Metering of application usage
Snow Inventory Agent for Windows can meter the usage of desktop applications, web applications, and cloud applications.
Metering of desktop application usage
The primary focus of metering is desktop applications. Metering of usage is performed whenever a Windows process is running. Processes are measured whether the application is open on the desktop or running in the background
The following metadata is uniquely gathered per process:
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file name
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if the process is local
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if the process is virtual
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virtual app package name
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username
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date
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file version info
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usage data type (web, RDP, or VDI).
Since the main purpose of metering is to measure the usage of desktop applications, processes are not regarded as running when the screen is locked. This means that scheduled tasks, anti-virus software, and other processes executing in the background will not be regarded as used while the screen is locked.
Application usage (the run-count) is calculated as follows:
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The agent will check for events every 15 seconds (default value).
Use the wmi.poll_interval setting in the agent configuration file to change the interval; 5 seconds is minimum and 120 seconds is maximum.
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The agent increases the run count of an application only when it gets notified of a start event. If an application is started before the agent is running, that application will get a run count of 0.
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When a scan is performed and the inventory result file is created, the run count will be set to 1 if the run counts reported from the agent sum up to 0.
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When multiple instances of the same application are started, the agent counts all individual run starts during that session. However, the total duration will be counted from when the first instance is started until the last instance is closed.
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A scheduled scan will contain all metering information that has been gathered since the last scheduled scan. A scheduled scan will clear all temporary metering files stored on disk, and new ones will be created after the scan with a run count of 0.
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A manual scan will contain all metering information that has been created since the last scheduled scan. During the manual scan, the metering files stored on disk will be deleted, but their content is kept in memory. After the manual scan, the agent will recreate all metering files as they were before the scan.
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At midnight local time, the agent will finalize the metering files for the currently running processes with an end time of 23.59.59. New metering files will be created with a start time of 00.00.00 on the next day.
For an example of how application usage is calculated, see Metering example .
Metering example
In this example, the application Microsoft Word is used for three consecutive days.
| Day | Action | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Monday, 3 PM | The user starts one instance of MS Word. | Since the agent is running, it gets notified on this start event and starts a new metering period with Run count = 1. |
| Monday, 6 PM | The user leaves for home; MS Word is left open and the computer is unlocked. | MS Word is considered to be running all night. At midnight, a new metering file will be created with Run count = 0. |
| Tuesday, 8 AM | The user continues to work with MS Word (one instance) all day. | At 09.00 a scheduled scan is performed, and all metering files are consumed and deleted. The total duration will be summed up, as will the Run counts: 1 (the metering file from Monday) + 0 (the metering file from Tuesday) = 1 After the scan, new metering files will be created for all currently running processes, with Run count = 0. |
| Tuesday | The user locks the computer several times during the day. | The Run count will not be affected by this, but the duration will be paused while the screen is locked. |
| Tuesday, 6 PM | The user leaves for home; MS Word is left open, but this time the computer is locked. | This will not affect the Run count. At midnight, nothing will happen since the computer is locked. |
| Wednesday, 8 AM | The user unlocks the computer. | When the computer is unlocked, the agent will notice that it is a new day, and create new metering files with Run count = 0. At 09.00 a scheduled scan is performed, and all metering files are consumed and deleted. The total duration will be summed up. Since the run count is 0 (no start events since the last scan) the scan result will be Run count = 1. After the scan, new metering files will be created for all currently running processes, with Run count = 0. |
| Wednesday, 9 AM-11 AM | The user starts three additional instances of MS Word. | These three start events will all be gathered by the agent setting the Run count = 3. |
| Wednesday, 11 AM | The user closes all instances of MS Word. The user does not start MS Word any more that day. | The metering period ends. It has a Run count = 3, since three start events was gathered by the agent. |
| Thursday | The user does not use MS Word at all. | At 09.00 a scheduled scan is performed including the last metering duration from Wednesday with Run count = 3. |
In this example, the total Run count for the application Microsoft Word is reported as;
1 (scan on Tuesday) + 1 (scan on Wednesday) + 3 (scan on Thursday) = 5.
Metering of web application usage
The Windows agent can meter the usage of web applications.
To enable web application metering, set the setting key legacy_webmetering.is_enabled in the agent configuration file to true.
From Snow Inventory Agent 6.2 for Windows, the setting idx.endpoint is deprecated. Snow Inventory Agent 6.2 for Windows will retrieve the web application patterns from the first available endpoint in the Snow Inventory Agent configuration file.
To configure which web applications to meter, go to the Snow License Manager user interface. For more information, see Web applications
Web application patterns will be retrieved every eight hours and when the agent is started or restarted.
If new or updated patterns are available they will be downloaded by the agent and stored in the file webapps.config.
All web application patterns in webapps.config are monitored for usage. The usage is recorded independently of which type of application connects to the web host, i.e. a web browser or any other application.
Web applications are monitored by the explicit hostnames and ports that are configured for use. For example, if a user has the Windows agent installed, web application metering is enabled, and the agent is configured to monitor the use of www.google.com on port 80, usage of that site will be metered. If the same user is using a proxy, or some other kind of technology that redirects network traffic, so that www.google.com looks like proxy.external.example.com, and/or port 80 is redirected to port 3128, metering will not be possible.
Metering of cloud application usage
The Windows agent can report usage of cloud applications, also known as software as a service (SaaS). It reports usage of cloud applications accessed via a browser and used, for example, for messaging, office software, invoicing, and service desk services.
For more detailed information about how the feature works and the available browser extensions, see Cloud application metering.