1.2. Workflows and Use Cases

Subscription Asset Manager provides different avenues to manage how subscriptions are attached to systems, which provides options in how systems can be provisioned and updated.

1.2.1. Direct Subscription Assignments

The Red Hat hosted services have a flat, undefined structure where all systems are in a single pool. While convenient in some ways, this loses the structure that real IT environments have, where systems are loosely or strictly associated with different organziational divisions, physical locations, and content streams. Subscription Asset Manager introduces an organizational structure, where administrators can create local organizations (for subscriptions) and environments (for content streams) that allow them to arrange systems in a way that reflects real-life configurations.

1.2.1.1. The Environment: Small Businesses to Large Enterprises for Locally-Defined Structure

Subscription Asset Manager imposes a structure on the subscription service and content service that allows administrators to design those systems in a way that reflects the actual infrastructure configuration.
Subscriptions are grouped by organizations, which are top-level divisions. Each organization represents a separate subscription application entry to Customer Portal Subscription Management.
Within each organization, it is possible to create system groups which help structure systems for updates, access control, and content management.
Imposing an organizational structure on the subscription inventory gives Subscription Asset Manager the ability to better present information about the subscriptions and systems for an account. For large enterprises, this may be the only functionality from Subscription Asset Manager that is required, using Subscription Asset Manager for reporting and auditing while custom or enterprise-level applications are used to manage systems.
For small and medium business, Subscription Asset Manager offers more control over system management than is possible through hosted services alone:
  • Enact security rules that require on-premise services rather than hosted services.
  • Better manage virtual environments, particularly in private clouds or data centers, which require system to be created and removed on the fly.
  • Define different content repositories for different types of systems, such as different sources for development and production systems.
The functionality of Subscription Asset Manager tracks closely with the functionality of Customer Portal Subscription Management and Red Hat Subscription Manager. Systems can be registered and have subscriptions automatically attached. Preferences like release versions and service levels can be used to govern software updates.

1.2.1.2. Workflow

Subscription Asset Manager Setup

Figure 1.2. Subscription Asset Manager Setup

  1. If necessary, create an entry in the Red Hat inventory for the organization (Section 4.2.1, “Creating a New Organization”). Every organization in Subscription Asset Manager must have a corresponding subscription service entry in the Red Hat inventory.
  2. Assign a bloc of subscriptions to the organization (Section 4.4.2.1, “Attaching Subscriptions to Organizations”). This bloc of subscriptions is the manifest of subscriptions for that Subscription Asset Manager organization.
  3. Export the manifest (Section 4.4.2.2, “Downloading the Manifest”).
  4. Import the manifest into Subscription Asset Manager (Section 4.4.2.3, “Uploading a Subscription Manifest”).
  5. Configure the Red Hat Subscription Manager client on the local system to use the Subscription Asset Manager subscription service and, optionally, the Subscription Asset Manager content proxy (Section 5.2, “Registering a System”).
The backend configuration for Subscription Asset Manager and its manifests only needs to be done once, and the Red Hat Subscription Manager configuration changes only need to be made once per system.
When that is complete, then the system can be registered and have subscriptions attached to it.
Registering with Subscription Asset Manager

Figure 1.3. Registering with Subscription Asset Manager

  1. Register the system (Section 5.2, “Registering a System”).
    Using the subscription-manager CLI command, use the register command with the username and password for the Customer Portal Subscription Management account holder and the hostname of the Subscription Asset Manager server.
    For the Red Hat Subscription Manager UI, autoattaching subscriptions is performed by default. Check the option to attach subscriptions later.
  2. Select and attach the subscriptions, using the Subscription Asset Manager UI (Section 5.6.1, “Attaching Subscriptions to a System”).

1.2.1.3. Details and Options

After registering a system with Subscription Asset Manager, it can be managed using either Subscription Asset Manager or Red Hat Subscription Manager, but the options set in Red Hat Subscription Manager must match what is available in Subscription Asset Manager.