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Welcome to Block 64 Support

Software Asset Management

Joseph Holland
  • Updated

 

Software Asset Management has everything you need when it comes to license overview, awareness, and management.

 

Table Of Contents

Software Taxonomy

Windows License Mapper

SQL Server License Mapper

SAM Dashboard

Software Library

 

Software Asset Management

Software Taxonomy

This page is used for managing taxonomy relationships and creating custom software filters.  This filtering is useful for pulling data on any software installed the user wants.  The data can then be analyzed to see precisely how many installs are in the physical and virtual environments, and where they are. All the data associated with the created custom software filters can be viewed on the Software Asset Management > SAM Dashboard.   

Software Vendors

Top of the software taxonomy hierarchy list.  Acts as a parent to “Product Families”.

Product Families

Second on the software taxonomy list hierarchy.  Families include Adobe Acrobat or Microsoft Office. Removing multiple installs and downgrade rights are configurable at this level. Acts as a parent to “Products”.

Products

Last on the software taxonomy list hierarchy.  Usually broken out by editions such as Standard or Professional.

How to Use

  1. If the Vendor you would like to assess is not present, you must start by clicking the “+Vendor” button at the bottom of the screen. Enter the Vendor’s name in the field on the right side of the screen then click “Save”. 
  2. Select the Vendor you just created, then click the “+Family to _____” button at the bottom of the screen. Enter the Family name in the field on the right side of the screen, such as “Acrobat” or “Office”. Choose whether you want the tool to remove multiple installs or apply downgrade rights to the family of products. 
  3. Next select the family you just created and click on the “+Product to ________” button at the bottom of the screen. Enter the name of the product you are trying to license. 
  4. Select the Product you just created then click on the green “Edit” button.
  5. You now must tell The Combine how to license this product. The first question it asks is “Is ________ an Operating System or Application?” Select the correct answer then click “Continue” in the bottom right corner.
  6. You must then select the licensing metric this product uses. For “Per Device” licensing, select the “Installation” option.
  7. You must now use the search string box to look for the software installs for the product. “%” will act as a wild card here. You can also use the “Add search string to ignore in the future” field to fine tune your search criteria.
  8. Click the “Include” button next to the search result to include that software title in the filter you are building.
  9. Once you have included all the relevant titles to the filter click on the “Continue” button in the bottom right corner of the screen.
  10. You now have the ability to add licensing entitlement quantities. This step is fully optional. Select the title you would like to add licensing for, add the quantity of licenses owned, then add a unit cost. Click the green “+” button to add this entitlement to the filter.
  11. Click “Continue” in the bottom right corner. You can select any contracts that have been added to the “Asset Metadata Manager” 
  12. Click “Continue” in the bottom right corner. Then click “Submit”.
  13. To view the results of all filters built this way, navigate to the Software Asset Management > SAM Dashboard report.

Windows License Mapper

For this report to populate, the “Windows Server” product in the Software Taxonomy must be filled out first.  

This page gives you an overview of the Windows Server licensing. At the top of this page the number of unlicensed OSE’s, licenses assigned, and licenses available are displayed.

The center pane lists out all hosts in the environment and what cluster they are a part of. Clicking on the black arrow button to the right of the host info will expand a list of all virtual guests residing on that host. You can also toggle whether or not the host is part of the production environment here.

The right-hand pane will contain all licensing information that was entered into the Software Taxonomy for Windows Server. You can click and drag licensing across onto a host to license that machine. This will auto-deduct the correct amount of licensing for that machine.

The green “Auto Assign” button at the top will try to automatically license every Production host in the environment using the entitlements added. 
 
For manual licensing, this report can be exported to Excel.

SQL Server License Mapper

For this report to populate, the “SQL Server Standard” or “SQL Server Enterprise” products in the Software Taxonomy must be filled out first.  

This page has the same functionality as the Windows License Mapper but focuses on SQL Server instead.

 

SAM Dashboard

For this report to populate, the “Software Taxonomy” must have been edited to define software models. The SAM Dashboard report will compare all entitlement info against local installs found. It will calculate out the surplus or shortfall for each Product including the over or under licensing cost. All of this data is defined by what is created in the Software Taxonomy section.

The graph at the top of the page will summarize the over/under numbers for each individual Product.

The table below this graph will show granular information about each product including net cost. Exporting this table gives you very detailed information on each product install including: 

  • Product Version
  • Device Name
  • Device Serial Number
  • Device User
  • Install Date
  • Install Path
  • Device Manufacturer
  • Device Model
  • Device Operating System

Software Library

The purpose of the Software Library is to build out a master list of software models. In this section of the Combine, you can categorize software as Commercial (paid for) or Non-Commercial (free) for the purpose of finding areas of cost consolidation or audit risk. You also have the ability to assign a process name to an install of software which can be used in the Software Metering section of the Combine.

How to Use

  1. In the table below the graphs, find a piece of software with an “X” under the “In Catalog?” column. Click on the blue pencil (edit) button in the right-most column.
  2. On the next screen you will normalize the software install. This means simplifying the vendor name in some cases as well as removing versions and editions. 
  3. In the “Normalized Vendor” field you want to enter something along the lines of “Microsoft” or “Adobe”
  4. In the “Normalized Title” field you should enter the base product name. Something like “Office” or “Acrobat”. Remove any versions, years, or editions in this field.
  5. Under “Normalized Family” enter the suite of products that the software belongs to. If the software is a standalone program, you can use the software title as the family. Eg. Excel’s family would be Office, Acrobat’s would be Creative Cloud, Snagit’s would be Snagit.
  6. “Normalized Process Name” is how we tie Windows Processes back to installs for our Software Metering report. In this field you can enter the name that the piece of software runs as. For example, Microsoft Edge runs as “msedge.exe”. The full list of processes in the environment can be found in the Cloud Migration > Dashboard > Process List and requires Bitstream collection to be turned on.
  7. Check the “Commercial Product” box if the software is paid
  8. Click on “Save Title”