Inventory source
The Inventory source view is used for defining the sources used for this installation of Snow License Manager.
Inventory sources are used to establish the relationship between a Snow Inventory database and a customer (or Customer ID) in Snow License Manager. This is used in different ways for enterprise and partner platforms:
Enterprise platforms - Have a single Snow Inventory database. This database may contain data that is divided by different Snow Inventory sites.
Inventory sources are used to divide the data into different specified organization nodes in Snow License Manager based on the Snow Inventory sites.
Partner platforms - May have multiple Snow Inventory databases for different end customers. This is done to scale out the processing of Snow Inventory data. Each of these databases can contain data for multiple customers that is separated by different Snow Inventory sites.
Inventory sources are used to map the correct Snow Inventory database and the sites within to the correct customer in Snow License Manager.
Supported configurations
Snow License Manager only supports the following configurations:
One inventory source connected to one Snow Inventory database
The simplest scenario is when one inventory source is connected to one Snow Inventory database that does not filter on sites.
No division of data is made based on the Snow Inventory sites in the Snow Inventory database and all of the data is sent to the root node of the organization. The data could still be divided into sub-nodes based on any auto-connect rules that are configured.
The customer has configured one inventory source connected to one Snow Inventory database.
Multiple Inventory sources connected to one Snow Inventory database
A more complex scenario is when multiple inventory sources are connected to one Snow Inventory database filtered on unique sites or unique sets of sites.
Data is divided by a number of Snow Inventory sites and is sent to different nodes in the organization. The data could still be divided further within each sub-node based on any Auto Connect Rules that are configured.
The customer has configured multiple inventory sources, all of which use the same Snow Inventory database. Each inventory source is configured with a site or collection of sites that are connected to different organizational nodes in Snow License Manager.
The configurations apply per customer, that is, each customer in a partner platform can have one of these two configurations.
Auto Connect Rules are created within each organization node. These rules will distribute the data sent to that node by the inventory source to any sub-node. Inventory sources dividing on sites and Auto Connect Rules are often used in combination to ensure that the inventory data is allocated to the correct parts of the organization.
Note
Multiple Snow Inventory databases for a single customer (Enterprise or Partner) are not supported.