in that software cannot be installed immediately, and a complicated operation for approval is required for an approval authority.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and has as its object to provide an improved asset management device and an improved asset management program.

  An asset management device according to the present invention is an asset management device that manages asset information, which is information about hardware, software installed on the hardware, and a license associated with the software. The asset management device includes a hardware management ledger database that stores information on hardware in association with a hardware asset ID for identifying hardware to be managed, and a software for identifying software to be managed. A software management ledger database storing at least information on software including whether or not automatic approval of installation is associated with an asset ID, and a software corresponding to at least the license associated with the license management ID for identifying a license to be managed License management ledger database that stores information about licenses that include information about licenses, and installation processing that performs automatic installation approval processing that automatically approves the approval of software installation on hardware When, and a transceiver for communicating with a management target hardware. Then, in the installation automatic approval process, in response to an inquiry from the hardware, the installation processing unit obtains an automatic approval possible list in which software that does not require a manual approval process is collected and provided to the hardware. Automatically approves the installation of software selected from the list of automatic approvals, installs the software on the hardware without approval, and updates the software management ledger database and license management ledger database for information that changes with the installation. To update.

  In the present invention, the installation processing unit may acquire a list in which surplus licenses are collected and those that do not require linking of licenses are collected as the automatically approvable list.

  Alternatively, the installation processing unit may obtain, as the automatic approval permitting list, a list in which surplus licenses are collected and those that do not require license association are collected.

  An asset management program according to the present invention causes a computer to function as any one of the asset management devices described above.

It is a lineblock diagram of an asset management system. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a configuration of an asset management device according to the present invention. FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of data stored in a first storage unit. FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of data stored in a second storage unit. It is a flowchart which shows the procedure of an installation automatic approval process. It is a flowchart which shows the procedure of an installation automatic approval process in a modification.

  Hereinafter, an asset management system 1 to which an asset management device 20 according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied will be described with reference to the drawings. As shown in FIG. 1, the asset management system 1 according to the embodiment includes a plurality of hardware 10 and an asset management device 20 connected to the hardware 10 by a network 30 such as a LAN. The network 30 may be wireless or wired. The network 30 may use a public line as well as an in-house LAN.

  The asset management device 20 is a management device for managing asset information such as hardware assets, software assets, and licenses associated with the software assets of the hardware 10 connected by the network 30. As shown in FIG. 2, the asset management device 20 includes a storage unit 201, an installation processing unit 202, an update processing unit 203, and a transmission / reception unit 204. The asset management device 20 is configured as a server computer including a central processing unit (CPU), a hard disk drive (HDD), a storage device such as a memory, a communication device that implements external communication via the network 30, and the like. You. The function of the asset management apparatus 20 shown in FIG. 2 is realized by the memory reading an asset management program stored in a storage device such as an HDD and processing by the CPU.

The storage unit 201 includes a first storage unit 212 and a second storage unit 213.
FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of data stored in the first storage unit 212. In the first storage unit 212, inventory information of the hardware 10 is stored as first management information for each hardware 10. The inventory information includes hardware configuration information of the hardware 10 (such as the number of CPU clocks and available hard disk space) and user information (such as a user name and affiliation), and installed software information (such as an OS and an application program). Contains information on the current state of the

As shown in FIG. 3, the first storage unit 212 has a hardware inventory information database (DB) and a software inventory information database (DB). In the hardware inventory information DB, for example, information such as a hardware asset ID for identifying the hardware 10, a product name, a specification, a user, software information used by the hardware 10, and an acquisition date are stored. ing.
The software inventory information DB stores information such as the software name, version, and license of the software (OS, application program, etc.) installed in association with the software asset ID for identifying the software.

  Inventory information stored in the first storage unit 212 is automatically collected and updated periodically. Further, it is configured such that inventory information can be collected and updated at an arbitrary timing different from the periodic collection and update based on the operation of the administrator.

  FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of data stored in the second storage unit 213. In the second management information stored in the second storage unit 213, the state of each asset should be registered and managed separately from the inventory information stored in the first storage unit 212, as shown in FIG. And a hardware management ledger database (DB), a software management ledger database (DB), a license management ledger database (DB), and the like. Each of these ledger databases is basically updated through an operation of applying for new creation or update by an administrator or a user, and an approval operation by an approval authority for the application.

  The hardware management ledger DB stores, for example, information such as a product name, specifications, a management department, an administrator, a usage department, a user, and an acquisition date in association with a hardware asset ID for identifying the hardware 10. . In addition, the hardware management ledger DB stores, in association with the hardware asset ID, movement classification information that defines a processing method when a user of the hardware is transferred to another department in the organization. The movement classification information may be in a format for selecting any one of a plurality of options, for example, moving with the user / not moving with the user.

  The software management ledger DB is associated with a software asset ID for identifying software, the software name and version of installed software (OS, application program, and the like), and hardware assets of hardware on which the software is installed. Stores various information such as ID, license management ID of a license associated with the software, information of a management department, an administrator, a user, etc., whether or not automatic installation approval is required, and whether or not license association is required. If automatic installation approval is permitted for all software registered in the software management ledger DB, it is not necessary to store whether or not automatic installation approval is associated with each software.

  In addition, the license management ledger DB associates a license management ID for identifying a license with information on various specifications such as a name and a version of software corresponding to the license and information on license conditions (for example, the number of licenses, a license period, Classification of whether it is a full license or an upgrade license), a management department, a manager, and the like. Note that software is not associated with unused licenses.

  The asset management device 20 holds various settings of various operation conditions (for example, whether or not transmission of an email notification is required, settings of a mail server, a notification rule, an update cycle of inventory information, etc.) in the asset management device 20 as configuration data. I do.

  The installation processing unit 202 performs processing relating to installation of new software on each piece of hardware. More specifically, the installation processing unit 202 performs processing such as aggregation of information on software that does not require manual approval processing, approval and application necessary when a user desires to install new software, and the like. .

The installation processing unit 202 stores information such as software name, version, necessity of license association, and excess number of licenses for software that does not require manual approval processing for software requiring license association, in the software management ledger DB. And from the license management ledger DB. Then, the installation processing unit 202 collects a list of software that does not require manual approval processing and that does not require a license with a surplus license (that is, includes software without a surplus license). List) is retained as an auto-approvable list. The timing of updating the automatic approval possible list is arbitrary, and may be executed periodically, or may be executed together with the processing for installing new software.
When the user desires to install new software, the installation processing unit 202 executes an automatic installation approval process described later.

  The update processing unit 203 performs a process related to updating each ledger database. Specifically, the update processing unit 203 determines whether the information stored in the first storage unit 212 and the information stored in the second storage unit 213 match or not for each item. Then, information (difference information) of an item whose information does not match is extracted for each hardware 10. More specifically, among the information stored in the first storage unit 212 and the second storage unit 213, the update processing unit 203 determines whether or not items related to software information match or not for each item, and the information does not match. The item information (difference information) is extracted for each hardware 10. It should be noted that it is also possible to apply an appropriate filter to items whose information does not match, and to exclude items that do not cause a problem if they do not match as difference information.

  The transmission / reception unit 204 communicates with the hardware 10 connected via the network 30 to receive inventory information. The received inventory information is stored in the first storage unit 212. In addition, the transmission / reception unit 204 receives an application for new data creation or update to each ledger database included in the second storage unit 213, and an operation of approving them. The approved application content is reflected in each ledger database of the second storage unit 213.

  Further, the transmission / reception unit 204 (transmission unit) transmits an alert for each hardware 10 based on the difference information extracted by the update processing unit 203 in order to urge correction of the information mismatch.

  Next, an automatic installation approval process performed by the installation processing unit 202 in the asset management device 20 configured as described above will be described. FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating the procedure of the automatic installation approval process.

  In the automatic installation approval process, the user desires to install new software on the hardware 10 used by the user, and performs a predetermined operation (input of a command, click of a menu button, icon, or the like) on the hardware 10. To start.

  When the automatic installation approval process is started, the hardware 10 queries the installation processing unit 202 of the asset management device 20 for an automatic approval approval list (step S100). In response to this, the installation processing unit 202 provides the hardware 10 with an automatic approval approval list (step S110), and the hardware 10 displays the automatic approval approval list on its own display. If there is no software that the user wants to install in the automatic approval possible list (step S120; No), a predetermined operation (for example, inputting a command, clicking a menu button or an icon, etc.) for the user to end the installation automatic approval process. Is performed, the installation processing unit 202 ends the automatic installation approval processing. In this case, the user installs the desired software through a manual application / approval procedure.

  On the other hand, if there is software that the user wants to install in the automatic approval possible list (step S120; Yes), the user selects desired software from the displayed list (step S130). In response to the selection by the user, the installation processing unit 202 automatically approves the installation of the selected software on the hardware 10 and, regarding information changed with the installation, the software management ledger DB and the license management The ledger DB and the like are updated (step S140), and the automatic installation approval process ends. At this time, the install processing unit 202 may also update the automatic approval possible list.

  As described above, the asset management device 20 can install software that has been automatically approved and for which a necessary license has been secured as required by the user without requiring manual approval. Is possible. As a result, the software can be quickly installed, and complicated application / approval processes can be reduced, so that the efficiency of business can be improved.

[Modification of Embodiment]
In the above-described embodiment, the installation processing unit 202 sets a list of software that does not require manual approval processing, which has a surplus license and does not require license association, as an automatic approval possible list. It is configured so that the user can select only those registered in the automatic approval possible list. That is, even if the software does not require a manual approval process, if there is no surplus license, the user cannot select the license and needs to apply separately. In order to facilitate the application for such a shortage license, a configuration as described below with reference to a flowchart shown in FIG. 6 may be adopted.

  That is, the installation processing unit 202 in the modified example holds a list in which all software that does not require manual approval processing is collected as an automatic approval possible list. When the user performs a predetermined operation (input of a command, click of a menu button, an icon, or the like) on the hardware 10 to start the automatic installation approval process, the hardware 10 starts the installation process of the asset management apparatus 20. The unit 202 is queried for an auto-approvable list (step S200). In response to this, the installation processing unit 202 provides the hardware 10 with the automatic approval approval list (step S210), and the hardware 10 displays the automatic approval approval list on its own display. If there is no software that the user wants to install in the automatic approval possible list (step S220; No), a predetermined operation (for example, inputting a command, clicking a menu button or an icon, etc.) for the user to end the installation automatic approval process. Is performed, the installation processing unit 202 ends the automatic installation approval processing. In this case, the user installs the desired software through a manual application / approval procedure.

  On the other hand, when there is software that the user wants to install in the automatic approval possible list (step S220; Yes), the user selects desired software from the displayed list (step S230). In response to the selection by the user, the installation processing unit 202 inquires of the license management ledger DB about whether or not there is a surplus license (and whether or not license association is required) for the selected software for the hardware 10 (step S240). . Then, when there is a surplus license and when linking of the license is unnecessary (step S240; Yes), the installation processing unit 202 automatically approves the installation of the selected software, and The software management ledger DB and the license management ledger DB are updated with the information to be changed (step S250). At this time, a history of when the software is installed is recorded, and the user when the software is automatically installed and the department to which the user belongs are also recorded. Then, the installation processing unit 202 ends the automatic installation approval processing.

  On the other hand, if there is no surplus license (step S240; No), an application screen for applying for an additional license is displayed on the hardware 10 to urge the user to apply smoothly (step S240). S260), the automatic installation approval process ends.

  As described above, the asset management device 20 can install software that has been automatically approved and for which a necessary license has been secured as required by the user without requiring manual approval. Is possible. As a result, the software can be quickly installed, and complicated application / approval processes can be reduced, so that the efficiency of business can be improved. Further, when there is no surplus license, the user can easily apply for the insufficient license smoothly.

  Note that the present invention is not limited to the above embodiment. Further, the above embodiment is an exemplification, and any one having substantially the same configuration as the technical idea described in the claims of the present invention and exhibiting the same function and effect can be used. It is included in the technical scope of the present invention.

10 hardware 20 asset management device 30 network

Claims (4)

Hardware, software installed on the hardware, and an asset management device that manages asset information that is information about assets including a license associated with the software,
A hardware management ledger database that stores information about the hardware in association with a hardware asset ID for identifying the hardware to be managed;
A software management ledger database that stores information about the software including at least the permission of automatic installation approval in association with a software asset ID for identifying the software to be managed;
A license management ledger database that stores at least information on the license including information on software corresponding to the license in association with a license management ID for identifying the license to be managed;
An installation processing unit that performs an installation automatic approval process of automatically approving the installation of the software on the hardware;
A transmission / reception unit that communicates with the hardware to be managed,
The installation processing unit obtains an automatic approval possible list in which software requiring no manual approval processing is collected in response to an inquiry from the hardware in the installation automatic approval processing, and provides the hardware with the hardware. Software automatically approves the installation of the software selected by the user from the auto-approvable list, installs the software on the hardware without approval, and changes information associated with the installation. And an asset management device for updating a license management ledger database.   The asset management device according to claim 1, wherein the installation processing unit acquires, as the automatic approval possible list, a list in which a list of surplus licenses and a list of licenses not requiring linking of licenses are collected. .   The installation processing unit, in the installation automatic approval process, when a user selects software from the automatic approval possible list in the hardware, the software inquires the license management ledger database whether there is a surplus license for the software, surplus license 2. The asset management device according to claim 1, wherein the installation is automatically approved when there is. An asset management program for causing a computer to function as the asset management device according to any one of claims 1 to 3.

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