Hi Casey!

The Usage Manager collects both inventory data (an overview over files and applications) and usage data.

The inventory data collection process does not send any data to the server, it just collects and stores the data locally on the client, and the point in time when the inventory data collection process is performed is controlled by the UMINVENT object class.

The Usage data collection process on the other hand, is a continuous data collection process (constantly saving data locally on the client), and the point in time when both the collected inventory data and usage data is transferred to the server is controlled by the UMCOLLECT object class.

Below are the settings for my customer. Inventory data is a local process that takes place at 11:45 every day. All collected inventory and usage data is transferred to the server at a randomized point in time between 12 noon and 15:00 every day, and also when a dname=USAGE client connect is run.

The collection destination is set in the USAGE.UMDESTPT.HTTP_CMIS_ADDR_URL.COLLDEST variable, see attached picture.

Accelerite have completely restructured the documentation from v9.2 on, making it less usable in my opinion. To get at good overview of the Usage Manager you have to download the Radia 9.1 manual called 'Radia Client Automation Application Usage Manager' (AppUsageMgr_RG.pdf).


- USAGE.UMINVENT.FIRST_OF_MONTH:
    - INTERVAL    = Daily
    - DAYOFMON    = 1
    - DAYOFWK    = 1
    - INVNHOUR    = 11
    - INVNMIN    = 45
    - ENABLED    = Y
    - FSIGMODE    = H

- USAGE.UMCOLLCT.CCM:
    - INTERVAL    = Daily
    - DAYOFMON    = 1
    - DAYOFWK    = 1
    - COLLHOUR    = 12
    - COLLMIN    = 00
    - COLLRAND    = 180
    - ENABLED    = Y
    - COLLCNCT    = Y

Best regards,
Arne Halsteinslid

Arne, thank you.  For the http destination address, what server are you using?  Are you pointing to your enterprise core?  Or a full service satellite?  We are distributed globally and our Radia infrastructure is also distributed globally -- I'm wondering what URL to use for clients in Asia, Europe, South America, Australia, United States.  It looks like you can only use one?  I suppose we could have several Usage services, each one pointing to a different URL -- but would that data all funnel back to the core?  It seems usage does not use the approach built into the Messaging service for software and file audit inventory reporting.  Can you advise on that?  Thanks again.

For my largest customer (slightly under 7000 Windows clients) I got away with pointing the http upload to the Core server, but two Full-service Satellites are used for all distribution tasks.

Were you able to locate the v9.1 'Radia Client Automation Application Usage Manager' manual (AppUsageMgr_RG.pdf)?

Check chapter 3 - Aggregation of Usage Data Files with Tier-Level Store and Forward

That is correct Casey, you would have to configure multiple usage manager services to have multiple target.  We wanted to take advantage of the message aggregation feature in satellite (v9, I think) that was added to the processing of usage messages.  However to do this in an environment with multiple full service satellites, you would need a separate service that pointed at each satellite.  There is no way to take advantage of the COP\SAP settings like server pools etc.  We use a pool of configuration servers to balance load for software\patch\audit, we would have to balance load manually with entitlement of the separate services for usage.  We have opted to use a single service and just point all clients at the core (70000 clients).  It seems to be working fine.  We did submit an enhancement request a couple of years ago, but I think its not that high a priority. (other than the aggregation feature, there has been no work done on usage manager  that I am aware of in a few years.

Thanks for the suggestions and recommended settings for UMINVENT and UMCOLLCT.  Very helpful.  I have that AppUsageMgr_RG.pdf now -- as you said, their more recent documentation is not helpful.  In general, the documentation should be integrated with the CSDB so you can get context-sensitive help on each attribute and class in CSDB -- I told them that years ago, but they never changed it.  The web console is somewhat better with the help, but we have not had good experiences with the web console in general - it is Flash based and seems to drag and hang at times randomly.  

Arne or John, are you guys running Radia 10 with Usage enabled?  I'm trying to use the forwarding mechanism but my Radia 10 satellites are not listening on the 3466/proc/usage URL -- I get 404, page cannot be found.  I can go directly to 3466 and sign into the console.  But proc/usage is not responding to requests.  Just wondering if anyone is using Radia 10 with Usage, and can resolve the http://machineName:3466/proc/usage URL. 

Hi Casey,

 We have confirmed that the Radia 10.1 /proc/usage URL is functioning correctly on the forwarding server. We will continue to investigate and update our internal support case with more details.