Phase 4 - Managing software licensing

After the data is reconciled and the production dataset is up to date, the Software License Management (SWLM) process is ready to manage software licenses. The process includes setting Software Contracts, Certificates, setting up and running license jobs, and managing compliance. The information about the products to be managed and the licensing purchased for each of them is available, as these were identified in the Planning phase.

This section describes the following procedures:

Setting software contracts and certificates

1. Identify the key attributes required for the licensing models relevant to the products to be managed. This is necessary so that CIs and the related Certificates to match. The following table lists the attributes needed for the license models.

   Tip

   You should have already verified this in the Discovery phase.

   Manufacturer	Product Name	License Model	Required Attributes in CMDB for the CIs
   Microsoft Corporation	Microsoft Project Standard Edition	Per instance	BMC_Product Instance related to BMC_Computer where the product is installed. Attributes Needed: BMC_Product – Company, Product Name, Manufacturer, Market Version. BMC_Computer - Company
   Microsoft Corporation	Microsoft Exchange Server Enterprise Edition	Per instance 9.	Same as above.
   Microsoft Corporation	Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server	Per instance	Same as above
   Adobe Systems Inc.	Adobe Acrobat	Per Copy	BMC_Product Instance related to BMC_Computer where the product is installed. Attributes Needed: BMC_Product – Category Tier 1, 2, 3, Product Name, Manufacturer, Market Version. BMC_Computer – Company. BMC_Person instance related to BMC_Computer

2. Create Software License Contracts
   A Software Contract represents a broad agreement with a software vendor. Each Software contract can have one or more child Software License Certificates as decribed in th.
   Set up the Software License Contract(s) using the Contract Management console. Create a Software License Contract for each Supplier and Manufacturer. Verify if multiple contracts need to be created for the same manufacturer. This would be necessary if the supplier terms for the products by the same manufacturer are different .
   For example, create Software License Contracts for the Microsoft Products and the Adobe products. At least the following information must be available to create the contract:
   • Contract ID
   • Summary
   • Company
   • Term
   • Term Conditions
   • Supplier
   • Cost Center
   • Contract Managed By

   • Expiration/ Notification date
     Software license contract

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3. Create license certificates.
   A License Certificate is a child record of a Software Contract, and is used to represent an entitlement owned by the organization, to use a certain amount of one or more specific software titles.
   Set up the License Certificates for various products. On the Contract console, open the contract created for Microsoft. On the License Details tab, add a license certificate for each product. Typically, a certificate is setup for a product. If the software license purchased has downgrade rights, specify the new and the lower market version on the same certificate.
   At least the following information must be available to create the certificate; other attributes can be filled as necessary.

   Related Software Contract	Summary	Certificate ID	Company	License Type	Cost Center	Product Name(s) Manufacturer MarketVersion(s)
   Pre-populated from the software contract the certificate is created from		Can be system generated	Pre-populated from software contract also		Populated from the software contract	Market Version is an option, if the certificate applies to all versions

   It is assumed that Calbro has used different purchase orders for each of the following licenses:

   Manufacturer	Product Name	Purchase of Licenses
   Microsoft Corporation	Microsoft Project Standard Edition	Purchase for version 2010 with downgrade rights to 2007, 12 licenses ( certificate 1 created)
   Microsoft Corporation	Microsoft Exchange Server Enterprise Edition	Purchase for 6 licenses ( a separate certificate created)
   Microsoft Corporation	Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server	Purchase for 5 licenses ( a separate certificate created)
   Adobe Systems Inc.	Adobe Acrobat	Purchase for version 7, 3 licenses ( create a new certificate) Purchase for version 9, 2 licenses ( create a new certificate)

   Tab 1 — License Certificate Creation for Microsoft Project Standard Edition

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   Tab 2 — Addition of Product info on the Certificate (2010 and 2007 are both added on the certificate, as the certificate has downgrade rights to version 2007)

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   Tab 4 – Entering Compliance Details

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   Note

   Tab 3 is the Connection details tab and is displayed only if additional connection questions are configured for the license model.

4. Create certificates for the other products. When creating the certificates ensure that:
   • all the certificates are in Executed state so that they can be used by the SWLM engine.

   • the value of the Engine Connection field on the Certificate is set to Yes, so that the Software License Engine is able to connect to certificate.

     Note

     By default, when the status of the certificate is set to Executed, the Engine Connection value is set to Yes.

5. Since the Adobe licenses were purchased in multiple purchase orders, create a certificate for each purchase described in the table in step 3 of this procedure. Individual Software License records can be used to represent a history  of multiple purchases of the same software, or purchases of the same software from different suppliers, even under separate Software Contract parent records.

6. When creating the certificate subsequent to the first certificate for a product, the system prompts you to group the certificates if they have the same Company, License Model, and Product Categorization. This is termed as Grouping of Certificates.
   
   Calbro purchased additional Microsoft Project Standard Edition licenses in two separate purchases:

   Manufacturer	Product Name	Purchase of Licenses
   Microsoft Corporation	Microsoft Project Standard Edition	Purchase for version 2010, 3 licenses (new certificate created and grouped with certificate for Project) Purchase for version 2010, 5 licenses (new certificate created and grouped with certificate for Project)

   1. Create the two new certificates for Project, and then group them with the original one.

   2. While creating the certificates, on the second tab of the Certificate Creation dialog box, you are prompted to group the certificates.
      Grouping button displayed

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   3. Click Manage Grouping to group the new certificate with the existing one.
      Then group the two new certificates for Microsoft Project in the above table.
      Grouped Certificates

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Managing license jobs

Set up the license jobs for the manufacturers and products to be managed for SWLM.

1. Creating the license jobs
   From the Software Asset Management (SAM) console, click the Manage License Job link to create the SWLM License Job. License Jobs should be created for the manufacturer or product.
   Adobe License Job

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2. Create a job for the Microsoft products. Since there are a large number of products for Microsoft in the CMDB, qualify the Job by Products to be managed as follows:
   Microsoft Job defined for selected products only

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3. Running and monitoring license jobs
   After creating the license jobs, on the Manage Jobs dialog box, select the Adobe Job and click Run to execute the job on on demand.
   Monitor the completion of the job in the History tab in the bottom section of the dialog box.
   Adobe Job History

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4. Similarly, run the Microsoft Job on demand.

   Note

   In a nutshell, the license engine performs the following procedures:
   Checks the Product Catalog for any software titles that match the criteria set in the job details, and that have "Requires Contract" = Yes.
   Searches the CMDB for any instances of the software titles found in these software titles.
   Attempts to connect the software titles to certificates which match them
   Calculates the overall consumption on any certificates to which it has just connected software CIs.

5. Running reconciliation based jobs

   Recommendation

   For optimum performance run the SWLM job based on Reconciliation Job after the first run. This can be done under the Schedules option on the Reconciliation tab.

   1. Relate the SWLM job to the Reconciliation Job for both Adobe and Microsoft. This ensures that related SWLM jobs are run every time a Reconciliation job is run.
      SWLM Job related to Reconciliation Job

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      Each license job returns four results which can be viewed by selecting the job run in the Job History window.

      Status	Description
      CIs connected to certificates	Instances of software that were found and successfully connected to a certificate
      CIs without certificates	CIs that do not have licenses The value of the RequiredContract is set to Yes for this CI in the Product Catalog and the license job located the CI but did not find a related licenses.
      Certificates out of compliance	License certificates for which the overall software consumption has been found to be in excess of the available entitlement
      CIs connected to multiple certificates	CIs that have multiple certificates associated to them License engine has found multiple certificates matching the software product. Check that all such certificates have been Grouped.

   2. After running the license jobs, monitor the license compliance. Using the Software Asset Management (SAM) console, select and view each certificate for Microsoft and the one for Adobe products created earlier.

Monitoring license compliance

Use the Software Asset Management (SAM) console to review the Compliance Status and the Rolled up Deployed count. Also open the appropriate certificates for the products from the SAM console to review the the Number Deployed per product which is reflected in the Related Product Categorization table.
Optionally, click the Compliance Details link on the navigation bar to view the compliance numbers.
License Certificate — highlighting deployed numbers and the compliance status

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1. From the Purchasing Console create a Purchase Requisition (PR) with a line item for Adobe Acrobat version 9, to purchase 5 licenses.
   Purchase Line Item — for Adobe Acrobat version 9

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2. Enter the details in the Line Item Information for purchasing Adobe licenses.

3. On the License Certificate tab of the Purchase Line Item, update the Purchase Type, Software Contract ID, and License Type values. This information is used to create the license certificate automatically.
   Purchase Line Item — License Certificate tab

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4. The PR then goes through the purchasing lifecycle:
   1. After saving the Line Item and the PR, submit it for approval.
      When the required approver(s), approve the PR, a Purchase Order (PO) is created

   2. Submit the purchase order.
      Based on the out of the box configuration settings in the Rules form, License certificates are automatically created once the order is submitted. As a result, the item does not need to be explicitly received.
      Configuring the CI rules form

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      The new certificate is now created for 5 additional licenses of Adobe. However, on creation the certificate is in the Draft status.

   3. Update the status of the certificate from Draft to Executed to enable the certificate.

   4. Then group the new certificate with the original.
      From the SAM console open the existing certificate and click the Manage Grouping link on the navigation bar to add the new certificate and the existing one into a group.
      A master certificate is created, where the two certificates for Adobe Acrobat, version 9 are part of the Group. From the SAM console only the master certificate is seen because the master certificate is the container for the children certificates, and provides a rolled up view of the compliance for Adobe Acrobat, version 9.

      Note

      In case of grouped certificates, SWLM engine only connects to the Master Certificate.

   5. Rerun the License Job for Adobe.
      After the license job is complete, review the compliance status of Adobe Acrobat, version 9. The certificate is now in compliance. The Number deployed is 5 and the Number purchased is 7.

Managing software usage

Notices that currently, though the Adobe Acrobat version 7 certificate is in compliance, it is approaching out of compliance status. Instead of buying new licenses, locate users who are not using the software, so they can uninstall the software from their systems and their licenses can be reused.
Some discovery vendors collect the usage information about the applications and store it in their database. Out of the box, BMC Asset Management is integrated with the BMC BladeLogic Client Automation (BBCA) Software Usage.

Perform the following steps:

1. Open the AST:ConfigUsageProvider form, where you can set up the provider for usage.
   BCAC is the namespace for the BBCA discovery and BCAC_Software_Usage is the federated class.

2. Verify that the Namespace and the ClassName are setup with BBCA and BCAC_Software_Usage respectively for the usage information from BBCA.
   
   Cofigure Usage in AST:ConfigUsageProvider

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   Note

   For any other discovery source create the appropriate integration using the CMBD federation. For more information, see Configuring your system to work with any third-party software usage provider.

3. On the SAM console, select the Adobe Acrobat 7 certificate and click View Usage to open the Software Usage form.
   The Software Usage form provides usage details of all Adobe 7 product instances, the computers where the software is installed, and the related users.
   Manage Software Usage dialog

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   Analyze the data using various predefined queries available from the navigation bar.

4. Select the By Usage > Not used past 180 days predefined query.
   Users x and y have not used the product in last 180 days.
5. Submits a ticket to uninstall the software from these desktops.
   Re-running the job then shows two extra licenses. This procedure allowed harvesting of the two licenses.