Software License Management

[Nikolaj]

Hi all,

How are you managing your software Licenses who are installed or in inventory and so on?

Is there any way in Hornbill? We think about that we are using assets for Licenses maybe. Thanks

best regards

Nikolaj

[samwoo]

At the moment there are some fields that can be used, but they are just for information purposes and doesn't do any calculations etc. (Such as calculating how many shared users Vs how many licences available).

I raised this with Hornbill before quite a while ago, but it was not something that would have been a priority at that time, especially that they have been working on some exciting new features and functionality.

As you have raised this now I would like to +1 for a way to do this to add it as a story.

They way I would do it with what Hornbill features currently, if there is a method of grabbing a licence count and other info from with an application via an API, via SQL Connections, via Web Scraping, via SCCM or via a regular CSV export, I would use PowerShell and update Asset Manager using Hornbills PowerShell module. It can then be automated to do daily checks etc.

The challenge would be to write all of those individual PowerShell processes for each application and maintain it. You would need to consider scenarios where the connection may go down, or a URL has changed etc. And find ways of catching all of that into a report, or to automatically log an Incident for someone to pick up and manage.

In terms of storing keys (if any), this is the trickiest and riskiest thing that need to be thought through, but if there was a Key safe that could be linked to software assets this would provide a viable storage solutions for keys, accounts, licenses etc. It would need to have access control to prevent certain users from viewing these keys.

The way we do it currently is very old fashioned and outside of Hornbill, and this is something I would like to address, but do not have the time (or power) currently.   

I am hoping that ITOM will go a long way to assist with this, so anticipating the release and seeing what I can do with it.

Thanks,

Samuel

[Nikolaj]

15 hours ago, samwoo said:

At the moment there are some fields that can be used, but they are just for information purposes and doesn't do any calculations etc. (Such as calculating how many shared users Vs how many licences available).

I raised this with Hornbill before quite a while ago, but it was not something that would have been a priority at that time, especially that they have been working on some exciting new features and functionality.

As you have raised this now I would like to +1 for a way to do this to add it as a story.

They way I would do it with what Hornbill features currently, if there is a method of grabbing a licence count and other info from with an application via an API, via SQL Connections, via Web Scraping, via SCCM or via a regular CSV export, I would use PowerShell and update Asset Manager using Hornbills PowerShell module. It can then be automated to do daily checks etc.

The challenge would be to write all of those individual PowerShell processes for each application and maintain it. You would need to consider scenarios where the connection may go down, or a URL has changed etc. And find ways of catching all of that into a report, or to automatically log an Incident for someone to pick up and manage.

In terms of storing keys (if any), this is the trickiest and riskiest thing that need to be thought through, but if there was a Key safe that could be linked to software assets this would provide a viable storage solutions for keys, accounts, licenses etc. It would need to have access control to prevent certain users from viewing these keys.

The way we do it currently is very old fashioned and outside of Hornbill, and this is something I would like to address, but do not have the time (or power) currently.   

I am hoping that ITOM will go a long way to assist with this, so anticipating the release and seeing what I can do with it.

Thanks,

Samuel

Hi Samuel,

Thanks for your explanation. We think to do it via SCCM and use powershell to update our assets. We will see how it works. but a professional solution for the future would be great. let´s see what comes.

regards

Nikolaj

[samwoo]

@Nikolaj +1 

[AndyGilly]

+1 from me @Nikolaj & @samwoo

[Daniel Hall]

+1 From me

[QEHNick]

yeah! +1