Taking a look at the Software Metering workflow in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager

~ Pramod Sathyanarayana Kashyap

Hello everyone, my name is Pramod Sathyanarayana Kashyap. I recently worked with a customer who had some questions regarding the workflow of Software Metering in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr 2012) so I thought I would go ahead and share that with all of you here as well.

The information here is from a ConfigMgr 2012 R2 environment but if you’re looking for the same thing for System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (ConfigMgr 2007) then you can find that here:

Software Metering Rules Propagation and Enforcement

Creating the Software Metering rule

To get started with ConfigMgr 2012, first we create a Software Metering rule. In our example we will create a rule for Notepad as shown below:

Tracking Policy Creation and Compilation

Clients receive the new policy once we enable the Metering Rule. It’s processed when the Software Metering cycle runs as shown here:

As we can see, every time we create a new Software Metering rule the version of the policy (037effca-e41f-4f28-86a8-ad7481a51deb) changes. In our example, after creating a 3^rd rule for Notepad the version changes to 3.00. Below is the snippet from PolicyAgentProvider.log:

Here is what we see during this process in PolicyAgent.log:

Requesting Machine policy assignments PolicyAgent_RequestAssignments 9/24/2014 3:49:58 AM 4772 (0x12A4)

Total 1 PolicyAssignment(s) found. PolicyAgent_ReplyAssignments 9/24/2014 3:49:59 AM 3564 (0x0DEC)

Policy Body :<PolicyAssignment PolicyAssignmentID="{7da6c723-2d5d-4a50-8d30-53e714a2c984}">

<Policy PolicyID="{037effca-e41f-4f28-86a8-ad7481a51deb}" PolicyVersion="3.00" PolicyType="Machine">

Compiling policy '{037effca-e41f-4f28-86a8-ad7481a51deb}' version '3.00' hash

Initializing download of policy 'CCM_Policy_Policy5.PolicyID="{037effca-e41f-4f28-86a8-ad7481a51deb}",PolicySource="SMS:PR1",PolicyVersion="3.00"' from 'http://SEC.contoso.com/SMS_MP/.sms_pol?{037effca-e41f-4f28-86a8-ad7481a51deb}.3_00' PolicyAgent_ReplyAssignments 9/24/2014 3:50:00 AM 3564 (0x0DEC)

Revoking policy '{037effca-e41f-4f28-86a8-ad7481a51deb}' version '2.00' PolicyAgent_PolicyDownload 9/24/2014 3:50:02 AM 3792 (0x0ED0)

Deleting policy '{037effca-e41f-4f28-86a8-ad7481a51deb}' version '2.00' PolicyAgent_PolicyDownload 9/24/2014 3:50:03 AM 3792 (0x0ED0)

Deleting policy file C:\Windows\CCM\Staging\{A56CBE49-456C-4575-ABCE-8B7C68309A71}.tmp PolicyAgent_PolicyDownload 9/24/2014 3:50:03 AM 3792 (0x0ED0)

Recieved notification of policy download and evaluation complete for correlation guid {8CC44587-E82E-47AF-8449-BA069FF1683C} PolicyAgent_RequestAssignments 9/24/2014 3:50:12 AM 4772 (0x12A4)

Synchronous policy assignment request with correlation guid {8CC44587-E82E-47AF-8449-BA069FF1683C} for Machine C1 completed with status 0 PolicyAgent_RequestAssignments 9/24/2014 3:50:12 AM 4772 (0x12A4)

After that we see these events in the mtrmgr.log:

Process ID 3772 is for process C:\Users\administrator\Desktop\CMTrace.exe mtrmgr 8/29/2014 2:33:12 AM 2180 (0x0884)

Found match against RuleID PR100001 mtrmgr 8/29/2014 2:33:12 AM 4956 (0x135C)

Tracked usage for process 3772 mtrmgr 8/29/2014 2:33:12 AM 4956 (0x135C)

Check WMI Entries for the same

Next, this information is written into WMI with the help of Software Metering Storage Manager in root\ccm\SoftwareMeteringAgent. In here we have the classes shown below.

CCM_MeteredFileInfo – Holds details of the *.exe that is being metered.
CCM_MeteredProductInfo – Similar information as that above.
CCM_RecentlyUsedApps – Holds the names of the files that were run recently.
CCM_HistoricalMeteredData – Records historical data.

Screenshots of these are included below.

This is then processed by the Software Metering Report Generator by fetching details from the Storage Manager and WMI. During this process, it transforms these files as XML and then into *.MUV.

After sending the report (as demonstrated below), it sends a request to purge the data in WMI which was already sent.

CSWMtrReportEndpoint::HandleMessage- Report Endpoint invoked. SWMTRReportGen 8/29/2014 2:32:54 AM 2268 (0x08DC)

Generating report for usage data SWMTRReportGen 8/29/2014 2:32:54 AM 2268 (0x08DC)

About to generate report header SWMTRReportGen 8/29/2014 2:32:54 AM 2268 (0x08DC)

Successfully generated report header SWMTRReportGen 8/29/2014 2:32:54 AM 2268 (0x08DC)

About to generate report body SWMTRReportGen 8/29/2014 2:32:54 AM 2268 (0x08DC)

Successfully generated report body SWMTRReportGen 8/29/2014 2:32:54 AM 2268 (0x08DC)

About to generate report header SWMTRReportGen 8/29/2014 2:32:54 AM 2268 (0x08DC)

Successfully generated report header SWMTRReportGen 8/29/2014 2:32:54 AM 2268 (0x08DC)

MRU Refresh is 15 minutes. SWMTRReportGen 8/29/2014 2:32:54 AM 2268 (0x08DC)

MRU Age limit is 90 days. SWMTRReportGen 8/29/2014 2:32:54 AM 2268 (0x08DC)

CSWMtrReportEndpoint- Message ID of sent message: {D9ACA606-A6E6-4CE8-82E4-68E6DA86801B} SWMTRReportGen 8/29/2014 2:32:54 AM 2268 (0x08DC)

This data is then sent to the MP_Relay Endpoint and then to swmproc.box for processing. After this is done, and assuming a summarization runs on a schedule, we will be able to see all the details.

Workflow of the Software Metering Collection and Reporting

Below is the flow in an environment where we have a CAS, a Primary and a Secondary server. First the data is stored in the “C:\Windows\CCM\Metering” folder:

Then when the Software Metering cycle runs, its sends a report and is received by the MP_Relay Endpoint on the Secondary:

Next it is moved to swmproc.box on the Secondary for processing:

Now the Software Metering Processor on the Secondary adds the Usage File and then transfers it to Primary using DRS:

We can see the Sender sending the files to the Primary Site Server:

At the Primary we can see the same files being received at the Despooler:

After the completion of replication, the *.MUV file is moved to the swmprox.box on the Primary:

It is then processed by the Software Metering Processor on the Primary:

The file move can be seen here in the folders on the Primary:

Once this has been done and the maintenance tasks are run, the metering data will be available for viewing on the console:

NOTEIf you want to speed up this process you can trigger it manually, which can be useful if you’re troubleshooting a related issue. To do this, download the Configuration Manager 2012 Toolkit and install it. Once installed, look in the Server Tools folder for runmetersumm.exe. This file can be executed on the SQL instance hosting the Configuration Manager database to trigger the summarization process. The command to run is runmetersumm.exe DBName.

That’s the Software Metering workflow in a nutshell. And just for reference, below is an example of a MUX file captured during the Software Metering Workflow:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-16'?>
<Report>
<ReportHeader>
<Identification>
<Machine>
<ClientInstalled>1</ClientInstalled>
<ClientType>1</ClientType>
<ClientID>GUID:E58CDD17-B377-49A0-9584-80224C12C827</ClientID>
<ClientVersion>5.00.7958.1000</ClientVersion>
<NetBIOSName>C1</NetBIOSName>
<CodePage>437</CodePage>
<SystemDefaultLCID>1033</SystemDefaultLCID>
</Machine>
</Identification>
<ReportDetails>
<ReportContent>Software\x0020Metering\x0020Data</ReportContent>
<ReportType>Full</ReportType>
<Date>20141001043107.864000-420</Date>
<Version>1.0</Version>
<Format>1.0</Format>
</ReportDetails>
</ReportHeader>
<ReportBody>
<ProductInfo CompanyName="Microsoft Corporation" ProductName="System Center 2012 Configuration Manager" ProductVersion="5.00.7804.1000" ProductLanguage="0">
<SoftwareFileInfo FileDescription="Configuration Manager Trace Log Tool" FileVersion="5.00.7804.1000 (hermbld.121121-2357)" FileName="CMTrace.exe" FileSize="678480">
<HistoricalMeterData MeteredDataID="F32846B9-7846-44D4-9162-4F54D2D0A54F" UserName="CONTOSO\Administrator" StartTime="20141001042204.000000-420" EndTime="20141001043107.911000-420" Status="1"></HistoricalMeterData>
<HistoricalMeterData MeteredDataID="C0C6FE62-3793-48D2-998D-BA036F2F345C" UserName="CONTOSO\Administrator" StartTime="20141001040049.000000-420" EndTime="20141001043107.911000-420" Status="1"></HistoricalMeterData>
</SoftwareFileInfo>
</ProductInfo>
</ReportBody>
</Report>