We are constantly working to provide our customers with exciting new features and capabilities across our solutions. This blog series will continue to feature and illustrate our latest capabilities, improvements, and innovations designed to help you maximize the value of our products. Here’s what’s new at Flexera for December 2024.
Innovation area: IT Asset Management (ITAM)
New: Bring-Your-Own-License (BYOL) visibility for Oracle Autonomous Database
Oracle offers Autonomous Database for organizations who want to remove the time and cost of database management and improve database performance. Oracle Autonomous Database is a cloud-based solution that uses machine learning to automate routine database tasks, such as security, backups, and updates. It is designed to be self-managing, self-securing, and self-repairing—ultimately minimizing human error and operational overhead.
Click to view in further detail.
Organizations migrating to Oracle Autonomous Database often struggling with gaining visibility into their BYOL license compliance across Oracle-managed cloud databases. To address this, Flexera has introduced an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure adapter to bring visibility to BYOL for Oracle Autonomous Database instances running on Oracle Database@Azure. Flexera is the first vendor to provide visibility of Autonomous Databases into its ITAM solutions: Flexera One and Flexnet Manager.
Now, Flexera customers can easily run a report identifying BYOL instances running in Autonomous Database to validate license migration and monitor compliance across hybrid environments. Learn more about this feature in our documentation.
Innovation area: IT Visibility
New: Improved reporting in IT Visibility with Technology Intelligence Platform
Focused on enhanced usability, functionality, and performance, IT Visibility now offers new and updated reports, delivering exceptional value to our customers:
Proactive software EOL and obsolescence guidance report
Gain more control through a dedicated software and device table on your drill-through pages, enabling deeper insights into installations and more proactive decision-making. Additionally, key performance indicator (KPI) details for hardware and software are now accessible in drill-through pages, enhancing benchmarking capabilities.
Updated software vulnerability insights report
Looking for easier navigation in your vulnerability reporting? The latest enhancements to IT Visibility help you filter by category and subcategory, quickly identify devices exploited in the wild, and leverage a new column highlighting potentially unprotected devices. This added detail covers security software such as antivirus, anti-malware, or endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions, improving your overall security posture.
Click to view in further detail.
Not only are there improvements to IT Visibility’s user interface design, but minor bug fixes and additional details have been added for overall improved user experience. Learn more in our community release blog.
Innovation area: SaaS Management
New: Four SaaS API connectors
Snow Atlas, the industry-leading SaaS management platform, is excited to announce four new connectors to its extensive integration ecosystem. With direct integration to Box, Jira, Confluence, and Slack, Snow Atlas enables organizations to better understand their SaaS usage and maximize their technology investments.
With these new integrations, Snow Atlas customers can seamlessly connect to their vendor accounts for accurate, up-to-date subscription information. This data, combined with usage insights, enables organizations to identify cost-saving opportunities, optimize license utilization, and ensure compliance. By simplifying the data collection process, Snow Atlas helps organizations make informed decisions and maximize the value of their SaaS investments.
Connectors for Confluence and Slack are slated to arrive in January 2025.
New: ServiceNow use verification report
Due to the wide range of ServiceNow functionalities, certain applications appear in multiple subscriptions—some more cost-effective than others. Flexera’s analytics engine provides comprehensive usage details for all applications and automatically provides the visibility needed to allocate licenses correctly and ensure compliance.
In this example below, the ServiceNow application Request Management is included in three subscriptions—Fulfiller User v2, Customer Service Management Professional and ITSA Unlimited. The use verification report commercial analysis helps administrators decide the best way to allocate licenses to ensure license compliance. While this example shows that while the Fulfiller license is the most cost-effective option, ultimately the ITSA Unlimited subscription is better maintains compliance.
Click to view in further detail.
New: Link multiple Microsoft 365 users
Often, Microsoft 365 users access their applications from multiple devices. For organizations using Snow Spend Optimizer – SaaS on premises, SAM managers can now link multiple users to one Microsoft 365 subscription. This enhanced linkage provides improved usage insights and compliance calculations, allowing our customers to make more accurate decisions. This capability is already available in Snow SaaS Management on Snow Atlas.
With this feature, customers can:
- Search and select users to link subscriptions
- Preview changes to linked users before applying them
- View a complete list of linked users in the user details screen
Innovation area: FinOps
New: User settings saved across sessions
Flexera’s Cloud Cost Optimization and Automation capabilities now remember user settings including table views, dashboards, and automation policies. This means your preferences carry over across sessions—even on different devices or browsers—saving time and improving user experience. To see the full list of these preserved settings and more information, check out our product announcement.
New: Kubecost Exporter now supports AMD64 and ARM64 architectures
The Kubecost Flexera Exporter solution automates the transfer of Kubernetes cluster cost allocation data to Flexera Cloud Cost Optimization. With added support for AMD64 and ARM64, you gain greater flexibility when deploying Kubecost Exporter, regardless of your CPU architecture—even in heterogeneous environments where multiple architectures are used simultaneously. For more details, please consult our documentation.
Innovation area: Security Vulnerability Management (SVM)
New: SVM cloud updates
SVM cloud version 241001 is now live and fully compatible with Patch Publisher v7.23.1585. This release introduces a brilliant set of feature enhancements and resolves customer-reported bug fixes, including:
Patch publisher enhancements
- Leverage enhanced Intune assignments in Create Patch Wizard, giving you greater control over endpoint deployments and simplifying Intune connection management.
- Simplify assignment management in patch subscriptions: Now you can subscribe and edit SPS and Vendor Patch Module (VPM) patches using the new “Manage Assignments” button.
- Enjoy more flexible subscription management with new context menu options for SPS and VPM patches—temporarily pause subscribed patches and resume them at any time.
- Experience a refined UI for managing your SPS and VPM patch assignments, whether for specific groups, all devices, or more granular configurations.
For more information see the release notes and the community post.
New: SVM on-prem updates
The latest SVM on-prem version incorporates the recent SVM cloud enhancements and introduces additional key improvements:
Migration from CentOS to Oracle Linux: With CentOS 7 reaching end-of-life, transition to a secure and fully supported environment with extended support, timely security patches, and robust protection against vulnerabilities.
User interface enhancements, including:
- The SVM Mac agent now employs the notarytool command-line utility, to meet Apple’s latest security requirements and maintain compliance.
- A modernized SAID popup layout in the Patch Publisher, addressing:
- Text overflow in CVE references
- Solution section formatting
- Changelog handling
- Scroll bar behavior
- Removal of unwanted tags and labels
- Enhanced protection against vulnerabilities
- Preventative measures against memory corruption, ransomware risks, and the ability to reduce your attack surface with the enhanced security of the SVM agent, now featuring Control Flow Guard (CFG) and stack protection
SVM on-prem R2 v7.6.1.30 is available now. This release is fully compatible with Patch Publisher v7.23.1585. For more information, see the release notes and the community blog post.
Additional improvements: The new Flexera community has arrived!
Earlier this year, we announced plans for a fresh, enhanced community experience combining the Flexera and Snow Globe communities. The new Flexera community site officially launched late last month, offering a wealth of resources, including product blogs, how-to guides and troubleshooting tips, best practices, peer discussions and so much more.
To access it, simply log in using your existing username (you may need to reset your password). We’ve also created a short preview video to help you get quickly acquainted. Don’t forget to explore our FAQ article for answers to common questions. Engage in the new community now.
What’s next?
We’re constantly evolving our products to meet your needs. Stay tuned for even more exciting innovations in the coming months. Subscribe to our blog, so you don’t miss a thing.
