U.S. patent application number 15/794906 was filed with the patent office on 2019-04-04 for asset allocation and reconciliation system.
The applicant listed for this patent is ServiceNow, Inc.. Invention is credited to German Bertot, Colby Blakeman.
Application Number | 20190102849 15/794906 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 65896116 |
Filed Date | 2019-04-04 |
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United States Patent
Application |
20190102849 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Bertot; German ; et
al. |
April 4, 2019 |
ASSET ALLOCATION AND RECONCILIATION SYSTEM
Abstract
Systems and methods for a software asset management, license
compliance, and reconciliation techniques are disclosed. Software
licenses come in many different types, including but not limited
to, subscription based licenses, geographically restricted
licenses, globally available licenses, production only licenses,
standard shrink wrap licenses, network concurrent usage licenses,
etc. With fewer applications being installed directly onto
end-users machines, tools that only scan local networks and search
hard drives are becoming less effective. Disclosed techniques
introduce additional capabilities for software asset discovery,
tracking, license allocation, and other functions as part of a
comprehensive software asset reconciliation engine. For example,
the disclosed software asset reconciliation engine may be
configured with sub-engines to perform groupings of discovered
information to allow system administrators and license
administrators to properly allocate and monitor software
application usage across an enterprise and ensure compliance
against a purchased inventory of licenses of different types.
Inventors: |
Bertot; German; (San Carlos,
CA) ; Blakeman; Colby; (San Jose, CA) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
ServiceNow, Inc. |
Santa Clara |
CA |
US |
|
|
Family ID: |
65896116 |
Appl. No.: |
15/794906 |
Filed: |
October 26, 2017 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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62568087 |
Oct 4, 2017 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
1/1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06Q 30/0603 20130101;
G06F 21/577 20130101; G06Q 30/018 20130101; G06F 16/951 20190101;
H04L 41/0803 20130101; H04L 63/1433 20130101; H04L 67/34 20130101;
G06F 3/0482 20130101; H04L 41/0859 20130101; H04L 41/22 20130101;
G06F 16/27 20190101; H04L 41/0893 20130101; H04L 67/26 20130101;
G06Q 10/06314 20130101; G06F 11/3452 20130101; G06F 9/451 20180201;
G06F 9/461 20130101; G06F 9/5038 20130101; G06F 9/547 20130101;
G06F 11/3006 20130101; G06F 21/53 20130101; H04L 67/32 20130101;
G06Q 10/06315 20130101; G06Q 10/06393 20130101; G06F 3/0484
20130101; H04L 41/12 20130101; G06F 40/18 20200101; H04L 63/20
20130101; G06Q 30/0641 20130101; H04L 63/10 20130101; G06F 16/24578
20190101; H04L 67/12 20130101; G06Q 50/184 20130101; G06Q 30/0635
20130101; G06Q 40/12 20131203; H04L 43/08 20130101; G06F 9/4881
20130101; G06F 11/14 20130101; H04L 41/0879 20130101; H04L 43/045
20130101; H04L 43/50 20130101; H04L 41/0843 20130101; G06F 40/186
20200101; G06F 16/30 20190101; G06F 3/0481 20130101; G06F 3/04847
20130101; G06F 16/904 20190101; G06Q 10/067 20130101; G06F 16/2423
20190101; G06F 9/44505 20130101; G06Q 10/0635 20130101; G06F 3/0486
20130101; G06F 16/248 20190101 |
International
Class: |
G06Q 50/18 20060101
G06Q050/18; G06Q 30/00 20060101 G06Q030/00; G06Q 10/06 20060101
G06Q010/06 |
Claims
1. A cloud-based computer system, comprising: a memory partition; a
network interface communicatively coupled to one or more processing
units and the memory partition, wherein the memory partition
comprises computer instructions that when executed by the one or
more processing units cause the cloud-based computer system to:
initiate a probe of one or more computer systems of an enterprise,
the probes configured to determine software application usage
statistics for each of the one or more computer systems, the
software application usage statistics comprising information for
identifying compliance with license requirements for software
applications corresponding to the application usage statistics;
obtain license information identifying software application license
availability across the one or more computer systems of the
enterprise; correlate the software application usage statistics
with a first grouping selected from at least one of a department of
the business, business unit of the enterprise, cost center of the
enterprise, and a country of use; prepare a compliance report
indicating discrepancies between the software application usage
statistics and the software application license availability, the
compliance report including information about the country of use
for at least one software application having license information
indicating a restriction of use based on country; and identify a
plurality of remediation options available for non-compliant usage
of at least one of the software applications, the remediation
options including purchase rights and at least one of: creating
allocations, removing allocations, removing unallocated
installations, and removing unlicensed installations.
2. The cloud-based computer system of claim 1, wherein the
compliance report provides information restricted based on an
identified publisher or set of publishers.
3. The cloud-based computer system of claim 1, further comprising
instructions to cause the cloud-based computer system to: correlate
the software application usage statistics with a subgrouping
different from the first grouping and selected from at least one of
a department of the business, business unit of the enterprise, cost
center of the enterprise, and a country of use.
4. The cloud-based computer system of claim 3, further comprising
instructions to cause the cloud-based computer system to: apply a
right of entitlement only to users or devices that have a software
installation and match the first grouping and the subgrouping as
defined in the right of entitlement.
5. The cloud-based computer system of claim 4, wherein the
requirement of matching the subgrouping increases a number of
dimensions that must be matched between the user or device prior to
applying the right of entitlement.
6. The cloud-based computer system of claim 4, wherein users or
devices that have a software installation and do not match the
first grouping and the subgrouping as defined in the right of
entitlement are considered unlicensed installations.
7. The cloud-based computer system of claim 1, wherein the
compliance report comprises a true-up cost to correct for at least
one identified discrepancy.
8. The cloud-based computer system of claim 1, wherein the software
application usage statistics identify use of a subscription based
software application.
9. A cloud-based computer system, comprising: a memory partition; a
network interface communicatively coupled to one or more processing
units and the memory partition, wherein the memory partition
comprises computer instructions that when executed by the one or
more processing units cause the cloud-based computer system to:
obtain information describing attributes of one or more computer
systems of an enterprise, the attributes identifying software
application usage statistics for each of the one or more computer
systems, the software application usage statistics comprising
information for identifying compliance with license requirements
for software applications corresponding to the application usage
statistics; obtain license information identifying software
application license availability across the one or more computer
systems of the enterprise; correlate the software application usage
statistics with a first grouping selected from at least one of a
department of the business, business unit of the enterprise, cost
center of the enterprise, and a country of use; correlate the
software application usage statistics with a subgroup selected from
at least one of a department of the business, business unit of the
enterprise, cost center of the enterprise, and a country of use,
wherein the subgroup is different from the first grouping; prepare
a compliance report indicating discrepancies between the software
application usage statistics and the software application license
availability, the compliance report including information
pertaining to users or devices not matching the first grouping and
the subgrouping as defined in the license information; and identify
a plurality of remediation options available for non-compliant
usage of at least one of the software applications, the remediation
options including purchase rights and at least one of: creating
allocations, removing allocations, removing unallocated
installations, and removing unlicensed installations.
10. The cloud-based computer system of claim 9, wherein the
compliance report comprises a true-up cost to correct for at least
one identified discrepancy.
11. The cloud-based computer system of claim 9, wherein users or
devices that have a software installation and do not match the
first grouping and the subgrouping as defined in the license
information are considered unlicensed installations.
12. The cloud-based computer system of claim 9, wherein the
compliance report provides information restricted based on an
identified publisher or set of publishers.
13. The cloud-based computer system of claim 9, wherein the
compliance report comprises information regarding potential
upgrades of software applications identified in the software
application usage statistics to address at least one identified
discrepancy.
14. The cloud-based computer system of claim 9, wherein a global
right of entitlement may be applied during correlation and
considered to match any value of the first grouping or the
subgroup.
15. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions
that when executed by a processor cause the processor to configure
a computer system to: obtain information describing attributes of
one or more computer systems of an enterprise, the attributes
identifying software application usage statistics for each of the
one or more computer systems, the software application usage
statistics comprising information for identifying compliance with
license requirements for software applications corresponding to the
application usage statistics; obtain license information
identifying software application license availability across the
one or more computer systems of the enterprise; correlate the
software application usage statistics with a first grouping
selected from at least one of a department of the business,
business unit of the enterprise, cost center of the enterprise, and
a country of use; correlate the software application usage
statistics with a subgroup selected from at least one of a
department of the business, business unit of the enterprise, cost
center of the enterprise, and a country of use, wherein the
subgroup is different from the first grouping; prepare a compliance
report indicating discrepancies between the software application
usage statistics and the software application license availability,
the compliance report including information pertaining to users or
devices not matching the first grouping and the subgrouping as
defined in the license information; and identify a plurality of
remediation options available for non-compliant usage of at least
one of the software applications, the remediation options including
purchase rights and at least one of: creating allocations, removing
allocations, removing unallocated installations, and removing
unlicensed installations.
16. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15,
wherein the compliance report comprises a true-up cost to correct
for at least one identified discrepancy.
17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15,
wherein users or devices that have a software installation and do
not match the first grouping and the subgrouping as defined in the
license information are considered unlicensed installations.
18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15,
wherein the compliance report provides information restricted based
on an identified publisher or set of publishers.
19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15,
wherein the compliance report comprises information regarding
potential upgrades of software applications identified in the
software application usage statistics to address at least one
identified discrepancy.
20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15,
wherein a global right of entitlement may be applied during
correlation and considered to match any value of the first grouping
or the subgroup.
Description
RELATED CASES
[0001] This application claims priority to and benefit of U.S.
Provisional Patent Application Ser. 62/568,087, filed Oct. 4, 2017,
entitled "Platform Computing Environment and Functionality
thereof," by Amradkar, et. al, for all applicable purposes,
including a right of priority, the contents of which are
incorporated by reference herein, in their entirety.
TECHNICAL FIELD
[0002] Embodiments described herein generally relate to enterprise
computing and, in particular, to providing a software license
management, compliance, and reconciliation system. In today's
enterprise systems there may be a mix of cloud-based, traditional
hardware, traditional software, and subscription based software
application installations. Disclosed techniques address proper
discovery, management of allocations, and compliance requirements
for software installation and license management across such hybrid
systems.
BACKGROUND
[0003] Cloud computing relates to the sharing of computing
resources that are generally accessed via the Internet. In
particular, cloud computing infrastructure allows users to access a
shared pool of computing resources, such as servers, storage
devices, networks, applications, and/or other computing-based
services. By doing so, users, such as individuals and/or
enterprises, are able to access computing resources on demand that
are located at remote locations in order to perform a variety of
computing functions that include storing and/or processing
computing data. For enterprise and other organization users, cloud
computing provides flexibility in accessing cloud computing
resources without accruing up-front costs, such as purchasing
network equipment and investing time in establishing a private
network infrastructure. Instead, by utilizing cloud computing
resources, users are able redirect their resources to focus on core
business functions.
[0004] In today's communication networks, examples of cloud
computing services a user may utilize include software as a service
(SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) technologies. SaaS is a
delivery model that provides software as a service rather than an
end product. Instead of utilizing local network or individual
software installations, software is typically licensed on a
subscription basis, hosted on a remote machine, and accessed as
needed. For example, users are generally able to access a variety
of business and/or information technology (IT) related software via
a web browser. PaaS acts as an extension of SaaS that goes beyond
providing software services by offering customizability and
expandability features to meet a user's needs. For example, PaaS
can provide a cloud-based developmental platform for users to
develop, modify, and/or customize applications and/or automate
business operations without maintaining network infrastructure
and/or allocating computing resources normally associated with
these functions.
[0005] Within the context of cloud computing solutions, software
license management and compliance reporting may be complicated.
Enterprise's may consist of traditional hardware infrastructure
maintained by an internal information technology staff with local
software application installations, cloud-based pay for use
applications (e.g., SaaS), cloud-based or mainframe based pay for
use software, and subscription web-based applications, among other
possibilities. Disclosed techniques for a software compliance,
discovery, and management system address many of the issues
encountered in such a hybrid environment and allow customization
capabilities for increased flexibility to insure compliance with
license requirements. Additionally, disclosed techniques help to
identify improper allocations of software licenses, identify
improper installations of software, ensure adherence to
geographical licensing restrictions, and compliance with other
license management requirements for enterprise solutions.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS
[0006] For a more complete understanding of this disclosure,
reference is now made to the following brief description, taken in
connection with the accompanying drawings and detailed description,
wherein like reference numerals represent like parts.
[0007] FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of an embodiment of a
cloud computing infrastructure 100 where embodiments of the present
disclosure may operate.
[0008] FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of an embodiment of a
multi-instance cloud architecture 200 where embodiments of the
present disclosure may operate.
[0009] FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram 300 depicting a possible
reconciliation framework including multiple engines and sub-engines
(e.g., operational units) that may be used to configure a system
for software license monitoring and management according to the
present disclosure.
[0010] FIG. 4 illustrates a flow chart 400 explaining possible
steps to automate a process of software license discovery,
reconciliation, and remediation as may be implemented in one or
more disclosed embodiments of a system for license monitoring and
management.
[0011] FIG. 5 illustrates a screen shot 500 of an example interface
screen as may be shown to an end-user defining parameters of a
software entitlement (e.g., license set) according to one or more
disclosed embodiments.
[0012] FIG. 6 illustrates a screen shot 600 of an example interface
screen as may be shown to an end-user defining a custom license
metric according to one or more disclosed embodiments.
[0013] FIG. 7 illustrates a screen shot 700 of an example interface
screen as may be shown to an end-user viewing a set of software
entitlements and their high-level properties representing multiple
license agreements (e.g., for an enterprise or corporation)
according to one or more disclosed embodiments.
[0014] FIG. 8 illustrates a screen shot 800 of an example interface
screen as may be shown to an end-user monitoring compliance of a
Processor Value Unit (PVU) sub-capacity license model according to
one or more disclosed embodiments.
[0015] FIG. 9 illustrates a screen shot 900 of an example interface
screen as may be shown to an end-user defining parameters for a
compliance report, generated as a step in reconciliation, according
to one or more disclosed embodiments.
[0016] FIG. 10 illustrates a screen shot 1000 of an example
interface screen as may be shown to an end-user viewing
reconciliation results according to one or more disclosed
embodiments.
[0017] FIG. 11 illustrates a high-level block diagram 1100 of a
processing device (computing system) that may be used to implement
one or more disclosed embodiments.
DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS
[0018] In the following description, for purposes of explanation,
numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a
thorough understanding of the embodiments disclosed herein. It will
be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art that the disclosed
embodiments may be practiced without these specific details. In
other instances, structure and devices are shown in block diagram
form in order to avoid obscuring the disclosed embodiments.
Moreover, the language used in this disclosure has been principally
selected for readability and instructional purposes, and may not
have been selected to delineate or circumscribe the inventive
subject matter, resorting to the claims being necessary to
determine such inventive subject matter. Reference in the
specification to "one embodiment" or to "an embodiment" means that
a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in
connection with the embodiments is included in at least one
embodiment.
[0019] The terms "a," "an," and "the" are not intended to refer to
a singular entity unless explicitly so defined, but include the
general class of which a specific example may be used for
illustration. The use of the terms "a" or "an" may therefore mean
any number that is at least one, including "one," "one or more,"
"at least one," and "one or more than one." The term "or" means any
of the alternatives and any combination of the alternatives,
including all of the alternatives, unless the alternatives are
explicitly indicated as mutually exclusive. The phrase "at least
one of" when combined with a list of items, means a single item
from the list or any combination of items in the list. The phrase
does not require all of the listed items unless explicitly so
defined.
[0020] The term "computing system" is generally taken to refer to
at least one electronic computing device that includes, but is not
limited to, a single computer, virtual machine, virtual container,
host, server, laptop, and/or mobile device or to a plurality of
electronic computing devices working together to perform the
function described as being performed on or by the computing
system.
[0021] As used herein, the term "medium" refers to one or more
non-transitory physical media that together store the contents
described as being stored thereon. Embodiments may include
non-volatile secondary storage, read-only memory (ROM), and/or
random-access memory (RAM).
[0022] As used herein, the terms "application" and "function" refer
to one or more computing modules, programs, processes, workloads,
threads and/or a set of computing instructions executed by a
computing system. Example embodiments of applications and functions
include software modules, software objects, software instances
and/or other types of executable code.
[0023] Software licenses represent legal contracts between a
software vendor (sometimes referred to as a software publisher) and
a purchaser of the associated software application(s). Often, the
contract is between the software vendor and a corporation or
enterprise for use by their employees as end-users. In some cases,
software licenses are referred to as software "entitlements," in
part, because they entitle a corporation to utilize a number of
copies of software across their enterprise. Terms of software
licenses vary greatly and generally depend on a type of use for
applications subject to a particular license. In a simple case, a
software license allows specific corporate employees to use a
specific software application for an undefined length of time after
a single payment. Sometimes, this may be referred to as a
named-user shrink wrap license. In what may be considered the
simplest case, when a named-user restriction is not present the
software license may simply be referred to as a shrink wrap
license. Many more complicated variations of software licenses, in
the form of entitlements, exist and generally describe restrictions
on how a particular application may be used. Restrictions include,
but are not restricted to, use over a network by a concurrent
number of users (referred to as a floating license or a network
license), use for a specific time period over the Internet
(referred to as a subscription based license), use of a particular
application on a particular server (referred to as a node locked
license), use of a set of applications that are not individually
licensed (referred to as an application suite license), and even
Processor Value Unit sub-capacity licensing (where a portion of a
processor's total capacity is licensed). There are simply too many
variations to list each model as an example. However, in the
majority of cases there exist common elements regarding the
restrictions imposed on the purchaser or licensee. Enterprises must
adhere to all applicable restrictions to be in compliance with
their vendor's software license terms. Compliance is important
because being out of compliance may result in substantial fines or
other penalties.
[0024] License enforcement methods used by software vendors vary
greatly and industry trends change over time. Some methods
completely lock down a system and prevent unlicensed software from
loading. Other systems allow software to execute, possibly in a
degraded operational state, when out of compliance. Some vendors
rely on a paper license with no automatic enforcement. This
disclosure includes embodiments to cover all current and possibly
future cases, in part, by allowing customization capabilities
discussed later. When a company runs in a non-compliant environment
a "true-up" cost may be calculated. The true-up cost represents an
additional cost (paid by the corporation to the software vendor) to
purchase enough additional licenses to correct non-compliance
issues (with or without additional fees or penalties). Purchasing
additional licenses (e.g., rights or entitlements) is one
remediation option. Other remediation options are discussed
throughout this disclosure. Some disclosed embodiments recognize a
plurality of remediation options and allow a software license
administrator (corporation employee) to adjust an enterprise's
allocations to regain a compliant environment. In some cases,
compliance may be achieved without purchasing anything new.
Obviously, these cases result in bottom line savings for the
enterprise. Metrics made available in compliance reports may also
assist an enterprise or corporation with future budget planning.
Planning may be assisted by the system because identification of
non-compliant (or fully allocated) software may indicate a future
purchase requirement at the corporate, enterprise, cost center, or
country level. Also, some cases may not allow simple re-allocation
of licenses. For example, existing licenses may be restricted by
country or may not match requirements for desired use of the
software application(s). In this case, an enterprise may need to
interface with the software vendor to trade their excess licenses
of one type and acquire more appropriate licenses. Again, the
enterprise or corporation may save money because the software
vendor may give a credit toward new licenses if other licenses are
relinquished. Disclosed embodiments also include reports that allow
visibility into an enterprise's actual needs and may assist in
making business decisions regarding software use across the
corporation or enterprise.
[0025] Restrictions appearing in software licenses have some common
attributes. Restrictions, at a very high level, may be thought of
as placing a limit on user, location, duration, amount, etc. for a
specific application (or suite). Each software application may have
its own restrictions imposed and these restrictions may change over
time. Reasons for change may include, but not be limited to:
enterprise growth; changes in usage patterns; re-negotiation of
license terms; availability of new or different applications; end
of life of applications; and technological or business factors.
[0026] It is clear from the discussion above that management of
software entitlements (licenses) for a corporation may be
complicated. Systems have been built to assist in managing
compliance and identifying methods to regain compliance once a
non-compliance has been identified. Regaining of compliance may be
referred to as "reconciliation" and may require one or more
"remediation" operations to achieve. Existing systems have
limitations in their ability to flexibly manage the vast variety of
restrictions appearing in license contracts. Particularly,
flexibility is needed with respect to discovery of virtual,
subscription, global, and cloud-based applications. To address
these and other issues, this disclosure presents several
embodiments of systems designed to handle new methods of grouping,
tracking, discovering, and applying defined restrictions to
software applications in use by a corporation. Disclosed
embodiments include the ability to assign departments, cost
centers, locations, and other groups to Software Entitlements so
that rights may be accordingly assigned to the correct group during
reconciliation. Disclosed systems also offer a variety of
remediation options previously unavailable to assist software
license managers in their goal of running within a compliant system
and quickly performing reconciliation to address any non-compliance
issues.
[0027] In some disclosed embodiments, a system has the ability to
track any number of attributes and associate them with software
applications and their licenses. Tracking at the level of
department, country, cost center, company within organization
(e.g., subsidiary), may all be important aspects to ensure
compliance. These same four attributes may be tracked on individual
software installations so as discovery runs and identifies that a
user has a software application (in one example a particular
version of an application), those attributes may be tied to that
particular installation. When software reconciliation is performed,
calculations across a plurality of engines may be performed and
their results correlated to consider a compliance position. Group
attributes may also be considered so that rights are properly
applied. If, for example, rights are purchased for a particular
department, users only in that department are part of the
allocation of those rights. Similarly, if rights are purchased for
a particular country, software application licenses will only be
allocated where the user or device exists in that country. The
disclosed reconciliation framework also supports global
entitlements, rights that have been purchased across any
department, cost center, company. Further, multiple subgroup
classifications may be performed. For example a compliance report
may be generated that sorts by country and then by department.
[0028] In addition to the grouping reconciliation noted above, some
embodiments include an ability to define a custom license metric
calculation. Custom license metric calculation represents the
ability for customers to enter a custom script or program that
defines how to calculate the number of rights that need to be
applied to a software installation or a set of software
installations. For example, as part of discovery process. Then,
when reconciliation runs information identified by any custom
script or program may be included in the overall reconciliation
logic. In this manner, anything that the customer has decided may
be important to track may be maintained and utilized across the
entire reconciliation framework.
[0029] Publisher specific discovery plugins (e.g., IBM or VMWARE)
may also be applied. Publisher specific discovery plugins may be
provided by software vendors or as part of the reconciliation
framework for popular vendors as needed. In yet another example, a
software vendor's raw inventory feed may be processed by the
reconciliation framework. A software vendor's raw feed may be data
maintained as part of applications monitoring their own license
status (e.g., license file information, run-time license checking,
license server information, etc.). Subscription services may also
be discovered and monitored via specialization logic implemented as
either a custom script of publisher specific add-on. Subscription
based monitoring for compliance has special factors to consider
because often the use is on-line across a network and there may be
very little software installation foot print or other usage
information by which to track subscription software and perform
reconciliation.
[0030] A discovery map, as used in this disclosure, refers to a
configuration or rules file that provides information about
attributes of one or more software applications. The information
from a discovery map may be used as part of discovery to aid in
proper application of rights as part of reconciliation. An
attribute referred to as an "installation consideration" may be
also tracked as an attribute of each discovered software
application installation. For example, the "installation
consideration" may define an installation as part of a system used
for testing or disaster recovery backup. This attribute may be
important because some software agreements count only production
use. In these cases, any test or disaster recovery backup site need
not be monitored for compliance. Accordingly, added attributes for
each software installation may be used to further refine how
information from each identified software installation is tracked
for compliance. Further information about a reconciliation
framework to ensure license compliance is discussed below with
reference to FIGS. 3-10.
[0031] FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of an embodiment of a
cloud computing infrastructure 100 where embodiments of the present
disclosure may operate. Cloud computing infrastructure 100
comprises a customer network 102, network 108, and a cloud
resources platform/network 110. In one embodiment, the customer
network 102 may be a local private network, such as local area
network (LAN) that includes a variety of network devices that
include, but are not limited to switches, servers, and routers.
Each of these networks can contain wired or wireless programmable
devices and operate using any number of network protocols (e.g.,
TCP/IP) and connection technologies (e.g., WiFi.RTM. networks,
Bluetooth.RTM.). Wi-Fi is a registered trademark of the Wi-Fi
Alliance. Bluetooth is a registered trademark of Bluetooth Special
Interest Group. In another embodiment, customer network 102
represents an enterprise network that could include or be
communicatively coupled to one or more local area networks (LANs),
virtual networks, data centers, and/or other remote networks (e.g.,
108, 112). As shown in FIG. 1, customer network 102 may be
connected to one or more client devices 104A-E and allow the client
devices to communicate with each other and/or with cloud resources
platform/network 110. Client devices 104A-E may be computing
systems such as desktop computer 104B, tablet computer 104C, mobile
phone 104D, laptop computer (shown as wireless) 104E, and/or other
types of computing systems generically shown as client device 104A.
Cloud computing infrastructure 100 may also include other types of
devices generally referred to as Internet of Things (IoT) (e.g.,
edge IOT device 105) that may be configured to send and receive
information via a network to access cloud computing services or
interact with a remote web browser application (e.g., to receive
configuration information). FIG. 1 also illustrates that customer
network 102 may be connected to a local compute resource 106 that
may include a server, access point, router, or other device
configured to provide for local computational resources and/or to
facilitate communication amongst networks and devices. For example,
local compute resource 106 may be one or more physical local
hardware devices configured to communicate with wireless network
devices and/or facilitate communication of data between customer
network 102 and other networks such as network 108 and cloud
resources platform/network 110. Local compute resource 106 may also
facilitate communication between other external applications, data
sources, and services, and customer network 102. FIG. 1 also
illustrates that customer network 102 may be connected to a
computer configured to execute a management, instrumentation, and
discovery (MID) server 107. For example, MID server 107 may be a
Java application that runs as a Windows service or UNIX daemon. MID
server 107 may be configured to assist functions such as, but not
necessarily limited to, discovery, orchestration, service mapping,
service analytics, and event management. MID server 107 may be
configured to perform tasks for a cloud-based instance while never
initiating communication directly to the cloud-instance by
utilizing a work queue architecture. This configuration may assist
in addressing security concerns by eliminating that path of direct
communication initiation.
[0032] Cloud computing infrastructure 100 also includes cellular
network 103 for use with mobile communication devices. Mobile
cellular networks support mobile phones and many other types of
mobile devices such as laptops etc. Mobile devices in cloud
computing infrastructure 100 are illustrated as mobile phone 104D,
laptop 104E, and tablet 104C. A mobile device such as mobile phone
104D may interact with one or more mobile provider networks as the
mobile device moves, typically interacting with a plurality of
mobile network towers 120, 130, and 140 for connecting to the
cellular network 103. Although referred to as a cellular network in
FIG. 1, a mobile device may interact with towers of more than one
provider network, as well as with multiple non-cellular devices,
such as wireless access points and routers (e.g., local compute
resource 106). In addition, the mobile devices may interact with
other mobile devices or with non-mobile devices such as desktop
computer 104B and various types of client devices 104A for desired
services. Although not specifically illustrated in FIG. 1, customer
network 102 may also include a dedicated network device (e.g.,
gateway or router) or a combination of network devices that
implement a customer firewall or intrusion protection system.
[0033] FIG. 1 illustrates that customer network 102 is coupled to a
network 108. Network 108 may include one or more computing networks
available today, such as other LANs, wide area networks (WANs), the
Internet, and/or other remote networks, in order to transfer data
between client devices 104A-E and cloud resources platform/network
110. Each of the computing networks within network 108 may contain
wired and/or wireless programmable devices that operate in the
electrical and/or optical domain. For example, network 108 may
include wireless networks, such as cellular networks in addition to
cellular network 103. Wireless networks may utilize a variety of
protocols and communication techniques (e.g., Global System for
Mobile Communications (GSM) based cellular network) wireless
fidelity Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth, Near Field Communication (NFC),
and/or other suitable radio-based networks as would be appreciated
by one of ordinary skill in the art upon viewing this disclosure.
Network 108 may also employ any number of network communication
protocols, such as Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet
Protocol (IP). Although not explicitly shown in FIG. 1, network 108
may include a variety of network devices, such as servers, routers,
network switches, and/or other network hardware devices configured
to transport data over networks.
[0034] In FIG. 1, cloud resources platform/network 110 is
illustrated as a remote network (e.g., a cloud network) that is
able to communicate with client devices 104A-E via customer network
102 and network 108. The cloud resources platform/network 110 acts
as a platform that provides additional computing resources to the
client devices 104A-E and/or customer network 102. For example, by
utilizing the cloud resources platform/network 110, users of client
devices 104A-E may be able to build and execute applications, such
as automated processes for various business, IT, and/or other
organization-related functions. In one embodiment, the cloud
resources platform/network 110 includes one or more data centers
112, where each data center 112 could correspond to a different
geographic location. Within a particular data center 112 a cloud
service provider may include a plurality of server instances 114.
Each server instance 114 may be implemented on a physical computing
system, such as a single electronic computing device (e.g., a
single physical hardware server) or could be in the form a
multi-computing device (e.g., multiple physical hardware servers).
Examples of server instances 114 include, but are not limited to, a
web server instance (e.g., a unitary Apache installation), an
application server instance (e.g., unitary Java Virtual Machine),
and/or a database server instance (e.g., a unitary MySQL
catalog).
[0035] To utilize computing resources within cloud resources
platform/network 110, network operators may choose to configure
data centers 112 using a variety of computing infrastructures. In
one embodiment, one or more of data centers 112 are configured
using a multi-tenant cloud architecture such that a single server
instance 114, which can also be referred to as an application
instance, handles requests and serves more than one customer. In
some cases, data centers with multi-tenant cloud architecture
commingle and store data from multiple customers, where multiple
customer instances are assigned to a single server instance 114. In
a multi-tenant cloud architecture, the single server instance 114
distinguishes between and segregates data and other information of
the various customers. For example, a multi-tenant cloud
architecture could assign a particular identifier for each customer
in order to identify and segregate the data from each customer. In
a multitenancy environment, multiple customers share the same
application, running on the same operating system, on the same
hardware, with the same data-storage mechanism. The distinction
between the customers is achieved during application design, thus
customers do not share or see each other's data. This is different
than virtualization where components are transformed, enabling each
customer application to appear to run on a separate virtual
machine. Generally, implementing a multi-tenant cloud architecture
may have a production limitation, such as the failure of a single
server instance 114 causing outages for all customers allocated to
the single server instance 114.
[0036] In another embodiment, one or more of the data centers 112
are configured using a multi-instance cloud architecture to provide
every customer its own unique customer instance. For example, a
multi-instance cloud architecture could provide each customer
instance with its own dedicated application server and dedicated
database server. In other examples, the multi-instance cloud
architecture could deploy a single server instance 114 and/or other
combinations of server instances 114, such as one or more dedicated
web server instances, one or more dedicated application server
instances, and one or more database server instances, for each
customer instance. In a multi-instance cloud architecture, multiple
customer instances could be installed on a single physical hardware
server where each customer instance is allocated certain portions
of the physical server resources, such as computing memory,
storage, and processing power. By doing so, each customer instance
has its own unique software stack that provides the benefit of data
isolation, relatively less downtime for customers to access the
cloud resources platform/network 110, and customer-driven upgrade
schedules. An example of implementing a customer instance within a
multi-instance cloud architecture will be discussed in more detail
below when describing FIG. 2.
[0037] FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of an embodiment of a
multi-instance cloud architecture 200 where embodiments of the
present disclosure may operate. FIG. 2 illustrates that the
multi-instance cloud architecture 200 includes a customer network
202 that connects to two data centers 206A and 206B via network
204. Customer network 202 and network 204 may be substantially
similar to customer network 102 and network 108 as described in
FIG. 1, respectively. Data centers 206A and 206B can correspond to
FIG. 1's data centers 112 located within cloud resources
platform/network 110. Using FIG. 2 as an example, a customer
instance 208 is composed of four dedicated application server
instances 210A-210D and two dedicated database server instances
212A and 212B. Stated another way, the application server instances
210A-210D and database server instances 212A and 212B are not
shared with other customer instances 208. Other embodiments of the
multi-instance cloud architecture 200 could include other types of
dedicated server instances, such as a web server instance. For
example, the customer instance 208 could include the four dedicated
application server instances 210A-210D, two dedicated database
server instances 212A and 212B, and four dedicated web server
instances (not shown in FIG. 2).
[0038] To facilitate higher availability of the customer instance
208, application server instances 210A-210D and database server
instances 212A and 212B are shown to be allocated to two different
data centers 206A and 206B, where one of data centers 206A and 206B
may act as a backup data center. In reference to FIG. 2, data
center 206A acts as a primary data center that includes a primary
pair of application server instances 210A and 210B and primary
database server instance 212A for customer instance 208, and data
center 206B acts as a secondary data center to back up primary data
center 206A for a customer instance 208. To back up primary data
center 206A for customer instance 208, secondary data center 206B
includes a secondary pair of application server instances 210C and
210D and a secondary database server instance 212B. Primary
database server instance 212A is able to replicate data to
secondary database server instance 212B. As shown in FIG. 2,
primary database server instance 212A replicates data to secondary
database server instance 212B using a replication operation such
as, for example, a Master-Master My SQL Binlog replication
operation. The replication of data between data centers could be
implemented in real time or by implementing full backup weekly and
daily incremental backups in both data centers 206A and 206B.
Having both a primary data center 206A and secondary data center
206B allows data traffic that typically travels to the primary data
center 206A for the customer instance 208 to be diverted to the
second data center 206B during a failure and/or maintenance
scenario. Using FIG. 2 as an example, if application server
instances 210A and 210B and/or primary data server instance 212A
fails and/or is under maintenance, data traffic for customer
instances 208 can be diverted to secondary application server
instances 210C and 210D and secondary database server instance 212B
for processing.
[0039] Although FIGS. 1 and 2 illustrate specific embodiments of a
cloud computing system 100 and a multi-instance cloud architecture
200, respectively, the disclosure is not limited to the specific
embodiments illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2. For instance, although
FIG. 1 illustrates that cloud resources platform/network 110 is
implemented using data centers, other embodiments of the of the
cloud resources platform/network 110 are not limited to data
centers and can utilize other types of remote network
infrastructures. Moreover, other embodiments of the present
disclosure may combine one or more different server instances into
a single server instance. Using FIG. 2 as an example, application
server instances 210A-210D and database server instances 212A-212B
can be combined into a single server instance. The use and
discussion of FIGS. 1 and 2 are only examples to facilitate ease of
description and explanation.
[0040] Referring now to FIG. 3, block diagram 300 illustrates a
possible reconciliation framework design that includes multiple
engines and sub-engines (e.g., operational units). Diagram 300
represents one configuration of a system for software license
monitoring and management according to the present disclosure.
Discovery engine 305 includes a plurality of sub-processes that may
be used to identify software installations across an enterprise
infrastructure such as customer network 102 of FIG. 1 and its
connected devices. Discovery engine 305 includes installation
probes 320 that may be used to probe systems to discover a software
installation footprint. Probes may be run locally on different
systems to interrogate the hard disks of each system to identify
files that may be an indication of a software installation that
must be associated with a license. For example, the probes may
identify executable modules, configuration files, or license files
that are known to represent a particular software installation. Raw
feed interrogator 322 represents a monitoring function that can
identify and gather data from information maintained by a software
vendor's application running in a customer's environment. For
example, a network license server may expose an API or other
interface whereby license information may be obtained. Custom
scripts 324 (or other types of programs) may be supplied to
identify particular software applications expected to exist in a
customer network that may not be easily identified by standard
probing techniques. Custom scripts 324 represent an available
extension to the base functionality that may be tailored as needed
(e.g., a plug-in capability). Discovery maps 326 represent
configuration files to instruct the system how to discover software
applications within the customer network. Publisher packs 328
represent either configuration files such as a publisher specific
discovery map or scripts designed to discover software application
from a particular publisher (e.g., software vendor). Network
monitors 330 represent functional components that may be configured
to monitor network traffic to identify software installations or
use of subscription based software from particular devices within
an enterprise network. Pay per use monitors 332 represent monitors
that may be configured to identify software use that is charged
based on its use as opposed to the fact that it is merely installed
on a particular device. Examples include mainframe applications
such as provided by IBM that may be licensed using a Processor
Value Unit (PVU). The number of PVU entitlements required is based
on the processor technology defined within the PVU Table by
Processor Vendor, Brand, Type and Model Number and by the number of
processors made available to the program or application being
monitored. IBM continues to define a processor, for the purpose of
PVU-based licensing, to be each processor core on a chip. A
dual-core processor chip, for example, has two processor cores.
[0041] Reconciliation engine 310 represents a second engine of
reconciliation framework 300. Reconciliation engine 310
incorporates several sub-engines or operational units to perform
functions associated with reconciling information obtained by
discovery engine 305 against information pertaining to software
licenses (e.g., a license data base). Software suites sub-engine
340 represents a sub-engine configured to manage software
applications that may be made available to devices as part of a
suite license as opposed to individual application licenses. Some
software applications are available both individually and as part
of a suite. Allocation sub-engine 342 may be configured to make a
determination as to which type of license to allocate to a device
as part of reconciliation. License metric sub-engine 346 represents
a sub-engine configured to manage information collected by custom
license metric logic as may be designed by a customer (See FIG. 6
below). Groupings sub-engine 348 represents a sub-engine configured
to perform software licenses groupings. For example, groupings
sub-engine 348 may be configured to group allocations and
entitlements by geographic region, subsidiary of a lager
enterprise, country, cost center, department or other grouping that
may be used to track software allocations and cost within an
enterprise. Reporting operations 350 represent components of
reconciliation engine 310 responsible for presenting reconciliation
reports and correlation information for presentation by the
reconciliation engine 310.
[0042] Remediation engine 315 contains multiple functional
components to assist in performing remediation options to maintain
or achieve overall compliance. Allocation creation component 360
allows a user to create allocations for software installations and
assign licenses to particular users or devices. Allocation removal
component 362 allows removal of licenses previously assigned to
user devices. For example, a license may have been assigned to a
device and but not be installed thereon. Accordingly, that
allocation may be moved to a device that requires a license to
address an out of compliance situation. Software uninstallation
component 364 represents functionality to automatically initiate
uninstallation of software from a target device within the customer
network. After uninstallation from that device an allocated license
may be reassigned to another device that may have been identified
as non-compliant. Allocation purchase component 366 represents
functionality to initiate purchase of additional licenses and
"true-up" an out of compliance situation. An enterprise may want to
exhaust other options to become compliant prior to paying a true-up
cost to a software vendor. In one example, allocation purchase
component 366 may automatically generate a purchase order
containing information appropriate to address non-compliance and
submit the purchase order to a purchasing system to facilitate
acquisition of additional licenses.
[0043] Referring now to FIG. 4, flow chart 400 includes possible
steps to automate a process of software license discovery,
reconciliation, and remediation as may be implemented in one or
more embodiments of a system for license monitoring and management
in accordance with this disclosure. Each of these steps may be
performed in the order shown or in a different order. Some steps
may be omitted from some implementations and other custom steps may
be added as required for different requirements. Beginning at block
405 software installations may be discovered throughout a corporate
network. Note that software installations may not be actual
installations on a hard disk of a device but may also represent
access to subscription based software or pay per use software. At
block 410, discovered applications that may be assigned as part of
a software suite may be determined to require a suite license
rather than an individual application license. At block 415,
allocations assigned to devices may be reconciled (e.g., correlated
and assigned) against actual software installations. At block 420,
license metric calculations (see FIG. 6 discussion below) may be
considered and included in the overall reconciliation process.
Block 425 indicates that subscription software usage from a
particular device may need to be included in an overall
reconciliation process. Block 430 indicates that software
installations may be associated with one or more groupings to
assist in maintaining overall compliance. For example, block 435
indicates a grouping-based-on-department is needed to properly
allocate cost within an organization's departments. Similarly,
blocks 440, 445, and 450 indicate that software installations may
be further associated with groups based on business unit, cost
center, or country of use respectively. Block 455 indicates that
compliance reports may be generated to provide end-user visibility
of a compliance position for the monitored system. Reports may be
broken down by groups and subgroups to achieve required levels of
granularity (see FIG. 9 discussion below). Block 460 indicates that
the system may receive an indication (typically initiated by a
license administrator) for adjustments of allocations as part of a
remediation plan to address a non-compliance issue as indicated on
a report. Block 465 indicates that actions to remediate a
non-compliant condition or further adjust licenses that may be
compliant (e.g., may be nearly non-compliant) may be initiated by
automatically interfacing with other systems of an enterprise. For
example, a software license purchase may be initiated or a software
uninstallation from one or more devices may be automatically
performed.
[0044] Referring now to FIG. 5, screen shot 500 illustrates an
example interface screen as may be shown to an end-user defining
parameters of a software entitlement (e.g., license set) according
to one or more disclosed embodiments. Title 505 indicates that this
entitlement is related to a particular product (e.g., Microsoft
Project 2016 Professional). Display name 510 defines a name to be
used for this entitlement on displays and reports produced by the
system. Publisher part number 515 may be used to supply a unique
identifier that may be used to associate this software entitlement
to a publisher pack used to assist in discovery. License type 520
indicates the type of license model to apply for this software
entitlement. Metric group 525 defines a grouping to be used for
this entitlement. License metric 530 indicates that this example
entitlement is to be applied per device. Agreement type 540
indicates that this entitlement is under a generic agreement. Entry
field 545 may be used to enter the number of purchased rights for
this entitlement. Active rights 550 indicates that there are
fifteen (15) active rights for this entitlement. Allocations
available indicates that there are currently twelve (12)
allocations of this software entitlement available (e.g., already
purchased and not assigned to a device). Data entry area 560 allows
for definition of purchase attributes associated with this software
entitlement. For example, block 565 allows for entry of a cost
center to associate with this entitlement. Data view area 570
indicates a possible downgrade/upgrade scenario applicable to this
entitlement. For example, element 575 shows that at least one
install of an older version of this product is known to exist
within the enterprise network.
[0045] Referring now to FIG. 6, screen shot 600 illustrates of an
example interface screen as may be shown to an end-user defining a
custom license metric according to one or more disclosed
embodiments. The custom license metric in this case is named "Index
Volume/Day" as shown at element 605. The calculation (e.g.,
scripting logic) to be applied to determine this metric is shown at
element 610. As explained above, this capability represents an
extension that may be used as part of the overall reconciliation
logic to include customer specific metrics in their overall
software license reconciliation framework. This example custom
metric calculates the amount of disk usage on nodes where this
custom metric is designated to be run.
[0046] Referring now to FIG. 7, screen shot 700 illustrates one
example interface screen as may be shown to an end-user viewing a
set of software entitlements and their high-level properties
representing multiple license agreements (e.g., for an enterprise
or corporation) according to one or more disclosed embodiments.
Column 705 includes a display name to indicate which product is
represented by each line of the report. Column 710 indicates a
metric group with which this product is assigned. For example, the
metric group may be custom or may be a particular software vendor
associated with the software license information for an associated
product. In some embodiments, a product may belong to more than one
group. Column 715 indicates the license metric (e.g., per user, per
named user, per device, PVU, etc.) providing an indication of the
software license model in use for the information provided on the
row of the report. Column 720 indicates that all the example
licenses shown in screen shot 700 are full licenses (e.g., licenses
that are not restricted by use and may be used by anyone, anywhere,
in the enterprise). Column 725 indicates the number of active
rights for each software entitlement shown. Column 730 indicates
the number of purchased rights for each software entitlement shown.
Column 735 indicates the cost of the software entitlements shown.
This report represents an inventory of available software
entitlements for an enterprise and information underlying this
report may be used for reconciliation against discovered software
installations and usage to produce a compliance report.
[0047] Referring now to FIG. 8, screen shot 800 illustrates an
example interface screen as may be shown to an end-user monitoring
compliance of a Processor Value Unit (PVU) sub-capacity license
model according to one or more disclosed embodiments. Element 805
indicates that there are 21 products currently out of compliance
for week 31. Element 810 indicates that the current true-up cost is
two hundred twenty thousand dollars for week 31. Graph 825 shows
the PVU sub-capacity consumption for weeks 22 through 29. Note in
weeks 24, 26, 27 and 28 was below the consumption charge (element
826) whereas in weeks 23, 25 and 29 the PVU sub-capacity
consumption exceeded that week's consumption charge. Table 820
lists particular product names and the PVU sub-capacity breakdown
of the top 10 products. Screen shot 800 illustrates both the
variation possibilities for some software licensing models and
further illustrates the potentially large cost of software to
enterprise users. Accordingly, software license administrators may
benefit from greater visibility and control provided from disclosed
embodiments of systems to maintain compliance.
[0048] Referring now to FIG. 9, screen shot 900 illustrates an
example interface screen as may be shown to an end-user defining
parameters for a compliance report, generated as a step in
reconciliation, according to one or more disclosed embodiments.
Element 905 indicates that reconciliation may be run for selected
publishers (e.g., software vendors). Element 910 indicates that
results may be grouped by a primary group and element 915 indicates
a sub group within the primary group by which to organize the
reconciliation report. Reconciliation is the process of comparing
the software entitlements which have been procured, contracted, or
subscribed to against the software installations and/or software
subscriptions which have been discovered in an environment to
determine if the environment is compliant or not compliant with
respect to software license usage. The following discussion
describes one example process for reconciliation according to
disclosed embodiments. When running this example reconciliation,
the system takes as input a publisher or publishers for which
reconciliation should be run. In addition, a group value may be
selected from: country, location, department, cost center, and
region. Next, a subgroup may be selected from any of that same set
of groupings not selected as the group value. In this example, the
system will apply the "right of the entitlement" to only users or
devices that both have a software installation and match the
specified group and subgroup values from the purchased and/or
contracted software entitlement. For example, if the right of
entitlement can be applied to users only in the US and there were
no rights of entitlement in the UK, then software installations
assigned to users located in the UK would be unlicensed. Using a
subgroup increases the number of dimensions which must be matched
between the user or device and the software entitlement. For
example, if a software entitlement exists for users in the IT
department within the US, when reconciliation is run with a group
of country and subgroup of department, users in the US in the
Marketing department that have the software installation would be
considered unlicensed. The output of the reconciliation process is
a hierarchy of results based on the group and subgroup. The first
layer in the hierarchy is a high level product summary of the
overall product status across all groups and subgroups, giving the
compliance position as well as the potential savings and the
over-licensed amount. Within the product results, there is a second
level breakdown of product results by group and subgroup. Within
this second layer is a third layer giving more granular details
about the different versions and editions of the product you own, a
fourth layer which gives details about the types of software rights
you own for that version and edition of the product, and a fifth
layer which gives the users and devices which have a software
installation. If reconciliation is run without a group and/or
subgroup value, there is only one breakdown of the product result
summary. There may also be cases where there is an enterprise or
global agreement that is not specific to any one group and
subgroup. If this is the case, these global software rights will be
considered during reconciliation and can license users or devices
across the specified country, department, region, company, or cost
center. For example, a global software entitlement will assign a
license to users in the US and the UK if reconciliation is run with
a group value of country. By structuring the results in a
hierarchy, the system may cycle though and calculate how many
rights need to be assigned to a user/device for any given software.
This is done by creating a rights used by record associated to a
license metric result which relates to the software model result.
The calculated information from rights used by rolls up to a
license metric result, which in turn rolls up to the software model
result. Next, everything rolls up to the product result. Each
software entitlement record itself has a field called license
metric which are calculations used during reconciliation to count
the number of rights a user or device needs for a particular piece
of software it is using. Each license metric is a distinct
calculation (per device assigns a number of rights to a device
based on the number of software installations for a product that
exist on the device). When reconciliation runs, the process first
considers suites and bundles defined in a software model to
determine or infer which software installations belong to the suite
or bundle. Then the process takes a software product for a
publisher and orders all of the license metrics a product uses
based on a "reconciliation order--allocated" value and a
"reconciliation order--unallocated" value defined on each license
metric. Then rights are assigned to software installations based on
the rank of the software models within a software product. The rank
of the software model is determined by a software models
specificity, for example, "Microsoft Project 2016 Professional
Windows English" is more specific than "Microsoft Project 2016
Professional." After all of the products within a publisher have
been processed, a final pass is done for the publisher to determine
if there are any upgrade or downgrade rights which can be used to
license any software installations which up until this point are
considered unlicensed. After this portion of the process completes,
the reconciliation engine moves on to the next publisher until all
publishers have been reconciled. When group and subgroup values are
used in reconciliation, during the second step, the process will
group the software entitlement by the group and subgroup values and
then order the license metrics for a software product within a
given group and subgroup. At the end of each calculation for
product, group and subgroup, downgrades and upgrades are
considered. Iterations through the same product are done until all
group and subgroup combinations are addressed, then the next
product for a publisher is reconciled. This process of ordering
license metrics and iterating through products may ensure that
software rights are used in an optimal way. For example, two
different software entitlements may exist for a software model, one
uses the "Per user" license metric while the other uses the "Per
named user" metric. In this case, because Per Named User licenses
require an allocation those should be allocated first in the
allocated round, but in the unallocated round the process would
want to consume Per User rights first because those do not require
an allocation.
[0049] FIG. 10 illustrates a screen shot 1000 of an example
interface screen as may be shown to an end-user viewing
reconciliation results according to one or more disclosed
embodiments. Element 1005 indicates that this report is grouped by
department. Element 1010 indicates that no subgroup was defined for
this report. Column 1015 of the report identifies a unique number
for each report record. Column 1020 identifies a publisher for each
line item. Column 1025 indicates the product for each line item
(e.g., display name). Column 1030 indicates a status of "compliant"
or "not compliant" for each line item. Column 1035 indicates a
true-up cost if applicable. Column 1040 indicates an amount of
money spent for licenses that are not in use. Column 1045 indicates
a potential savings amount if there is enough information in the
system for an actual savings number to be suggested.
[0050] FIG. 11 illustrates a high-level block diagram 1100 of a
processing device (computing system) that may be used to implement
one or more disclosed embodiments (e.g., service provider cloud
infrastructure 110, client devices 104A-104E, server instances 111,
data centers 2011A-2011B, etc.). For example, computing device
1100, illustrated in FIG. 11, could represent a client device or a
physical server device and could include either hardware or virtual
processor(s) depending on the level of abstraction of the computing
device. In some instances (without abstraction) computing device
1100 and its elements as shown in FIG. 11 each relate to physical
hardware and in some instances one, more, or all of the elements
could be implemented using emulators or virtual machines as levels
of abstraction. In any case, no matter how many levels of
abstraction away from the physical hardware, computing device 1100
at its lowest level may be implemented on physical hardware. As
also shown in FIG. 11, computing device 1100 may include one or
more input devices 1130, such as a keyboard, mouse, touchpad, or
sensor readout (e.g., biometric scanner) and one or more output
devices 1115, such as displays, speakers for audio, or printers.
Some devices may be configured as input/output devices also (e.g.,
a network interface or touchscreen display). Computing device 1100
may also include communications interfaces 1125, such as a network
communication unit that could include a wired communication
component and/or a wireless communications component, which may be
communicatively coupled to processor 1105. The network
communication unit may utilize any of a variety of proprietary or
standardized network protocols, such as Ethernet, TCP/IP, to name a
few of many protocols, to effect communications between devices.
Network communication units may also comprise one or more
transceivers that utilize the Ethernet, power line communication
(PLC), Wi-Fi, cellular, and/or other communication methods.
[0051] As illustrated in FIG. 11, processing device 1100 includes a
processing element, such as processor 1105, that contains one or
more hardware processors, where each hardware processor may have a
single or multiple processor cores. In one embodiment, the
processor 1105 may include at least one shared cache that stores
data (e.g., computing instructions) that are utilized by one or
more other components of processor 1105. For example, the shared
cache may be a locally cached data stored in a memory for faster
access by components of the processing elements that make up
processor 1105. In one or more embodiments, the shared cache may
include one or more mid-level caches, such as level 2 (L2), level 3
(L3), level 4 (L4), or other levels of cache, a last level cache
(LLC), or combinations thereof. Examples of processors include, but
are not limited to a central processing unit (CPU) microprocessor.
Although not illustrated in FIG. 11, the processing elements that
make up processor 1105 may also include one or more other types of
hardware processing components, such as graphics processing units
(GPUs), application specific integrated circuits (ASICs),
field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and/or digital signal
processors (DSPs).
[0052] FIG. 11 illustrates that memory 1110 may be operatively and
communicatively coupled to processor 1105. Memory 1110 may be a
non-transitory medium configured to store various types of data.
For example, memory 1110 may include one or more storage devices
1120 that comprise a non-volatile storage device and/or volatile
memory. Volatile memory, such as random access memory (RAM), can be
any suitable non-permanent storage device. The non-volatile storage
devices 1120 can include one or more disk drives, optical drives,
solid-state drives (SSDs), tap drives, flash memory, read only
memory (ROM), and/or any other type memory designed to maintain
data for a duration time after a power loss or shut down operation.
In certain instances, the non-volatile storage devices 1120 may be
used to store overflow data if allocated RAM is not large enough to
hold all working data. The non-volatile storage devices 1120 may
also be used to store programs that are loaded into the RAM when
such programs are selected for execution.
[0053] Persons of ordinary skill in the art are aware that software
programs may be developed, encoded, and compiled in a variety of
computing languages for a variety of software platforms and/or
operating systems and subsequently loaded and executed by processor
1105. In one embodiment, the compiling process of the software
program may transform program code written in a programming
language to another computer language such that the processor 1105
is able to execute the programming code. For example, the compiling
process of the software program may generate an executable program
that provides encoded instructions (e.g., machine code
instructions) for processor 1105 to accomplish specific,
non-generic, particular computing functions.
[0054] After the compiling process, the encoded instructions may
then be loaded as computer executable instructions or process steps
to processor 1105 from storage 1120, from memory 1110, and/or
embedded within processor 1105 (e.g., via a cache or on-board ROM).
Processor 1105 may be configured to execute the stored instructions
or process steps in order to perform instructions or process steps
to transform the computing device into a non-generic, particular,
specially programmed machine or apparatus. Stored data, e.g., data
stored by a storage device 1120, may be accessed by processor 1105
during the execution of computer executable instructions or process
steps to instruct one or more components within the computing
device 1100.
[0055] A user interface (e.g., output devices 1115 and input
devices 1130) can include a display, positional input device (such
as a mouse, touchpad, touchscreen, or the like), keyboard, or other
forms of user input and output devices. The user interface
components may be communicatively coupled to processor 1105. When
the output device is or includes a display, the display can be
implemented in various ways, including by a liquid crystal display
(LCD) or a cathode-ray tube (CRT) or light emitting diode (LED)
display, such as an OLED display. Persons of ordinary skill in the
art are aware that the computing device 1100 may comprise other
components well known in the art, such as sensors, powers sources,
and/or analog-to-digital converters, not explicitly shown in FIG.
11.
[0056] At least one embodiment is disclosed and variations,
combinations, and/or modifications of the embodiment(s) and/or
features of the embodiment(s) made by a person having ordinary
skill in the art are within the scope of the disclosure.
Alternative embodiments that result from combining, integrating,
and/or omitting features of the embodiment(s) are also within the
scope of the disclosure. Where numerical ranges or limitations are
expressly stated, such express ranges or limitations may be
understood to include iterative ranges or limitations of like
magnitude falling within the expressly stated ranges or limitations
(e.g., from about 1 to about 10 includes 2, 3, 4, etc.; greater
than 0.10 includes 0.11, 0.12, 0.13, etc.). The use of the term
"about" means.+-.10% of the subsequent number, unless otherwise
stated.
[0057] Use of the term "optionally" with respect to any element of
a claim means that the element is required, or alternatively, the
element is not required, both alternatives being within the scope
of the claim. Use of broader terms such as comprises, includes, and
having may be understood to provide support for narrower terms such
as consisting of, consisting essentially of, and comprised
substantially of. Accordingly, the scope of protection is not
limited by the description set out above but is defined by the
claims that follow, that scope including all equivalents of the
subject matter of the claims. Each and every claim is incorporated
as further disclosure into the specification and the claims are
embodiment(s) of the present disclosure.
[0058] It is to be understood that the above description is
intended to be illustrative and not restrictive. For example, the
above-described embodiments may be used in combination with each
other. Many other embodiments will be apparent to those of skill in
the art upon reviewing the above description. The scope of the
invention therefore should be determined with reference to the
appended claims, along with the full scope of equivalents to which
such claims are entitled. It should be noted that the discussion of
any reference is not an admission that it is prior art to the
present invention, especially any reference that may have a
publication date after the priority date of this application.
[0059] The subject matter of this disclosure may be applicable to
numerous use cases that have not been explicitly discussed here but
are contemplated by this disclosure. For example, the provisional
applications filed by the same applicant on May 4, 2017 and May 5,
2017 entitled "Service Platform and use thereof" have further
examples. The U.S. Provisional applications given filing Ser. Nos.
62/501,646; 62/501,657; 62/502,258; 62/502,308; and 62/502,244 are
hereby incorporated by reference.
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