License Relations and Application Suites
Each identified file is categorized as either Main, Associated, or 3rd Party. The recognition library can contain any number of files in a particular version as belonging to either category.
When at least one Main file is identified on a machine, a license is required for the application, unless another application on the machine assumes license responsibility for the application.
License relations are part of the Application Library. When two interdependent applications are identified on a machine, one application can assume license ownership on that particular machine. The chain of license relations can be any number of levels deep.
License relations solve the problem of Suite licensing simply and effectively, and are applicable to license relationships outside what would normally be considered a software suite.
For example, MS Office 2000 licenses MS Access, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and is a well known software suite. In addition Outlook 2000 licenses MS Data Access Components (ADO) 2.1 sp1 - if Outlook or another licensing application is not present on the machine, a license is required for the software, but if Outlook is installed on the machine, Outlook assumes license ownership. Different versions of Outlook license different versions of MS Data Access Components.
License relations are also useful when an application has a complex component structure. If application components can be installed on their own, they should be treated as independent applications, but the connection with the application should be reflected in license relations for that application.
The SAI Editor allows license relationships to be established and immediately be applied to the application data loaded. This application is available via the Analysis Workbench User Interface or as a stand-alone utility from the Start menu.
Adding License Relations
License relations allow a particular version of an application to contain licenses for one or more versions of other applications.
A single version of an application can assume responsibility for any number of other application versions, and this can be extended to any number of levels of nesting.
The new relations are stored in a user editable SAI and are used the next time the data is loaded.
Each version entry has two lists that can be filled separately:
- Owning Release - The application that contains versions of other applications.
- Licensed Release - The applications that are contained in the Owning Application.
License relations are set up using the SAI Editor. This tool is available either as a standalone tool or from the Analysis Workbench User Interface.
For further information, see the section describing the SAI Editor.
Displaying Licensed by and Licenses Entries in Analysis Workbench
In an Applications window, it is possible to have the Detail window selected with Licensed By and Licenses windows displayed. When an application is selected, the Licenses Apps and Licensed by columns display the count of files and the details window will report the machines on which the files occur
To display the Application window Details pane:
- In an Applications window, select the Detail window link option from the Configure drop-down toolbar menu, or
- Select the Configuration option from the Window menu and check the Application Windows box in the Detail Window Link group.
- The information that is displayed in the Applications Details window can be selected by:
- Clicking the configure icon in the Details window
- Selecting the Detail window option from the Configure drop-down toolbar menu. This will display a Window Layout dialog box.
- Select the following options:
- Licensed by. The details of the Application Suite that licenses the highlighted application (if applicable). For example, Word 2007 is licensed by Microsoft Office 2007.
- Licenses. The details of any applications that the highlighted application licenses, for example, Office 2007 licenses Microsoft Photo Editor.
The Applications Details – Licensed by or Licenses information links back to the Applications window and the Machines window, showing details for that selected application and the machine it is located on.