Understanding the Software tab in CloudRadial

The software tab can be found under the Infrastructure area of the feature set (Infrastructure > Software).

How does CloudRadial obtain software information?

This tab is always present, but it only populates when a CloudRadial data-gathering agent has been successfully installed on an endpoint and/or a server (aka a desktop, laptop, or virtual machine).

It is the culmination of all software applications installed on all machines for a given organization. 

Selecting a given piece of software will further drill down into its details, which lets you know which user has that software installed on their machines. 

How often is this data refreshed?

The software information is derived from the CloudRadial data-gathering agent.

This agent performs an information ping once per day (by default, at night after operating hours). However, it can also be "forced" - the agent pings in the information upon startup of the machine.

Note that there is no way to force the information to report into CloudRadial from within the portal itself. 

Additional capabilities of software reporting in CloudRadial

Selecting a piece of software within CloudRadial presents the Partner with the opportunity to Edit it.

Editing the software further allows the Partner to specify which category it falls under, which is defined by the Partner. Partners can also tag the application as a cloud storage application, which has ramifications for data compliance in compliance policies. 

Keep the following in mind when it comes to software tracking:

• Categories group similar software together
• There is no global software list - each software category tagging happens on a per-client basis
• Some software comes pre-tagged with a category - this information is derived from a back-end system table not accessible to Partners

Can I review a list of all software rather than for just one company?

Yes, you can view a list of all software via Partner > Reports > Software. 

You can download a spreadsheet of this information as needed using the options at the top right. 

Selecting a given piece of software will list who has it installed across all of your loaded in companies in CloudRadial. 

How should partners be using this information?

The primary purpose of aggregating data with an agent is to be able to standardize and summarize the results in an easy-to-understand manner. The software data reported by the CloudRadial agent is fed directly to CloudRadial's compliance policy module. 

Tracking software installed on organizational machines (and passing on the transparency of the data to the client) helps to build trust and provide a provable and measurable audit trail against non-compliant machines and users. 

Due to the sheer volume of data and software sprawl, it's recommended that Partners and clients alike rely on the compliance policies to ensure specifically named software either is or is not installed on organizational machines.