Configuring Recognition Setting

The Viewer is able to perform application recognition on the software scanned, while the data is being loaded from a scan file.

When the application recognition is enabled, a Software Applications tab is available in the Viewer workspace. This tab shows a summary of identified applications on the selected machine. When recognition is disabled, loading is slightly faster but no application information is available.

There are three recognition methods: No recognition, Installed applications, and Software application index (SAI). By default, the Viewer uses the SAI recognition configured with the Master SAI files (Master.zsai) to perform application recognition. The Master SAI files are read-only files that contain a library of software applications.

There are multiple Master SAI files that can be used at the same time for recognition purposes:

• Master.zsai
• French.zsai
• German.zsai
• Unix.zsai
• BaseUnixOS.zsai

All of these files can be found by default in the following location:

C:\UCMDB\DataFlowProbe\Runtime\ProbeManager\DiscoverySaiResources\SaiRuntime

By default, the Viewer is also configured to use the User.zsai file. A User.zsai file is one that you, the customer, have customized with applications you have taught using Analysis Workbench or SAI Editor.

You can use multiple User SAI files for recognition purposes. Each User SAI created has a unique identifier assigned to it.

To display the Viewer recognition options tab:

1. Select the Options command from the Files menu. The Viewer Options dialog box appears.

2. Click the Recognition tab.

   Note Utilization data shows you how much a particular software application is being used. Of the three available options, only the SAI option will produce utilization data.

Disabling Application Recognition

This option is used to disable any application recognition. When recognition is disabled, loading is slightly faster but no application information is available.

To disable application recognition:

In the Recognition Method group box, select the No recognition option.

Selecting the Installed Applications List as the Recognition Method

This method of recognition is based on the operating system’s internal list of applications. As such, it is not recommended as the preferred recognition method, except for data from UNIX Scanners.

To select installed applications for the recognition method:

In the Recognition Method group box, select the Installed Applications option.

The Use Enriched application data if available option is then activated. If you select this option, Viewer uses the application data from the enriched scan file instead of running “real” recognition.

Selecting the SAI as the Recognition Method

1. In the Recognition Method group box, select the Software Application Index (SAI) option.
2. Click the Advanced button to set further options if required. The Advanced Configuration - Software Application Index dialog box is displayed.

Setting Level of Recognition Used

To set the level of recognition used:

1. Select the General tab in the Advanced Configuration - Software Application Index dialog box.

2. In the Miscellaneous group, select options for the level of recognition used.

   • Level 3 recognition heuristics

     If this option is enabled, the recognition engine defers its final recognition decision until all the files in all the directories on the machine have been read. If disabled, machine-based recognition does not take place and recognition data is returned after each directory is loaded. A time overhead of about 10% is normal when Level 3 Recognition is enabled.

   • Auto-identify unrecognized device driver files

     When enabled (by default), files that cannot be identified by standard SAI recognition and have the Device Driver attribute will be marked as recognized. Files used as Device Drivers represent a large portion of the files that are not identified by the Application Library. Being able to identify these automatically can significantly reduce the effort required to achieve good recognition rates.

   • Report multiple installations of the same version

     Specifies whether to report multiple instances of the same application version that are installed.

     Note: If a user wants to report multiple installations of the same version software, set the correct scan configurations for Inventory Discovery by Scanner job so that scanner can collect enough information into a scan file.

Setting the Preferred Language

If you are using a national SAI file, for example, German.zsai or French.zsai together with the Master.zsai, you will want to set this option.

Preferred language is used for cases when the recognition engine encounters two or more versions within a directory that are identically matched. It will give preference to the one in the selected language.

To set the language options:

1. Select a language from the drop-down list.
2. Check the Override OS Language box if you want the recognition engine to overlook the operating system locale setting and take the setting you specified in the Preferred Language box.

Summary of the Recognition Process

The process can be summarized as follows:

• A rating is obtained for all versions that are possible matches.
• The version(s) with the best rating are found.
• If there is only one version, then the process goes no further. Otherwise, the version whose language matches the OS locale is selected. If no version matches this language, then the version matching the setting in the Preferred Language box is selected.
• If the operating system locale setting is not available, it takes the setting you specified here in the Preferred Language box.

Adding, Creating or Removing SAIs

The options on the SAIs tab page allow you to:

Add a new SAI file to be used for application recognition.

1. Remove an existing SAI file.

2. Create a new empty User.zsai file.

   The list box on this tab page displays the following information:

   • The path to source files for the SAI – both read-only Master SAIs and editable User SAIs.
   • The SAI ID number for User SAI files. Master SAI files do not have an ID.
   • A description of the SAI files.
   • The size of each SAI file (in kilobytes).
   • The number of application versions in each SAI.
   • The type of SAI file:
   • Master SAI – Read-only SAI
   • User SAI - Editable
   • The creation date for a Master SAI file or for a User SAI, the date the file was last saved.

SAIs Used to Store Rule-Created Items

Any items encountered by Viewer that were created by rules will be added to the SAI file specified here. These rules are present within the SAI files themselves and additional rules can be added using SAI Editor.

Select the SAI file from the drop down list. The drop down list contains a list of the SAIs currently loaded.

If this field is left blank, Viewer will create a file called Auto.zsai and put this in the same location as the first SAI in the list.

Adding, Removing, or Creating a New SAI File for Application Recognition

To add a new SAI file for application recognition:

1. Select the SAIs tab in the Advanced Configuration - Software Application Index dialog box.
2. Click the Add button on this tab page.

3. Navigate to and select the SAI file (Master or User) you want to use for recognition.

   The SAI file is added to the list box which means the file will be included in for application recognition.

Removing an Existing SAI File

To remove an existing SAI file:

Select the file in the list box and click the Remove button.

Creating a New Empty User SAI

To create a new empty User SAI:

1. Click the Create… button. The Create a User SAI dialog box is displayed.
2. Enter or navigate to the directory where the SAI file is to be created.
3. Enter a description for the file.

4. Click the OK button.

   The file is automatically assigned a unique ID. However, you may already have an SAI with the same filename. If so, a confirmation message will be displayed.

5. Click Yes if you want to overwrite the existing SAI file or click No to return to the dialog box and assign a new ID to the SAI file.

6. If you have made modifications to the cfgNextSAIID setting in the SAI.ini file, you may see the following message. This happens when the value for the ID in the ini file is missing or lower than the highest ID in the user SAIs currently loaded. This message is for information only – the Data Flow Probe components will correct this situation automatically by inserting the correct ID value into the ini file.

   The next User SAI ID cannot be found in the settings file.

   This probably means that you are using User SAIs created with a different version of the software, or created on a different machine.

   Make sure you take care to set the new ID to a value that is unique across your organization.

Setting Filtering Options for the SAI

1. Select the Filtering tab in the Advanced Configuration - Software Application Index dialog box.

2. Select the options as required:

   Apply recognition to selected files only

   This is a recognition filter that determines which of the files are sent to the recognition engine for processing. Sending too many files can make it slightly slower.

   • By extensions

     Allows you to type in the extensions of any files that you want processed against the recognition engine. Select the extension from the drop-down list (this list maintains a history of previously entered extensions) or type the extension directly in to the box. Multiple file extensions must be separated by a semicolon.

   • Executable files

     All executable files will be processed against the recognition engine. Executable files include *.exe, *.com, *.dll and other files containing executable code.

   • Files within Archives

     Processes any files in archive files. The following archive file types are supported:

     ARJ, ZIP v1, ZIP v2, LHA, LZH, ARC, CAB, TAR, GZIP, TAR/GZIP and PAK

     Note For the best application recognition, select the Executable Files option.

Junk Files

Some files may be executable but are of no interest for licensing or other purposes. These files are often identifiable via the file name for example, TMP[0-9]*\.\$\$\$.

The Treat Files matching the following regular expressions as junk option is a way for the recognition engine to ignore such files, by allowing one or more file name masks to be specified as junk.

These files are not passed to the recognition engine and will be marked as junk. This is available in the Display Filters tab page so junk files can be discarded and not shown.

To set junk filters:

1. Select the Treat Files matching the following regular expressions as junk option.
2. Type the file name masks you want to treat as junk.

For more information about regular expressions refer to the Analysis Workbench section.