Subscription Manager functionality

[Originally posted to rhelv6-list@redhat.com on 15 January 2015]

So, according to RHSA-2014:1070-01 we have to migrate to Red Hat Subscription Manager by July 31, 2017. All systems using Red Hat Network Classic Hosted directly, or indirectly with Red Hat Proxy must be moved.

Thus far I've held off, other than for three RHEL7 workstations.

Can someone, anyone, tell me when Subscription Manager (which I'm assuming is under https://access.redhat.com/management/) is going to gain any of the useful functionality of Red Hat network Classic (Hosted), when used with Smart Management entitlements/subscriptions? That is to say:

• Software channel entitlements listing
• Listing systems by out of date/virtual/unentitled/inactive/recentlyregistered
• System Set Manager
• Groups of any kind, and showing ungrouped systems
• Scheduling
• Profiles
• Even just being able to see how many Errata and Packages a system is behind on and to drill down to look at each of the above

At present I don't see any kind of Smart Management functionality in Subscription Manager. Does that mean I should start thinking about downgrading my subscriptions/entitlements to lose Smart Management? That would be disappointing as being able to group systems was very helpful. Especially when I could then assign an Activation Key for joining that group, which would subscribe a joining system to certain child channels I'd specified within the key (https://rhn.redhat.com/network/account/activation_keys/list.pxt). There are Activation Keys in Subscription Manager, but I don't see any of that functionality within it (https://access.redhat.com/management/activation_keys), unless I'm missing something. It seems Subscription Manager Activation Keys can ensure your system gets the right subscription (and service level), but there's no way to specify child channels. I won't even start on Provisioning as I don't actually use that. But I'm sure others do. I don't see any of that functionality represented at all.

It's more than likely that all of this functionality is already available. But Subscription Manager seems to be relatively opaque in a way that RHN Classic isn't, so I'm not seeing it.

Does anyone have some useful pointers on where I need to go to discover the undoubtedly rich functionality that I'm currently unable to unlock, please?

Because at present it seems like I'm losing a lot of useful stuff just so that Red Hat can police their customers better.

With grateful thanks,

Ben