Virtualization in Software Licensing

By: Open iT, Inc.

Recently founder Eistein Fosli spoke at SafeNet’s LicensingLive in London, and focused on key differences between Open iT’s metering and optimization software and our competitors’ software. The main differences, important to Mr. Fosli's audience at the LicensingLive, are Open iT's correct handling of concurrency and grouping,  the integrity of the data, and the fact that Open iT collects and compares resource usage from a variety of sources. The data is collected from license managers such as Sentinel, IBM-LUM, FLEXnet, RLM, Abacus and Elan, from the OS kernel, fom network services like SQL, Oracle, daemons, or even from applications not using a license manager.

Collecting and comparing resource usage from a variety of sources is especially important in these days of virtualization. Mr. Fosli elaborated this using a scenario with 10 virtual license servers serving the same license 10 times, and demonstrated how using Open iT to meter software usage adds an additional level of security. License usage data collected is digitally signed and non-alterable, which is essential in pay-per-use agreements. Mr. Fosli concluded his presentation by pointing out that companies who save money on software expenses and make gains in business efficiency are loyal customers to IT vendors.

 

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