License requirement rules in examples

Last updated
Save as PDF

This article applies to Matrix42 Enterprise Service Management version 10.0.1 and higher.

Overview

This article explains how you can use license requirement rules to automatically create or update license requirements and thus influence license compliance.

For a step-by-step guide on how to create license requirement rules, refer to How to add license requirement rules.

Creating license requirements for software products automatically from a data source is one of the key requirements for the high automation level with license management. Here computer inventory with installed applications is the most important use case and thus primary data source for license requirements. However, there are scenarios where software installations are insufficient. Using static device or user groups, usually managed in and imported from the Active Directory, is a suitable alternative. However, this is not a genuinely automated approach since those groups need to be managed manually in many cases (unless there is a process or workflow that updates those groups, e.g. a software request and approval process).

License requirement rules (previously called "collateral requirement rules") offer powerful support when you need to find a way to create license requirements automatically. They support the following use cases:

Creating license requirements for one software from existing license requirements for another software ("who needs license for 'A' also needs license for 'B'").
Changing the license model of existing license requirements for the selected software.
Creating or updating license requirements for a certain software for consumers defined by a saved filter on a particular configuration item (extended query).

Changing the license model

Example

When a software product is licensed per user, some license requirements may become invalid if the corresponding devices do not have principal users. Invalid license requirements are not considered in license compliance and create an incorrect picture of required licenses. In this case you can create a license requirement rule that finds all invalid license requirements and changes their license model.

To create such a rule, use the following input data:

Target software product is the software that has invalid license requirements with the Named User license model.
Target license model is Installation.
Source software product is the same as target.
Select Invalid in the list of effective statuses. This way the rule will only affect invalid requirements.

As a result, this rule will change the license model for invalid requirements.

Combined use cases

Example 1

When the system creates license requirements automatically, the default license model of the software product is used. To optimize costs, you can set up a license requirement rule that will change the license model of existing license requirements. For example, the system contains license requirements for SQL Server. The default license model is Per core and therefore the created license requirements have this license model.

You can create a license requirement rule that will change the license model from Per core to Server+CAL.

To create such a rule:

Create a query that returns all servers where SQL Server is running.
Create a license requirement rule with the following input data:

Target software product is the SQL Server version.
Target license model is Server+CAL.
The rule is based on the query that returns servers for which the system creates license requirements automatically.

As a result, this rule will change the license model for those license requirements where the consumer computer matches the query.

If the system doesn't contain a license requirement for the selected software and license model for a consumer filtered by the query, the rule will create such a requirement.

Example 2

Usually Windows operating systems are licensed per device, but sometimes they can be licensed per user. As Windows license requirements are based on installations, their default license model is Installation.

You can create a license requirement rule that will change the license model from Installation to Named User.

To create such a rule:

Create a query that returns all computers that should be licensed by user. For example, computers belonging to a certain organizational unit.
Create a license requirement rule with the following input data:

Target software product is the Windows version.
Target license model is Named User.
The rule is based on the query that returns computers whose license requirements should be adjusted.

As a result, this rule will change the license model for existing license requirements of computers belonging to the specified organizational unit. In this scenario, you should make sure that the query returns only those computers that should be licensed by user.