Software Management Questions
Hi All,
We are currently in the process of purchasing and rolling-out SDP Enterprise in our organisation (a K-12 school). One of the main tasks we are doing at the moment is building our new 2008 software image for the school computer labs. I have a few questions regarding how to best use SDP to track and manage our software licences.
First, I want to record our software licences within SDP so that we have an accurate and accessible record of the software details (e.g. licence key, number of licences, etc.). I also wish to track the software installed on each computer. However, instead of assigning each software licence to individual computers, which would be completely unpractical for site-licenced software (since we have over 700 computers), I would like to assign the software to a "software image asset" and I can then assign this image asset to each computers. This means we would only have to assign one asset (which represents all the software installed) to each workstation. Is this possible, and how would this deal with metering software usage within the organisation? Also, could I do this assignment on-mass to all workstations within the system, as opposed to doing the assignment individually to each workstation?
Second, when entering the number of software licences it seems that SDP creates individual licence entries for each licence (e.g. for software which we own 700 licences, SDP will create 700 individual licence entries for the software). This is problematic if I am trying to assign the software to an image (as described previously), rather than associate individual licences to individual computers. How can I get around this issue? At the moment I am entering software as "Enterprise" licences with only 1 licence, but this does not provide accurate feedback on the number of licences we own and licence metering. I am also unsure how to deal with unlimited site-licence software.
Finally, do software licences count towards the "node" limit in SDP?
Thanks for your help,
Matt
We are currently in the process of purchasing and rolling-out SDP Enterprise in our organisation (a K-12 school). One of the main tasks we are doing at the moment is building our new 2008 software image for the school computer labs. I have a few questions regarding how to best use SDP to track and manage our software licences.
First, I want to record our software licences within SDP so that we have an accurate and accessible record of the software details (e.g. licence key, number of licences, etc.). I also wish to track the software installed on each computer. However, instead of assigning each software licence to individual computers, which would be completely unpractical for site-licenced software (since we have over 700 computers), I would like to assign the software to a "software image asset" and I can then assign this image asset to each computers. This means we would only have to assign one asset (which represents all the software installed) to each workstation. Is this possible, and how would this deal with metering software usage within the organisation? Also, could I do this assignment on-mass to all workstations within the system, as opposed to doing the assignment individually to each workstation?
Second, when entering the number of software licences it seems that SDP creates individual licence entries for each licence (e.g. for software which we own 700 licences, SDP will create 700 individual licence entries for the software). This is problematic if I am trying to assign the software to an image (as described previously), rather than associate individual licences to individual computers. How can I get around this issue? At the moment I am entering software as "Enterprise" licences with only 1 licence, but this does not provide accurate feedback on the number of licences we own and licence metering. I am also unsure how to deal with unlimited site-licence software.
Finally, do software licences count towards the "node" limit in SDP?
Thanks for your help,
Matt