Overview

By collecting information about the software programs installed on the clients, you can check for software programs whose licenses are close to expiration or whose licenses have already expired.

• For details on software information that can be collected by JP1/Software Distribution, see 2.2.2 Acquiring software information.

To manage the number of software licenses, use the software inventory dictionary (created when software information is collected) to set the number of software licenses to be managed by JP1/Software Distribution.

By setting the number of licenses and counting the relevant items of software information, you can determine the software whose number of users is close to the specified number of licenses or whose number of users exceeds the specified number of licenses.

The following figure shows the general procedure for managing the number of software licenses.

Figure 4-5 General procedure for managing the number of software licenses

Operating procedure

To manage the number of software licenses:

1. Create a software inventory dictionary.
   To create a software inventory dictionary, collect software information from a small number of clients (1 to several).
   
   • For details on how to collect software information, see 3.2.1 Procedure for collecting software information in the manual Administrator's Guide Volume 1.
   On the Options page that is displayed when a Get software information from client job is created, specify Search for a file in Software to be searched, and then execute the job. Execute the job for which Search for a file is specified on only a small number of clients (1 to several) in order to minimize the workload on the database.
   A software inventory dictionary is created on the basis of the collected software information.
   
2. Set the numbers of licenses in the software inventory dictionary.
   
   • For details on setting the software to be managed, see 3.2.5(1) Setting the software inventory information to be displayed in the manual Administrator's Guide Volume 1.
   • For details on setting the numbers of licenses, see 3.2.5(3) Setting license counts in the manual Administrator's Guide Volume 1.
3. Collect software information from clients.
   
   • For details on how to collect software information, see 3.2.1 Procedure for collecting software information in the manual Administrator's Guide Volume 1.
4. Use the software information to count clients and check license information.
   
   • For details on starting Inventory Viewer, see 4.1.1 Starting Inventory Viewer in the manual Administrator's Guide Volume 1.
   • For details on how to use inventory information to count clients, see 4.2.1 Counting procedure in the manual Administrator's Guide Volume 1.
   • For details on displaying license information, see 4.2.3(2) Counting hosts by software inventory in the manual Administrator's Guide Volume 1.

Notes

• For notes on collecting system information, see 3.2.3 Notes on collecting software information in the manual Administrator's Guide Volume 1.