Asset Management Suite

I view Asset Management Suite (AMS) as an enterprise application for managing IT assets.  From that point of view, it's a direct competitor to other asset management systems like HPAM.  Like any enterprise application, there is the technology side (e.g. what machines does it run on, what are platform prerequisites, how does it integrate with other systems) and a business side.  From a business perspective, it needs to fit within established end-to-end processes, but it's vital to understand those processes so they can change to accommodate AMS - where does AMS support the business ?

Software license management is a complex business process that includes many tasks and usually significant amounts of data,  At a high level, software license management includes the following process areas :
- contract negotiation and management
- purchasing / procurement
- installation / deployment
- compliance (deployment and usage)

All of these processes need AMS to record their data, but it's somewhat difficult to understand.  This article aims to simplify the data structures for software licensing,

Overall data model

The attached diagram (AMS ERD) shows the main data tables and how they are related.  A double line at the end of a relationship shows that end may be "one or more".

The main components are:

• Software Component
• Software Product
• Software License Contract
• Master License Agreement
• Software Purchase

Software Component

This is an entry in the software catalog. 

It defines a single version of an application and can be created form the software packaging and deployment process or from the software discovery process.   You should expect a separate component for each release and update of an application.  For license management purposes, you don't need a lot of the detailed data, but detection rules and package files are useful to have. 

Each Software Component is related to a single Software Product, and each Software Product may relate to one or more Software Components.

Software Product

This is a product which can be purchased.  This is a record in AMS of a product edition, such as Microsoft Visio Professional 2010.  You'd have a separate Software Product for Microsoft Visio Standard 2010, because you get a different license for it.  You would NOT have a single software product for Microsoft Visio. 

A Software Product may have one or more Software Components, and may have one or more Software License Contracts.

Software License Contract

This is a purchase contract for a particular product.  For example, you may have a license contract for Microsoft Visio that covers new purchases of Visio Pro 2010 for one year, renewable annually.  You may have another agreement for Visio Pro 2010 that covers upgrades to existing Visio Pro 2007 licenses.  These would be separate contracts.

One Software Product may have one or more Software License Contracts.  One or more Software License Contracts may be the subject of only one Master License Agreement.  Each Software License Agreement may have one or more Software Purchases.

Master License Agreement

This is an umbrella agreement with a vendor (either the manufacturer or their reseller) and your organisation.  It generally covers a range of products.  For example, you probably have one or more master license agreements with Microsoft.  The actual products covered by the MLA are the subject of the Software License Contracts.

Each Master License Agreement may have one or more Software License Contracts. 

Software Purchase

This is an individual purchase of a software product.  This purchase has a date, perhaps a purchase order number, and can only be for a single product.  AMS doesn't (yet) support the concept of a purchase order - that's the subject of a purchasing system, usually part of your finance system.  This data is very useful for license compliance.

One Software Product may have one or more Software Purchases.

Data entry order

The AMS training from Symantec recommends doing data entry in the following order :

1. Collect full inventory.  This gathers data about what's installed. You can use the various Inventory policies or software discovery methods.
2. Create software products. 
3. Associate software components with software products.  You do this via the software catalog.
4. Create software purchases, to reflect your actual purchases.
5. Create software license contracts and master license agreements.
6. Run the software product licensing recalculation operation.