Software License Monitoring

Transcription

1 Software License Monitoring Module Objectives In the Software License Monitoring section you will learn: Use Cases for the Software License Monitoring Features and Functionality of Software License Monitoring Architecture of Software License Monitoring Agent Configuration of Software License Monitoring Role-based Administration of Software License Monitoring Navigate the Software License Monitoring Tool Steps to Implement Software License Monitoring Software License Monitoring Files (for Troubleshooting) LANDESK Management Suite Software License Monitoring 1

2 Use Case Your company was just informed that it will be audited three weeks from today by a certain software company. To prepare for the audit, the Chief Informational Officer (CIO) wants reports detailing which managed devices in the company have software from the auditing company installed on them. The CIO also wants reports showing software from certain other companies to assure there are enough licenses, should the other companies decide to audit. Additionally, with Software as a Service (Saas), some software which was purchased is not stored locally or on the network, but rather is accessed via the internet. The CIO wants a report detailing which users and devices access the internet site where software is available as a service. IT Administrators often find it challenging to track product licenses installed on numerous managed devices throughout the network. They run the risk of not only over deploying product licenses (having more copies installed than licenses purchased), but also of purchasing too many licenses for product that is not installed and therefore not necessary. Either is a money-risk to a company. Compound that by the fact that some users use software for a time, then they don t need that software anymore. Reclaiming software from a user who no longer needs it, and giving it to a user who does, saves software costs. Walking the fine line of having enough but not too many licenses is always a concern. With the need to forecast and be accountable for a budget, licensing costs, as well as upgrade costs must be taken into account. Having this knowledge of software can greatly affect budget management and save money over all. Features and Functionality Software License Monitoring (SLM) features include: Passive, low-bandwidth monitoring: The Software Monitoring agent passively monitors product usage on managed devices, using minimal network bandwidth. The agent continues to monitor usage for mobile devices that are disconnected from the network. Automatic discovery of applications present in the environment: Users are not required to manually define software products or import pre-defined content. Automatically discovered products are a reflection of what is found in the environment no inapplicable content to deal with. The date a product was discovered is tracked. Updates or patches to a software product are automatically handled. LANDESK Management Suite Software License Monitoring 2

3 Software accessed via the Internet: With some software being stored on a website outside of a company (Software as a Service, or SaaS), Software License Monitoring can track devices and users that access such pay-for services. Reporting: The power of compliance monitoring rests in its data-gathering capabilities. Use the gathered data to track and report on overall license compliance, to monitor product usage, and report access to software. Reclamation: The ability to uninstall software from devices no longer using that software, in order to free up licenses for audit compliance, and lower cost true-up. Allocations: To provide a way to track license and support costs to groups across an organization. Architecture Software License Monitoring is an extension of the software inventory process. It includes an agent component on the managed device that tracks applications that have executed. It tracks when the software was first discovered, the last time the application launched, and for how long it ran. It also tracks the total number of times the application launched and the total duration. This software usage data is stored on the managed device and is not delivered to the Core Server until a software inventory scan completes. Application usage is tracked even if the device is not communicating with the Core Server or even connected to the network. So in a passive way, the managed node tracks software activity locally, and reports it to the Core Server, in a low bandwidth consuming way with each software inventory scan. The agent component central to Software License Monitoring is the softmon.exe file. The softmon.exe file registers and installs as the LANDESK Software Monitoring Service on the managed device and monitors all processes that are launched. It writes the usage information to the registry, in HKLM\Software\WOW6432Node\LANDesk\ManagementSuite\WinClient\SoftwareMonito ring\monitorlog. GatherProducts.exe then runs on the managed device, to gather software usage. It stores the resulting file in C:\Program Files (x86)\landesk\ldclient\data\gatherproducts.txt. The scans look at the Windows registry uninstall keys,.msi files, shortcuts, and GUIDs to identify software. It can be configured to also gather usage via Web Sites offering SaaS. Any new application is recorded and any repeating application is updated with its usage information. LANDESK Management Suite Software License Monitoring 3

4 As an extension of inventory, Software License Monitoring relies on the LdAppl3.ini file to deliver software information on the managed device. The settings instruct the managed device to send data on specific applications. It is not telling the managed device which applications to monitor. The agent monitors all executed software. The agent sends only the data on the software requested by the Core Server. To provide maximum flexibility, Software License Monitoring includes a container object to monitor applications. This is referred to as a Monitored Product (often referred to as Product). The Product refers to an application that has been setup to be monitored for licensing and usage information. Vendor names often vary, even within a single company. Many times in the Software License Monitoring tool, the same manufacturer is listed with different variations. Microsoft Corporation, for example, is listed more than a dozen multiple ways. In addition, as companies are acquired by a larger company, software of the acquired company can be reported with the parent company (e.g. FRx Software Corporation, and Great Plains Software Inc., who were both acquired by Microsoft). Creating a normalized group which includes all variations of a vendor name provides the ability to track associated products by software vendor. The benefit of this feature is to have a larger pool of products under one manufacturer to reduce the size of the overall manufacturers list. Agent Configuration for Software License Monitoring The Software Usage Monitoring window in the Agent Configuration tool enables Softmon.exe to load on the managed nodes. This enables tracking usage statistics for Software License Monitoring as well as collecting additional inventory information. Softmon.exe also blocks applications when application blocking is configured in the Patch and compliance tool. LANDESK Management Suite Software License Monitoring 4

5 Also available in the agent configuration for Software License Monitoring is the ability to record software usage statistics to a network location. This feature is critical for nonpersistent Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI) environments. In a non-persistent VDI environment, each time the non-persistent VDI device is rebooted, it is returned to a previous snapshot, including any registry settings or modifications. Since Softmon.exe records usage data in the registry, the snapshot process deletes the software usage data. The setting to record to a network location means the tracked usage data is stored to a network location, which is not affected by the snapshot, so the data is not lost but rather is accumulated and reported to the Core Server when the Inventory scan, which includes software, is run. Role-Based Administration for Software License Monitoring The Software license monitoring permission provides the following levels of access to users: LANDESK Management Suite Software License Monitoring 5

6 View: Allows the user to see and access the software license monitoring tool from the Console Edit: Allows the user to create or change software license monitoring settings and configurations Navigating the Software License Monitoring Tool The Software License Monitoring Tool is accessed by going to the LANDESK Management Suite Console and clicking Tools Reporting/Monitoring Software License Monitoring OR by going to the Toolbox and going to the Reporting/Monitoring Group and selecting Software License Monitoring. The Software Licensing Tool has four principal areas represented by their respective tabs: Dashboard: Grants access to three groups of reports with graphs which can be printed or exported to CSV o Audits: Top total installations o Compliance: Top out of compliance by installation Top out of compliance by true-up costs Top out of compliance by manufacturer o License Optimization: Estimated savings from never used installations Top 5 software harvest opportunities. Products: Lists four different software product groups: o Monitored: Lists all monitored products which can be searched by Manufacturer, Product, or Computer Group (query or device group) o Discovered: Lists all discovered products in the database minus those ignored o Ignored: Lists all products deemed to not be important to you, removing them from discovered o All installed products: Lists all products in all three previous groups. o Licenses: Lists all the licenses input or imported. These can be searched by Product, Computer Group, or Vendor, to compare licenses with usage. o Reclamation: Lists all products set up for reclamation. LANDESK Management Suite Software License Monitoring 6

7 o Allocations: Show all products allocated to groups, by group. Administration: Accesses five features o Computer Groups: Sets up to Track license use by Queries, Device Groups, or All devices o Manufacturers: Manage and group similar company names into a combined company or change an acquired company to be listed under the owner company o Calculations: Accesses three features: Usage, license and compliance: Calculate product installation and usage immediately when saving a product, or manually. LANDESK Management Suite Software License Monitoring 7

8 Publish product detection information for client scanning: Update the LDAPPL3 files. Run reclamation: Reclaim licenses not currently being used. o Settings: Set the SMTP server, and Sender address (used in reclamation). LANDESK Management Suite Software License Monitoring 8

9 o Reclamation Defaults: Provides ability to configure reclamation. Delivery method: Specifies the delivery method which will be used to uninstall the software which is reclaimed. Click Browse to view the available delivery methods. Distribution and patch setting: Specifies the distribution and patch settings which will be used to uninstall the software which is reclaimed. Click Browse to view the available settings. Specific configurations used as set with the selected settings include: Network settings to determine the Preferred server / Peer download options to access the application to be used for the uninstallation. Policy sync schedule to determine when to uninstall the application. LANDESK Management Suite Software License Monitoring 9

10 Notification to determine whether the uninstallation is silent or verbose. Distribution-only settings to determine feedback and deferral options. Offline to determine whether to uninstall when offline. Logged off user options to determine whether to uninstall when logged off. Reboot settings: Specifies the reboot settings which will be used to uninstall the software which is reclaimed. Click Browse to view the available reboot methods. Only reclaim if the product has not been used in ### days: Sets the number of days a product will have to not be used in order to be reclaimed. (The default is 120 days.) Click to select Start scheduled tasks immediately after creation to automatically start uninstalling products that meet the reclamation criteria. Reclamation Thresholds: Allows settings to either: Reclaim from all machines that have not used the product in specified days since last used. Reclaim to maintain a set of free licenses: When available licenses is less than ## create a task to reclaim until up to ## licenses are available, run reclamation process every ## days. (Selecting the reclamation process to run every 0 days, sets it to run daily.) Run reclamation process every ## days: Specifies how often to run reclamation when it is enabled. (The default is 14 days.) Computer Groups that will be used in reclamation: Configure computer groups to be included and/or excluded from the reclamation process. Computer groups are set up in Administration Computer Groups. (Unlisted computer groups are excluded.) Enable notification: Select this checkbox to enable sending an to administrators or other users you add to the recipients field to inform them of reclamation having been run. Reports: see the Reports section below. Steps to Implement Software License Monitoring The steps to begin using Software License Monitoring are as follows: 1. Normalize the Vendor Combine into a normalized group any vendors which were left out of the normalized group, but need to be added to the combined group. 2. Set Products to Monitor Set Discovered products into Monitored to compare with licenses. 3. Add Licenses Add licenses for Monitored products. LANDESK Management Suite Software License Monitoring 10

11 4. Set up Allocation (optional) Track licensing usage by device group or query. 5. Set up Reclamation (optional) Set options to reclaim software licenses not in use or no longer needed, by removing software from managed devices. 6. Run Reports To see Audits, Compliance, and License Optimization reports. Normalize the Vendor One of the dashboard options is the Top out of compliance by manufacturer report. If you are preparing for an audit of that manufacturer, and you are missing some of the software from that manufacturer, the results could be devastating. Before you start digging into software, check to see that the normalized vendors are as inclusive as they should be. The vendor list will grow as additional software is found by inventory, so it is a good idea to periodically check the vendors not in a normalized name. Vendor names very often vary in subtle ways. For example, some variations of Adobe Systems Incorporated include: Adobe Adobe Inc Adobe System Inc. Adobe Systems Inc Adobe Systems Inc. Adobe Systems, Inc Adobe Systems, Inc. To combine the separate vendor names into one, create a normalized vender name, and drag-and-drop all corresponding and applicable vendor names into the normalized name. To view the vendor list, and possibly add or delete a vendor from the normalized list, do the following: 1. Open the Software License Monitoring tool 2. Go to Administration, and then Manufacturers. All the normalized vendors in the list have a + in front. 3. Type a vendor name in the search manufacturers box, and click enter (e.g. Adobe). 4. You can add items to normalized vendor by using drag-and-drop. You can similarly remove items the same way. Set products to Monitor The product list will grow as additional software is found by inventory. The inventory looks for software by scanning the Windows registry, uninstall keys,.msi files, shortcuts, and LANDESK Management Suite Software License Monitoring 11

12 GUIDs. It can also be set to gather usage via Web Sites offering SaaS. The goal, of course, is to populate inventory and software license monitoring with all discovered software. The goal of the Administrator then, is to be sure to monitor all software which is in the domain and requires purchase of a license. A good place to start is with Accounts Payable. Any software purchased should be monitored. Additionally, software in use, which requires but does not have a license, should be monitored. LANDESK facilitates searching these out, with the excellent discovery mechanism built into the Inventory tool. Normalized Product When setting products to monitor, you can create a normalized product. The two key components used when searching for this product are the product name, and the version. Either field or both fields can use wildcards. An additional way to search is to add contained products. This allows a search using either of two criteria, namely: product name contains, or product name does not contain. The search brings all products into a list which satisfy the criterion used, and the desired products and associated versions can be selected from the list. The list has an additional checkbox, show only monitored products. If the box is unchecked, all discovered software products that match the criteria are listed, but if checked, only the monitored software products that match the criteria are listed. This allows a thorough way to normalize a product Custom Product When creating a custom product, there are four items to complete: Definition: Here you set designations for the custom product you are adding. Fields in the Product name, the Version, the Manufacturer, and the Status (Monitored, Discovered, or Ignored). Installation detection: Here you define the way software license monitoring determines if the product is installed. There are three ways to define whether the product is installed. o Searchable by Query: Create a LANDESK query to match software criteria o File detection match any: Determines the product is installed if ANY of the defined files are present on a managed device. o File detection match all: Determines the product is installed only if ALL the defined files are present on a managed device. This is the way to distinguish, for example, Microsoft SQL Server Express (which is free) verses Microsoft SQL Server (pay for version). For either of the file detection methods, you can add products selecting from a list of file names and versions, or by defining a new file by using a file name, version, and size (in bytes). LANDESK Management Suite Software License Monitoring 12

13 Usage detection: Here you define how software license monitoring accumulates usage information for when the software was last used, and the time the software was in use. There are two ways to select these. The first way is to select from a list of file names and versions. The second way is to define a new file by name, version and size (in bytes). Unit price: Here you set the cost of the custom product. This is used in reporting. Add Licenses When you add licenses, they can be measured against all managed devices, or against a computer group (query or device group). This facilitates tracking licenses by geography, business group, business hierarchy, or as an entire company. Set up Allocation (optional) When you add licenses, they can be measured against all managed devices, or against a computer group. Set up Reclamation (optional) Reclamation is a way to uninstall software which has never been used, or has not been used for a variable amount of time which can be configured. In order to set up reclamation: Reclamation Defaults: the configuration settings for reclamation Software Distribution: must be configured with: o Distribution package: the uninstallation package to remove the software o Delivery method: to launch the uninstall package Computer Groups: that include devices from which software will be reclaimed notification (optional): to send an when reclamation occurs Product: to identify the product to be reclaimed, and set all previous setup in motion Reclamation Defaults The first step to setting up reclamation is to set the Reclamation Defaults in the Software License Monitoring tool, under Adminstration Reclamation Defaults. LANDESK Management Suite Software License Monitoring 13

14 Software Distribution Create, or point to an existing Delivery Method, Distribution and patch setting, and reboot setting. Create, or point to an existing uninstall Distribution Package in Software Distribution. This is referred to in the Reclamation Defaults. Computer Groups Set up Devices or Queries to be included or excluded from reclamation. The Computer Groups are set up in the Software License Monitoring tool, under Adminstration Computer Groups. LANDESK Management Suite Software License Monitoring 14

15 Product Product is configured in the Software License Monitoring tool under Products Monitored (it is likely you would be monitoring the product). 1. Select the product. 2. Right-click and click Edit. 3. Click Reclamation and setup the desired settings. 4. Click Task. a. Browse and select the Uninstall package which will run the uninstall on the managed device. b. Select the Delivery method to be used. (The default will be present from the Reclamation Defaults settings. 5. Select whether to Start scheduled tasks immediately after creation. 6. Optionally, select the Reinstall package task. 7. Click Advanced. a. Click all groups you want to Include in reclamation. (Note: you must choose either all to include or all to exclude. But select only one or the other. b. Click whether to select Enable notification, and reciptients. 8. Click Task. 9. Click [Save]. Reports The reports available to software license monitoring are classified into three groups: Audits: Reports for the following: o Audit flags for: Licenses Products o Licenses without: Manufacturer invoice Purchase date Purchase order number Unit price o Monitored products without licenses o New products discovered Compliance: Reports for the following: o Compliance details: Details of software compliance for all licenses and associated products LANDESK Management Suite Software License Monitoring 15

16 o Compliance overview: License consumption for all monitored products o Compliance total costs: Estimated cost of compliance for all monitored products with unlicensed installations License optimization: Reports for the following: o Computer group software cost: Cost of software licenses for specific computer groups o License report: Details of all licenses o Licenses with expiration data renewal cost: Cost of renewing licenses expiring before a specified date o Licenses without expiration date: All licenses that do not have an expiration date o Never used installations: Products that have been installed, but never used o Products not used in n days: Monitored products that have been installed but not used in a specified number of days o Products used less than n times: Devices with specified monitored products that have been used less than n times o Software product usage: Usage of monitored products for specific devices o Unused software licenses: Estimate of potential savings from unused licenses o Unused software licenses by computer group: Estimate of potential savings from unused software licenses listed by computer group Software License Monitoring Files (for Troubleshooting) Server Side Log Files C:\Program Files (x86)\landesk\managementsuite\log\slm.routines.exe.information.log C:\Program Files (x86)\landesk\managementsuite\log\slm.routines.exe.licensing.log C:\Program Files (x86)\landesk\managementsuite\log\slm.routines.exe.log Client Side Log Files C:\Program Files\LANDesk\LDClient\data\gatherproducts.log C:\Program Files\LANDesk\LDClient\data\proddefs\*.xml LANDESK Management Suite Software License Monitoring 16