Application

Global applications are created by the Software Recognition Service (SRS) team and distributed to all subscribers of SRS. If overridden, these applications can be modified in SLM Administration tool, but the modified application definitions will only apply to the local SLM platform. Note also that, as long as the SRS application is overridden, global changes made to the application by the SRS team will not apply to the locally modified application. If the custom application for some reason is removed, the SRS definition will be activated again.

The SRS covers in principle all commercially available applications. There is, however, software that is not covered by the SRS and that needs to be handled in the local SLM platform, for example:

Local applications are created in Snow Management and Configuration Center. The process includes specification of the application and definition of filtering rules.

Software in Snow License Manager is defined as individual inventoried rows of data; normally a file or a registry value. Software filtering rules are created in order to assign software rows to an application. An application can be assigned one or more software rows and rules.

Sometimes the available information in one data row is not enough to both identify the application and determine its version and/or edition. For instance, the executable file for Adobe Acrobat 7 Standard is identical with the executable file for Adobe Acrobat 7 Professional. A registry key value is needed to differentiate them. A group is therefore created with both the executable file and registry key.

Some applications can be installed both as a stand-alone product and as part of a product suite. Normally, different licenses are required depending on the type of installation. For example, even though Photoshop is included in the Adobe Creative Suite, a stand-alone installation of Photoshop cannot be covered by a license applicable to the Adobe Creative Suite.

For a correct compliance calculation, Snow License Manager needs to be able to determine if an identified application is a stand-alone or product suite installation. The mechanism used to identify installations that are part of a product suite is called an application bundle.

An application bundle should include all applications and/or all application groups present in the program suite, optionally with the following recognition factors:

Example 69.

The image below shows how the registry key for Microsoft Office 2010 Standard is used to determine if the Office components are stand-alone or product suite installations. If the Microsoft Office 2010 Standard (reg) application is not present on the computer, a detected installation of e.g. Microsoft Office 2010 Excel will be displayed as a stand-alone installation. Microsoft Office 2010 Standard will only appear as a bundle in Snow License Manager if at least one of the Office components also is found on the computer.

Upgrade and downgrade rights refer to the extended right to use a license also for the preceding and/or subsequent application versions. This extended right is managed via an application family which includes all products from the same product family. Application families are administered via the Software Recognition Service.

Application types are used to identify the purpose and function of an application. This enables listing of for example all antivirus applications in the IT environment, without having to know the manufacturer or the application name. Snow License Manager uses the application types specified in United Nations Standard Products and Services Code (UNSPSC).

Application types are administered via the Software Recognition Service.

Application categories can be created for a set of applications that have something in common. Application categories can, for example, be used to specify the standard applications that according to the IT policy of the organization should be installed on all computers and laptops.

Before ISO 19770-2 there was no standard for how software manufacturers should tag their software in order to facilitate identification of inventoried software. As a result, there are vast inconsistencies in the naming of manufacturers; a single manufacturer can have tagged different software with slightly different manufacturer names. One example of this is Adobe products, which can be tagged with manufacturer names such as Adobe, Adobe System, Adobe Systems, Adobe Inc., Adobe Incorporated, etc.

Because of these inconsistencies, all application manufacturer names must be specified in the Manufacturers list. Manufacturers of global applications (identified by the SRS) are automatically added to the list, while manufacturers of local applications need to be manually added.

There are similar challenges with inconsistency for the language tagged in an inventoried application, as there are with manufacturer names, see above.

Normally, the license purchase price is set per application, regardless of the language. Historically, however, some manufacturers have applied different price tags for an application depending on language. In cases where you need to differ between different languages of an application, you must first collect all the variations and create one uniform name per language in the Language list.