Adding a license certificate to a software contract

A license certificate indicates the right to deploy software in your environment. Because one contract might have multiple certificates, software compliance is tracked at the software level.

To maintain a history of the purchase, you can link the certificate to a purchase order line item.

When the License Engine runs, it attaches CIs to the certificate, based on the following information about the license certificate:

• Company
• Product manufacturer and name
• Categorization
• Answers to connection questions

To add a license certificate to a software contract

1. On the Contract Management console, select the software license contract, and click View.
2. On the Software License Contract form, click the License Details tab, and click Add.

3. On the License Certificate form, complete all the required fields.
   
   

   Field name	Description
   Company Software Contract ID	This information comes from the software contract.
   Certificate ID	The certificate ID identifies the license certificate in listings and reports. It does not have to be unique.
   Summary	This field provides additional space to describe the certificate.
   Status	When you create a license certificate, the status is set to Draft.
   Status Reason	A status reason is not required for an executed license certificate. For an historical license certificate, the status reason indicates whether it expired, and whether this expiration is a result of the contract expiration. Important: When a contract expires, all the certificates under it expire.
   License Category Type	Select from Client, Server, or Mainframe. The selection you make here is used for informational purposes only.
   License Type	Select the appropriate license type. The license type determines the connection questions and the compliance questions. BMC Asset Management comes with the following license types: Enterprise — A company-wide site license for the product Per copy — This license type counts the number of licenses deployed based on the number of users of the product. If the same user has the product installed on two computers, such as a desktop and a laptop, one license is consumed. A user of a product is identified by a BMC_Person record related to the computer system on which the product is installed. If no users are related to the computer system on which the product is installed, the product consumes one license. For example, Customer A has two computers, a desktop and a laptop, and has one Microsoft Office license. In this instance, one license is consumed. Per copy per device — This license type counts the number of licenses consumed based on the number of computer systems on which the product is installed. To be in compliance, the number of licenses must be equal to or less than the number of licenses purchased, and the number of copies per device must not exceed the number indicated on the license certificate. For example, if a license certificate for Product X indicates that it is licensed for two copies per device, but three copies are discovered on a single computer, then the license is out of compliance. For example, Customer B has two computers, a desktop and a laptop, and has one Microsoft Office license. In this instance, two licenses are consumed. Per instance — Each instance of the software requires a separate license. Site — The product is licensed for an entire site within the company. It can be restricted to a region, site group, or site. The site is determined by the site of the computer system on which the product is installed. Per Server — This license supports doing a count of the unique number of servers with the specified manufacturer and model, that a particular software title is installed on, and compare that with the total number of servers with the specified manufacturer and model that a certificate allows from a compliance standpoint. Per CPU Sum Based — This license model is based on the sum of all unique CPUs associated with products that are associated with the certificate. Per CPU Multiplier Based — This license model is computed based on a multiplier factor for each processor. The value for each processor is then summed to determine the number of licenses consumed. Per CPU Constant Based — This license model is computed based on a constant value for each processor. The value for each processor is then summed to determine the number of licenses consumed. Per Core Sum Based — This license model is based on the sum of cores on the unique hardware the software is installed on. These server instances can be either physical or virtual systems. Per Core Multiplier Based — This license model is computed based on a multiplier factor for each processor type which is then multiplied with the number of cores found. This value is then summed to determine the total number of cores in use. Per Core Constant Based — This license model is computed based on a constant value for each processor which is then multiplied with the number of cores found. This value is then summed to determine the total number of cores in use. Important: BMC Configuration Automation for Clients Configuration Discovery Integration for CMDB (BMC Configuration Automation CDI) does not populate the Site attribute (field) for CIs. You can perform bulk updates of location information (including the Site field) for CIs. For more information see, Performing bulk updates. If your administrator created other license types, select the appropriate license type. The license types listed above are applicable only to the computer systems type CIs. Select <license type>_All to include all the CI types.
   Cost Center	This information comes from the software contract, but can be changed.
   Effective Date	Specify the date that the license becomes effective.
   Expiration Date	Specify the date that the license expires. If the license does not expire, leave this field blank.

4. To link the certificate to a purchase, perform the following steps:
   1. In the Purchase Line Item area, click Search Line Item.
   2. In the Search Purchase Line Items dialog box, search for the purchase line item.
   3. Select the appropriate line item, and click Relate.
5. Click Next.

6. Select the software from the product dictionary.
   You must select the manufacturer. Optionally, you can select the product name, the version, or the categorization.

   Important

   Software license management uses the market version of the software product for licensing. This helps in the maintenance of certificates, so that you do not need to relate each of the minor versions to the certificate, instead just relate the market version for the product. For example, Adobe Acrobat Professional gets discovered with various minor versions in BMC Atrium Configuration Management Database (CMDB) such as 6.1.1, 6.1.2, and 6.1.3 depending on the patch level. The market version attribute allows you to refer to these three versions by a single version in BMC Atrium CMDB. For more information about setting the market version for Product Catalog entries, see Adding product models and versions. To configure rules for normalizing the market version on CIs, see Configuring Version Rollup normalization rules.

   If the same type of certificate exists, you are asked whether to group the certificates. You are prompted to group only certificates that have the same product categorization.

   Best practice
   If you do not need to track license certificates separately, group them. If you must track license certificates separately, however, do not group them. For example, if each department pays separately for their own Microsoft Visio licenses, do not group them. For information about certificate groups, see About certificate groups.

7. If you are prompted to group the certificate, perform the following steps to add it to a group:
   1. Click Manage Grouping.
   2. Search for and select the master certificate.
      If there is no appropriate master certificate, you can create a master certificate.
   3. Click Add to Group.
   4. After you finish grouping certificates, click Next.

8. Provide connection details and compliance details:

   Detail type	Description
   Connection details	To determine which CIs use the license certificate, the License Engine uses the information that you provide about connection details. These details provide information about how to connect the license certificate to the appropriate CI.
   Compliance details	To determine compliance, the License Engine uses the information that you provide about compliance details. For example, a Per Instance license certificate asks you how many licenses were purchased and displays how many licenses were deployed.

   (If prompted) Enter the connection and compliance details, and then click Save.

9. On the certificate, click Save.