Methods and apparatus for software license management

摘要

Systems and techniques for managing software licensing are described. When a computing system service request is made, the request is intercepted and software information that may be more or less continuously updated in a managed computing environment is examined to determine the effect of the service request on software usage by the system. The software usage represented by the service request is evaluated based on licensing information to determine license usage by the system and changes in license usage based on the service request, and license usage information is determined based on the software usage and the licensing information. The license usage information may be used in connection with a system of rules to govern actions such as reporting licensing usage or allowing or preventing the use of software based on whether use of the software will violate licensing requirements.

主权项

1. A method comprising:
intercepting a computing system service request; identifying at least one software usage change needed to fulfill the computing system service request, wherein identifying at least one software usage change comprises examining stored software information comprising instance type information, wherein the stored software information is updated as the computing system service request is fulfilled, wherein identifying the at least one software usage change comprises identifying at least one of provisioning and deprovisioning of a virtual machine, and wherein identifying the at least one of provisioning and deprovisioning of a virtual machine comprises identifying software installed on the virtual machine; and identifying at least one software license usage requirement resulting from the identified at least one software change, wherein identifying the at least one software license usage requirement comprises examining stored license information maintaining for each of a plurality of users a list of license entitlement records each comprising a record identifier, product name and version information, a licensing model, and an entitlement value.