New insights into license reconciliation

FlexNet Manager Suite version 2019 R2

To help when you want to understand why an installed application is consuming from this license rather than that license, this release of FlexNet Manager Suite includes a new, flexible Application Licenses Assessed... page. It shows, from the latest license reconciliation, all the licenses that were assessed for authorizing a particular software installation, and gives reasons why each one was either rejected or accepted (or, perhaps, not assessed because another license had already won the prize).

The page is not in the main navigation menus, but is available only through the property sheets of other objects – and changes slightly depending on how you access it:

• License properties (through the Consumption tab)
• Inventory device properties (through the Licenses tab)
• User properties (through the Licenses tab).

For example, if you click Show licenses assessed in the inventory device properties, the page shows:

• All the licensed application installations on this device (unlicensed applications are not included)
• For each one, all the alternative licenses available that could have covered each installation (as well as the one actually consumed, of course)
• For each application/license possible pair, it gives the result of the license assessment (Consumed, Rejected, or Not assessed), together with a summary reason. For example:
  • It might be Consumed because Allocation of a license entitlement to this device triggers automatic consumption; or
  • It may have been Rejected because The number of cores, required for calculating consumption for this license type,is missing for this device.

A detailed help page provides further insights. While license reconciliation remains a complex process (and must be, while it takes account of so many licensing rules from so many different vendors), this page may help make the process somewhat more transparent, for those times when you need to dig deeper.

Tip: Naturally, this additional functionality incurs additional processing during license reconciliation. In general, this feature may increase the processing time for your nightly reconciliation by around 10%, or less in an environment using mainly simple license types.