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Licenses

In the Licenses category all license purchases can be viewed and managed, and compared to installations and usage.

A license is something you purchase to have the right to use a software application. Suppliers of software can issue licenses in many different variants, resulting in a large variety of licensing conditions. An application may also be offered with several different license options. The simplest form of license is one that permits one installation of a specified version of an application. More advanced licenses may permit several installations or multiple users, as well as the right to upgrade to a later version of the application.

The alert and report functionality in Snow License Manager helps the administrators identifying licenses that are not used correctly. This provides a possibility to make corrections to better utilize existing licenses and obtain maximum license usage.

Incomplete licenses​

The Incomplete licenses functionality makes it possible to import and/or register license purchases even though all required information is not available for the purchase to be used as a valid entitlement. You can for example import licenses from a file with incomplete data and then add the required information at a later stage.

License purchases with missing data are marked as incomplete and will not be included when compliance is calculated. Examples of data that will make the license purchase incomplete, if missing, are application name and quantity.

The Incomplete licenses functionality is activated by a setting in Snow MACC.

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Fields that are indicated as Required in the License Policy must be entered during license registration or the license cannot be saved, not even as incomplete.

Invalid license assignments​

A license assignment becomes invalid when a mismatch occurs between the type or quantities of the purchased license compared with the device or user the license is assigned to. For example, a previously valid license assignment can become invalid if:

  • The number of licenses assigned to a computer/datacenter exceeds the number required from a compliance perspective.

  • The application or family covered by the license is no longer installed on the computer/datacenter the license is assigned to.

  • The user the license is assigned to has not used the application nor any application in the family covered by the license within the specified metering period.

  • The processor count of the computer the license is assigned to exceeds the number covered by the license.

To prevent you from creating invalid licenses during assignment, an error will flag when you attempt to assign more licenses to a computer, datacenter, or user than you have purchased. This precaution will help prevent some invalid assignments, over time, changes in your environment will cause mismatches. To help you identify these mismatches alert messages show on the License details view and standard Reports provide a complete overview of invalid license assignments.

Alerts identifying potential mismatches include:

  • No eligible application installed – indicates that the application covered by the license purchase is not installed on the machine you have assigned the license to.

  • Overassignment – indicates that you have assigned more licenses to the user or machine than is required for compliance.

  • Missing primary user – indicates that the license was assigned to a user for an application that is not installed on any of the computers which the user is a primary user of.

  • Missing installation for user – indicates that the license is assigned to a user, but the user has never used the application.

  • No usage within metering period – indicates that the application metric has a metering period, but the application was not used by the user within this period of time.

  • Invalid processor count – indicates that the machine you have assigned the license to has more processors than which are covered by the license. This alert is only applicable for WindowsServer applications.

  • Missing computer, Inactive computer, Missing users, Missing datacenter, Invalid metric (metric equals 0), Invalid quantity (quantity less than, or equal to, 0), Invalid metric group (assigned metric is not supported by the application) - indicates invalid or missing data.

To gain an overview of invalid license assignments in your system, use the Invalid license assignments report, or add the Invalid assignments column to the All licenses report.

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Invalid license assignment can only occur for licenses that can be assigned to a Computer/datacenter, or a User. Licenses that are assigned automatically to an Organization or Site do not become invalid.

When computers or users are deleted, licenses assigned to them are automatically unassigned, removing any invalid license assignments.

Allocation​

When a license purchase is registered, you specify the legal organization owning the license. Also, you have the option to enable automatic allocation, or to manually allocate licenses to non-legal organizations.

For optimal utilization of the license ownership, it is recommended to use the automatic allocation feature instead of manual allocation. Automatic allocation is enabled when registering a license, see Add license purchase.

Automatic allocation​

With the automatic allocation functionality enabled, purchased licenses are automatically distributed to nodes in the organization hierarchy, based on the licensing requirements for each node. Licenses that are purchased on a central level of the organization will then automatically be distributed to underlying organization units based on actual installations. All licenses with automatic allocation enabled will be re-allocated each time compliance is calculated.

Automatic allocation is especially important to take into account for licenses with downgrade rights enabled. When both automatic allocation and downgrade rights are activated, licenses are compared to installations of the same and the specified prior versions of an application, on all sub-levels of the legal organization owning the license.

If automatic allocation is deactivated and no manual allocation has been made, the licenses for the specific purchase will only be compared to installations on the same organization level as the purchase is registered at. If downgrade is activated, installations of prior versions on the same organization level will be taken into account.

Manual allocation​

It is also possible to manually specify how licenses should be allocated. Manually allocated licenses will not be included in the automated allocation. When compliance is calculated, manually allocated licenses will only be used to cover applications within the organization node that these licenses have been allocated to.

License registration policy​

All processes and routines are dependent on all participants learning, understanding, and following instructions and policies. Snow License Manager allows you to facilitate registration of licenses and help the users to enter the correct information. You can make fields mandatory, add lists with pre-defined options, and add descriptions that clearly state the intended purpose of a specific field.

Correct registrations of license purchases will reduce the overall administration and prove a better foundation for your software asset management. The License registration policy is managed in the SLM Web UI, see Custom compare value types and License policy.

Subscription license​

Instead of purchasing a license, you can subscribe to the right to use an application. A subscription license is only valid for a specified period. Once the period has past, the license will no longer be included in the compliance calculation. However, subscription licenses attached to a subscription agreement will have their period overridden by the agreement period. For more information, see Subscription agreement.

In Snow License Manager, information on expired subscription licenses can be found here:

  • In Application details and on the Compliance tab, information is shown on number of Expired subscription licenses.

Unassigned licenses​

A license is regarded as unassigned when a license purchase has been registered with an assignment type and a quantity, but no assignments have been made, or assignments have only been made for a part of the license quantity.

In Snow License Manager, information on unassigned licenses can be found here:

  • In Application details and on the Compliance tab, see information on number of Unassigned licenses.

  • In the report All licenses, add the column Unassigned licenses from the Column selector.

  • In the alert report Unassigned licenses.

For assignment type Computer/datacenter:

  • In License details and on the Assignment tab, information is shown on number of Total licenses, number of Total assigned licenses, and number of Total remaining licenses to be assigned.