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License assignment

Overview

Software publishers define in their licensing terms, who is eligible consumer of a license. Most common cases are "Named User" or "Device". Correspondingly, the purchased license must be assigned to the eligible consumer, i.e. a natural person or a physical device.  The system works with raw technical data about deployed or access rights to a software. It is obvious that a software installed on a notebook but licensed per named user is an inconsistent combination. The same for a user being authorized to access an application on a terminal server which is licensed per device. 

The system works in an iterative approach:

  1. License requirements are created for "technical consumers" first. This is the reference coming from the raw technical inventory data, e.g. the computer where the software was installed or the user that holds the access rights. 
  2. The system compares the "License Assignment" setting of the relevant license model with the type of technical consumer that is referred by the license requirement. If there is a mismatch, the system creates license requirement for the eligible consumer based on the context of the technical consumer (e.g. the principal user of the computer). 
  3. In order to avoid duplicate accounting the license requirements for the technical consumer are automatically "consolidated" referring to the license requirements of the eligible consumer. Consolidated license requirements are not effectively counted as "required license". 

Illustrated procedure:

License Assignment.png

Assignment types

Following assignment types are available with license models:

Assignment Type

Description

None Any type of technical consumer is eligible for entitlement - no assignment required
Device Eligible consumer must be a physical device - assignment required if technical consumer is not a physical device
Device w/Second Copy Eligible consumer must be a physical device - assignment required if technical consumer is not a physical device
Operating System Eligible consumer must be a virtual or physical machine - assignment required if technical consumer is not a virtual or physical machine
Named User Eligible Consumer must be a natural person - assignment required if technical consumer is not a natural person

In case that the system is not able to find the eligible consumer in the context of the technical consumer, the license requirement remains in status "Invalid". In this case you need to handle these cases and provide the required information in the context of the technical consumer. See screen shot below.

Example: A software is license per named user, but the computer where the software is installed does not have a principal user assigned.

Solution: Assign a principal user to let the system automatically recover those license requirements.

clipboard_e3127f8c6a09610882a04e6baa9a59215.png 

Assignment scenarios

Possible scenarios for license assignments:

License assignment defined in license model

Consumer type based on source of a license requirement ("Technical Consumer")

Consumer type for effective license entitlement ("Eligible Consumer")

Device / Device with Second Copy

Physical computer

Physical computer

Virtual computer

Relevant host computers

Mobile device

Mobile device

Person

Physical computers and mobile devices of person

Named User

Physical computer

Principal user of computer

Virtual computer

Principal user of computer

Mobile device

Principal user of device

Person

Person

Operating System Environment (Computer)

Physical computer

Physical computer

Virtual computer

Virtual computer

Mobile device

Mobile device

Person

Computers and mobile devices of person

If a license requirement is created manually or the Manual Definition setting is enabled, the system will not check the technical consumer of such a license requirement. So even if the license requirement’s consumer is different from the one defined in the License Assignment setting of the license model, no further license assignment is made. Instead, this license requirement will be valid and can be entitled with a license that has the same license model.

Display in user interface

The license assignment is displayed in the edit form of a license requirement.

Technical consumer

The license requirement for the technical consumer displays assignment on page "Consolidation". It displays all license requirements created for the eligible consumers. Corresponding to the scenario, there can be more than one license requirement here.

clipboard_e68373743c2dd2401c3823a44ee970242.png

Eligible consumer

The license requirement for the eligible consumer displays assignment on page "Foundation". It displays all license requirements created for the technical consumers. Corresponding to the scenario, there can be more than one license requirement here.

clipboard_e953bba899d6296ae7660c7388bd1f031.png

Examples 

Scenario 1: Virtual machine to physical device

  • System creates a license requirement from an installation on a virtual machine which is specified as consumer
  • License assignment of corresponding license model is device.

System will create a secondary license requirement for each of the current and previous hosts of the virtual machine. The primary license requirement will be automatically consolidated with the secondary requirement(s) and referenced on the Foundations dialog page of the secondary requirement(s).

SVS_LIC_Virtual_to_Device.jpg

Scenario 2: User to physical device

  • System creates a license requirement from AD group membership for a user that is specified as a consumer
  • License assignment of respective license model is device.

System will create a secondary license requirement for each physical computer and mobile device where the specified person is listed as a principal user. The primary requirement will be automatically consolidated with the secondary requirement(s) and referenced on the Foundations dialog page of the secondary requirement(s).

SVS_LIC_User_to_Device.jpg

Scenario 3: Physical device to user

  • System creates license requirements from an installation on a physical computer or mobile device which is specified as a consumer.
  • License assignment of corresponding license model is named user.

A secondary license requirement will be created for a person that is a principal user of the computer or mobile device. There will be only one license requirement per unique named user and per software product, regardless of the number of primary license requirements. The primary license requirement(s) will be automatically consolidated with the secondary requirement and referenced on the Foundations dialog page of the secondary license requirement.

SVS_LIC_Device_to_User.jpg