Logic behind license entitlement
What is license entitlement
License entitlement is the act of assigning a license requirement in status "license required" to a suitable license. It is done automatically by the system to ensure license compliance of your organization, documenting that you own all licenses that are required for the legal use of software in use. It the last step of the workflow from analyzing your deployed software to determine your license compliance:
A license requirement is usually created automatically based on the technical data that the system collects and stores. However, you can also create license requirements manually and they will be entitled according to the same principles. Technical data that leads to the creation of a license requirement is called a license requirement foundation. The foundation can come from different sources, but it always contains three basic attributes:
- a software product that is in use,
- a technical consumer of the software product,
- and a license model of the software product.
If the type of consumer indicated in the License Assignment field of the license model coincides with the technical consumer, a license requirement created based on the foundation will be valid and therefore directly entitled by a corresponding license as soon as it appears in the system.
However, there are cases when these two do not coincide. In such a situation the system will try to create a license requirement for an eligible consumer from a license requirement for a technical consumer. This process is called the assignment consolidation. As a result of it, the license requirement for a technical consumer will become Consolidated and thereby invalid for license entitlement. The license requirement for an eligible consumer will be valid for license entitlement. If the determination of the eligible consumer is not possible (e.g. a computer is not assigned to a principal user), the license requirement for a technical consumer will become invalid due to this reason.
To read more about the license assignment please see License assignment.
There are several cases when license requirements may be consolidated and thus rendered irrelevant for the license assignment process.
To find out more about the consolidation, please see What is consolidation of license requirements.
Prerequisites
You need to set up your system to make the most out of the different entitlement options it provides.
License model
If the system creates license requirements automatically, the default license model of the corresponding software product is used. It is recommended to use the same license model that the purchased licenses have.
For the successful entitlement of a license requirement, the license model in a license must always be the same as the license model in the license requirement. If it is not the case, the entitlement will not happen. You may change the license model of the license requirements manually using the corresponding action whereas for downgrades you can enable the setting for automatic license model change.
Entitlement for downgrades
It is quite common, that the licensed product is not the same as the product in use. In such cases, the system considers the downgrades options defined in the used software product. Make sure that the software product that holds the licenses is mentioned in the Downgrade from list of the software product dialog.
For detailed information on all settings involved, see Settings relevant for creation of license requirements.
How the system finds the most suitable license
Entitlement is performed automatically by the system in the background. It is not simply finding the "next" available license with the same license model. Actually, it is a sequence of activities that find the most suitable license:
Entitlement Decision Tree:
- License custodians are organizations that manage the license inventory for other compliance company codes. If a license custodian is defined for the software product of the license requirement, the system needs to know that. Read "Compliance company codes" to understand what company codes are and how they are used.
1a: Does the license custodian have available licenses with the same license model assigned to the corresponding software product or with any other product that could be downgraded?
If not, continue with => 2
If yes...
1b: Does the license pool of that license match with the organizational ownership of the license requirement (i.e. of the license consumer)?
If not, continue with => 2
If yes, requirement is entitled - What is the next license pool for the license requirement according to organizational ownership, starting from the nearest one?
Read "Using license pools to provide licenses and control entitlement" to understand what license pools are and how they are managed.
If no license pool was found, no entitlement is possible
If there is one... - In this pool, is there any license available with the same license model that is restricted to the consumer of the license requirement?
If yes, requirement is entitled
If not... - In this pool, is there any license available with the same license model that is reserved to the consumer of the license requirement?
If yes, requirement is entitled
If not... - In this pool, is there any license available with the same license model that is assigned to the same software product as the license requirement?
If yes, requirement is entitled
If not... - In this pool, is there any license available, assigned to a software product that offers a downgrade having the same license model as the license requirement?
If yes, requirement is entitled
If not and just in case automatic license model change is enabled in the settings... - In this pool, is there any license available with the same license model as the assigned software product offering a downgrade to the software of the license requirement?
If yes, requirement is entitled
If not, continue with next, more distant license pool => 2
Entitlement cases
Restricted/reserved consumers
On the Availability tab of a license dialog, you can define restrictions and reservations of a license.
Consumers in the Device Restrictions grid indicate that a license can be used exclusively by certain devices. It will never be assigned to devices that do not belong to the Device Restrictions grid.
If there are consumers in the Reservations grid, the system automatically privileges license requirements for these consumers. However, if there are no privileged license requirements, other suitable license requirements will be entitled. If the Device Restrictions grid lists at least one device, all reservations are ignored.
Example
- A fingerprint from a virtual machine is classified as software A with the Installation license model to create a license requirement.
- A host of the VM exists in the system.
- A license requirement for a principal user of the VM and a suite software B exists in the system.
- Suite software B includes the software A.
- A license for software A exists.
Case 1. The VM is added in the Reservations grid of a license.
Result: A license requirement for VM is directly licensed.
Case 2. The VM is not added in the Reservations grid of a license.
Result: A license requirement for VM is consolidated as a part of suite based on the license requirement for the software B.
Case 3. A license requirement for a principal user of the VM and a suite software B no longer exists.
Result: A license requirement for VM is consolidated to create a license requirement for the host. In this case the host is an eligible consumer based on the Installation license model.
Software suites
If you buy a license for a software suite, license requirements for contained software products will be consolidated while the license requirement for suite.
For more details on suite consolidation, refer to Consolidating license requirements for suites.
For additional examples, please refer to Examples of software suite consolidation.
Entitlement by downgrade
If the system does not contain a license for the software product that is specified in a license requirement, it can entitle this license requirement with a downgrade of license for a newer version of this software. Automatic change of license model can be set up for cases when the license models in the older and newer versions of the software are different.
If a direct license is added in the system, the requirement for an older version will be licensed with it. In this case if the license model was changed automatically, this change will be reverted.
Example 1
- A fingerprint from a computer is classified as software A with the Installation license model to create a license requirement 1.
- This computer has a principal user X.
- Software A is a downgrade of software B.
- Software B has the Named User license model.
- A license for software B exists.
- The Automatic change of license model with downgrades checkbox is selected in Settings in the Licenses application.
Result: License requirement 1 for software A gets a change of a license model to Named User. It is consolidated based on consumer because the foundation consumer and license model consumer no longer are the same. A new license requirement 2 for the software A and user X is created. Its license model is Named User. The license requirement 2 is entitled with a license for software B.
Example 2
- A fingerprint from a desktop computer is classified as software A with the Installation license model to create a license requirement 1.
- A fingerprint from a laptop computer is classified as software A with the Installation license model to create a license requirement 2.
- User X is the principal user of both the desktop and laptop computers.
- Software A is a downgrade of software B.
- Software B has the Installation w/Second Copy license model.
- A license for software B exists.
- The Automatic change of license model with downgrades checkbox is selected in Settings in the Licenses application.
Result: License requirements 1 and 2 get a change of a license model to Installation w/Second Copy. Since one consumer is a desktop and the other one is a laptop, the laptop's license requirement 2 is consolidated as second copy. License requirement 1 is entitled with a license for software B.
Using licenses of the license custodian
If you use company codes, by default license requirements can be entitled only with licenses from the same company code. However, you can set a license custodian for a software to allow licenses from other company codes to be assigned to license requirements for this software. For example, a software product belonging to company code A can also use licenses from company codes B and C.
For more information on license custodians, please refer to Setting a license custodian for software products.
Example
- The software product A belongs to a company code France.
- The system contains 50 license requirements requiring 1 usage right each for the software product A under the company code France.
- There is a license F for company code France which owns 20 usage rights.
- There is also a license G for company code Germany that owns 40 usage rights.
- A license custodian Germany was set for the software product A belonging to the France company code.
Result: 20 license requirements will be entitled with the license F and the remaining 30 license requirements will be entitled with the license G.