License reconciliation with multiple license types and restrictions

摘要

Techniques for license reconciliation with multiple license types and restrictions includes grouping a collection of multiple software installation instances, a collection of multiple hardware devices and a collection of multiple software licenses into multiple clusters, generating a reconciliation matrix for each cluster, wherein each row in the reconciliation matrix represents a software installation instance or a hardware device, each column in the reconciliation matrix represents a license type and/or an individual license, and each cell in the reconciliation matrix represents a license requirement and applicability of each software installation instance or hardware device, solving each reconciliation matrix, and generating a license reconciliation plan based on the solved reconciliation matrices.

主权项

1. An article of manufacture comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer readable instructions tangibly embodied thereon which, when implemented, cause a computer to carry out a plurality of method steps comprising:
grouping a collection of multiple software installation instances, a collection of multiple hardware devices and a collection of multiple software licenses into multiple clusters; generating a reconciliation matrix for each cluster, wherein each row in the reconciliation matrix represents a software installation instance or a hardware device, each column in the reconciliation matrix represents a license type and/or an individual license, and each cell in the reconciliation matrix represents a license requirement and applicability of each software installation instance or hardware device; solving each reconciliation matrix, wherein said solving comprises determining (i) a performance value for each reconciliation matrix and (ii) a price value for each reconciliation matrix, wherein said performance value indicates a number of covered software installation instances from the collection of multiple software installation instances, and wherein said price value indicates a relative quantity of consumed licenses from the collection of multiple software licenses; and generating a license reconciliation plan based on the solved reconciliation matrices, wherein said generating the license reconciliation plan comprises:
ranking each of the solved reconciliation matrices based on a performance to price ratio, and wherein said performance to price ratio is determined for each solved reconciliation matrix based on said determined (i) performance value and (ii) price value for each reconciliation matrix; andidentifying the most cost-effective solved reconciliation matrix, based on said ranking, as the license reconciliation plan.