Coming Soon: Asset Intelligence 1.5

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This is kind of old but I want to make sure that Asset Intelligence doesn't fall under anyone's radar.  Most of the Asset Intelligence stuff first shows up in our "Configuration Manager – Asset Intelligence" TechNet forum posted by our very own Dan Boldo, Senior Program Manager for the System Center Asset & License Management Team, but if you don't frequent the forum then you may not know this stuff is out there.  This is a great forum and Dan spends a ton of time out there answering questions and posting information so I'd highly recommend that you make this a regular stop on your travels around the web. 

As a small teaser, here's his announcement concerning the upcoming Asset Intelligence 1.5.  You can read his original forum post here and I posted it in its entirety below:

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Folks,

Below you'll find a "sneak preview" of the next release of Asset Intelligence, which is currently slated for 1H CY '08. As always, the usual disclaimers apply to any pre-released software (think may and probably will change etc.).

In addition, I'll keep this post at a fairly high level and we will have additional posts as time goes by to introduce the different features in more detail. For now, the key thing to keep in mind, is that Asset Intelligence 1.5 will be installed on top of SCCM 2007 RTM and will expand its current capabilities. The sooner you upgrade to SCCM 2007 RTM--the better.

We set the following high level goals for AI 1.5:

  • Make features easily discoverable and user friendly, requiring minimum concept drag (i.e. low ramp-up).
  • Allows customers to customize their local catalog and categorize software assets.
  • Allow customers to keep license information up-to-date.
  • Provide consolidated licensing reports comparing the “ought” with “is” (e.g. for Microsoft Volume Licensing).
  • Keep software asset categorization up-to-date (Dynamic for SA customers and Bulk for non-SA).
  • Allow customer requests for categorization via System Center On-line (SA customers).

To meet these goal we are building the following high level features:

  • New Catalog and License management UI which is built into the SCCM Admin console.
  • New reports that expose new functionality.
  • Compatibility with Softgrid.
  • Basic replication to distribute latest catalog updates to other SCCM sites..
  • Ability to import licensing data (e.g. MVLS).

In addition, we will provide extra functionality to SMS SA customers to allow them to keep the on-site catalog dynamically up-to-date. This will be accomplished by the following features:

  • New site role called catalog synchronization point that will communicate securely with System Center Online.
  • On-demand or scheduled catalog synchronization via SCCM management console
  • Ability to upload uncategorized software titles to System Center Online for a-sync identification.

That's it for now. More will come over the next few months as we get closer to our Beta date. I hope this peaks your curiosity

:-)

Cheers, Dan Boldo –Program Manager, System Center Asset & License Management Team

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J.C. Hornbeck