Concept and Data Privacy
The concept in a nutshell
The License Intelligence Service (LIS) provides weekly updates and enhancements to the reference data, significantly accelerating the operation of the SAM tool. This data includes predefined software products that are used to automatically build the structure of the license balance and automatically calculate license requirements for the software used, according to metrics.
Recognizing the software from the installed applications is the core of this added value. The applications are recorded as so-called "fingerprints" when the end devices and servers are scanned. Customers have the option to transfer the fingerprints to the global LIS database if they are not already contained in the LIS reference data and thus, not recognized. These records are reviewed by trained experts and evaluated according to terms of licensing.
The evaluation is then available to all participating customers in the form of new reference data records.
Why does it make sense to provide your own data?
Recognizing the installed software products by evaluating the fingerprints is the central factor for customer benefit. Every week, tens of thousands of new applications and versions are installed on premises of our customers, uploaded as fingerprints and evaluated by experts. This data relates to several hundred software products per week.
Effective license management benefits from identifying new applications as quickly as possible as "relevant for software XY" or "not relevant". For this reason, it is strongly recommended that you also submit information about your own applications (fingerprints) to the global database when updating the LIS data.
The underlying community concept is extremely advantageous for this system. As fingerprints are generally globally standardized (they are defined by the software manufacturer), they can be found at all customers who install the corresponding application. Therefore, every customer benefits if a new application and the associated software product are already known and the license balance can be updated immediately. In this respect, every customer benefits from the fact that application fingerprints are also passed on by other customers.
How to filter fingerprints for transmission?
It is possible to filter fingerprints for transmission to the global LIS database according to the type of recognition. A corresponding option can be found in the "Licenses" application settings.
What happens to my data?
The data transmitted via the fingerprints consists of the following information:
- Manufacturer of the application
- Name of the application
- Version of the application
- Is Installed or not (no numbers, just yes/no since imported scan tool data usually contains many outdated, obsolete data)
- Type of detection (hint regarding scanning tool used)
Data transmission during an online update through the LIS data provider is using secure communication (https, SSL). Personal data of users or specific data about computers are NOT transmitted, as they are not required for the licensing evaluation of the applications.
The installation flag (#4) and the type of detection (#5) are only used for prioritization, respectively to support Matrix42's internal team of experts evaluating the data. This information is NEITHER disclosed NOR published.
Once a fingerprint has been classified, it is included in the reference data and thus made available to all participating customers. This classification data contains the following information:
- Manufacturer of the application (for matching with installation data)
- Name of the application (for matching with installation data)
- Version of the application (for matching with installation data)
- Associated software product (only if relevant under licensing terms)