Because virtualization severs the direct software-hardware
connection, many license models still widely used today become
liabilities in virtual environments, resulting in non-compliance and/or
sky-high license fees.

What you need to know is that both of these risks can be avoided. You need to make sure the data center specialists work with IT
License Procurement Managers to figure out the best possible
virtualization solution for the company’s software usage needs.

Even if you already have discovery, scanning, CMDB tools in place,
they do not generate all of the information you need to determine your
licensing needs and compliance position. The data generated by these
systems needs to be normalized. Software asset management modules from
CA, IBM, HP, and BMC are also not
enough.

An entitlement-centric software license management solution can track
and manage licenses in virtual and physical environments. The embedded
knowledge of contract and license terms and conditions (in the SKU
catalog) allows it to thoroughly detect if software is being
used/deployed in accordance with the product use rights.

Take Microsoft’s server products for example: higher-end versions of
Windows Server 2008 include licenses for additional virtual instances of
the software on the same CPU (Windows Virtual Server). An
entitlement-centric tool will classify multiple virtual instances of
Windows Server 2008 on one physical host as properly licensed, because
it knows the product use rights in the license.

In contrast, discovery, scanning, CMDB, and even other software asset
management solutions, that cannot normalize the entitlement and
installation data, assume that the virtual instances of Windows Server
2008 represent individual, physical installations. This leads to an
incorrect report on the software usage and a misleading license
compliance analysis. The result: assigning licenses to machines that
don’t need them or paying for additional licenses you don’t need.

With data feeds from the discovery, scanning, CMDB, VMM systems you already have, you can automate these processes for software license management.