Generally available accounting software tools for SAM
Those who try themselves in the role of a software asset management manager or simply try to calculate the compliance of existing licenses that are actually used in the organization may be useful for this article.
It will be about the tools provided by the vendors themselves and designed to control the use of only their software. Such a restriction reduces the “usefulness” of these tools, and certainly is their disadvantage, but they also have a definite plus - they are provided free of charge.
Let's look at what tools vendors provide us and how they can be used.
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IBM License Metrics Tool (ILMT) is a tool to control license consumption with metrics PVU (Processor Value Units), RVU (Resource Value Units) and some other types of licenses. The limitation of this tool is the inability to measure the consumption of user license types, such as AU (Authorized User) and CC (Concurrent User). This restriction may be removed in future versions of ILMT. The tool is available for download on the manufacturer’s website, but only by IBM customers.
Organizations that have entered into the IBM Passport Advantage agreement, as a rule, use the Subcapacity method to calculate the required number of license rights. This method allows you to optimize license costs for complex computing environments. When using the Incomplete method, the use of the ILMT tool becomes a prerequisite for a license agreement with IBM.
To work with ILMT, you must also install another software product - IBM BigFix. ILMT works with data collected by the IBM BigFix program. If you use IBM BigFix only to support ILMT operation, you do not need to purchase licenses for IBM BigFix. BigFix agents installed on each device from which information is to be collected are used to collect data on IBM software installed in an organization. The virtualization structure data is collected by IBM BigFix using the additional VM Manager Tool connector.
ILMT does not allow to take into account the number of acquired rights to software products, but allows you to store a list of purchased licenses. Accordingly, the program itself can not perform a comparison of existing and used license rights.
To account for license rights and calculate compliance with existing and used rights, it is necessary to use additional software with software asset management capabilities (SAM).
MAP (Microsoft) Toolkit is a toolkit for analyzing and evaluating an organization's IT infrastructure, operating without the use of agent software. Software Usage Tracker is responsible for generating reports used to manage software licenses in the MAP Toolkit.
The utility generates reports on the following Microsoft software products: Windows Server, SharePoint Server, Exchange Server, SQL Server, and System Center Configuration Manager. For these products, licenses are monitored with the following metrics: Per-server, Per-processor, User CAL, Device CAL. Accordingly, for these software products, you can calculate and evaluate your needs for server, processor and client (CAL) licenses.
MAP is not able to take into account the existing license rights in the organization and to compare them with the rights used, for which it is also necessary to use additional software.
Usage Hub (HPE) is a special tool created by Hewlett Packard Enterprise for controlling licenses and positioned as “free service”. Usage Hub is able to collect and view information about existing licenses for HPE programs, their expiration date and the amount of use of these licenses.
Some of the information Usage Hub collects with the help of agents, and some non-agent way. To get complete information about licenses and their validity period, it is necessary to additionally configure the interaction between Usage HUB and HPE AutoPass License Server. Both Usage Hub itself and its agents can be installed in Windows and Linux operating environments.
The indisputable advantage of this solution is the possibility of obtaining reports on licensing compliance (compliance), generated both for the current moment and for a certain historical period of time, thanks to the automatic collection of information about installed licenses and their validity period. However, it is worth making a reservation here: Usage Hub is not intended to perform an audit of license compliance in an organization, which is explicitly stated in the documentation for the product.
And if you want to organize software asset management (SAM), you will need other tools to automate this activity.
Author: Aleksey Kolesnik, Lead Consultant, Witte Consulting Company (I-Teco Group of Companies)
It will be about the tools provided by the vendors themselves and designed to control the use of only their software. Such a restriction reduces the “usefulness” of these tools, and certainly is their disadvantage, but they also have a definite plus - they are provided free of charge.
Let's look at what tools vendors provide us and how they can be used.
')
IBM License Metrics Tool (ILMT)
IBM License Metrics Tool (ILMT) is a tool to control license consumption with metrics PVU (Processor Value Units), RVU (Resource Value Units) and some other types of licenses. The limitation of this tool is the inability to measure the consumption of user license types, such as AU (Authorized User) and CC (Concurrent User). This restriction may be removed in future versions of ILMT. The tool is available for download on the manufacturer’s website, but only by IBM customers.
Organizations that have entered into the IBM Passport Advantage agreement, as a rule, use the Subcapacity method to calculate the required number of license rights. This method allows you to optimize license costs for complex computing environments. When using the Incomplete method, the use of the ILMT tool becomes a prerequisite for a license agreement with IBM.
To work with ILMT, you must also install another software product - IBM BigFix. ILMT works with data collected by the IBM BigFix program. If you use IBM BigFix only to support ILMT operation, you do not need to purchase licenses for IBM BigFix. BigFix agents installed on each device from which information is to be collected are used to collect data on IBM software installed in an organization. The virtualization structure data is collected by IBM BigFix using the additional VM Manager Tool connector.
ILMT does not allow to take into account the number of acquired rights to software products, but allows you to store a list of purchased licenses. Accordingly, the program itself can not perform a comparison of existing and used license rights.
To account for license rights and calculate compliance with existing and used rights, it is necessary to use additional software with software asset management capabilities (SAM).
MAP (Microsoft) Toolkit
MAP (Microsoft) Toolkit is a toolkit for analyzing and evaluating an organization's IT infrastructure, operating without the use of agent software. Software Usage Tracker is responsible for generating reports used to manage software licenses in the MAP Toolkit.
The utility generates reports on the following Microsoft software products: Windows Server, SharePoint Server, Exchange Server, SQL Server, and System Center Configuration Manager. For these products, licenses are monitored with the following metrics: Per-server, Per-processor, User CAL, Device CAL. Accordingly, for these software products, you can calculate and evaluate your needs for server, processor and client (CAL) licenses.
MAP is not able to take into account the existing license rights in the organization and to compare them with the rights used, for which it is also necessary to use additional software.
Usage Hub (HPE)
Usage Hub (HPE) is a special tool created by Hewlett Packard Enterprise for controlling licenses and positioned as “free service”. Usage Hub is able to collect and view information about existing licenses for HPE programs, their expiration date and the amount of use of these licenses.
Some of the information Usage Hub collects with the help of agents, and some non-agent way. To get complete information about licenses and their validity period, it is necessary to additionally configure the interaction between Usage HUB and HPE AutoPass License Server. Both Usage Hub itself and its agents can be installed in Windows and Linux operating environments.
The indisputable advantage of this solution is the possibility of obtaining reports on licensing compliance (compliance), generated both for the current moment and for a certain historical period of time, thanks to the automatic collection of information about installed licenses and their validity period. However, it is worth making a reservation here: Usage Hub is not intended to perform an audit of license compliance in an organization, which is explicitly stated in the documentation for the product.
And if you want to organize software asset management (SAM), you will need other tools to automate this activity.
Author: Aleksey Kolesnik, Lead Consultant, Witte Consulting Company (I-Teco Group of Companies)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/326980/
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