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Introducing ibm tivoli license manager sg246888
1. Front cover
Introducing IBM Tivoli
License Manager
How-to guide for setting up your
license management environment
Achieve proactive license
management
Generate reports and
identify trends towards
license violations
Edson Manoel
John Aronis
Ron Falciani
Sebastien Fardel
Aniruddha Parnaik
ibm.com/redbooks
20. Trademarks
The following terms are trademarks of the International Business Machines Corporation in the United States,
other countries, or both:
AIX 5L™ IBM eServer™ SP™
AIX® Lotus Notes® SP1®
Balance® Lotus® SP2®
CT™ Notes® Tivoli Enterprise™
DB2 Universal Database™ Perform™ Tivoli®
DB2® Redbooks™ TME®
eServer™ Redbooks (logo)™ WebSphere®
™ RS/6000® XT™
IBM® SLC™ z/OS™
The following terms are trademarks of other companies:
ActionMedia, LANDesk, MMX, Pentium and ProShare are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United
States, other countries, or both.
Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, and the Windows logo are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the
United States, other countries, or both.
Java and all Java-based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun
Microsystems, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both.
C-bus is a trademark of Corollary, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both.
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other countries.
SET, SET Secure Electronic Transaction, and the SET Logo are trademarks owned by SET Secure
Electronic Transaction LLC.
Other company, product, and service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.
xviii Introducing IBM Tivoli License Manager
22. This redbook is a valuable addition to the existing product documentation and
should be read in conjunction with the official product documentation, which
complements the concepts explained in this book.
The team that wrote this redbook
This redbook was produced by a team of specialists from around the world
working at the International Technical Support Organization, Austin Center.
Edson Manoel is a Software Engineer at IBM Corporation - International
Technical Support Organization, Austin Center, working as an IT Specialist in the
Systems Management area. Prior to joining the ITSO, Edson worked in the IBM
Software Group as a Tivoli Technology Ambassador and in IBM Brasil
Professional Services Organization as a Certified IT Specialist. He was involved
in numerous projects, designing and implementing systems management
solutions for IBM customers and Business Partners. Edson holds a bachelor’s
degree in Applied Mathematics from Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil.
John Aronis is an IT Specialist at IBM Canada with the Enterprise Event
Management (EEM) team in Toronto, Canada. He has worked in various roles
over the last six years with IBM, from Deskside Support, ESM Tools and
Development team, to his current role with the EEM team. He holds a bachelor’s
degree from the University of Toronto.
Ron Falciani is an Executive Project Manager in SWG at Research Triangle
Park near Raleigh, North Carolina. He has several years of experience in
hardware and software sales, hardware development management, and
hardware and software marketing, including seven years experience in license
use management and related IBM strategy and policies development. He is
currently chairman of IBM's worldwide License Use Management Project Office.
He holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from Duke University.
Sebastien Fardel is an Advisory IT Specialist at IBM Corporation - Global
Services - Switzerland, acting as a Tivoli Architect in the Performance and
Availability, and Configurations and Operations areas. He has been in the IT
industry since 1996 and has experience in IT infrastructure management,
programming, and systems management area.
Aniruddha Parnaik (also known as “Ani”) is a Technical Executive in IBM Global
Services India. He provides technical support in the areas of systems
management and system administration. His areas of expertise includes
Windows NT and 2000, Microsoft Exchange Server, and Tivoli Enterprise. He
holds a master’s degree in Computer Systems Management.
xx Introducing IBM Tivoli License Manager
23. The team would like to express special thanks to Domenico Di Giulio, Software
Engineer - IBM Rome, for his major contribution and support to this book.
Thanks to the following people for their contributions to this project:
Joanne Luedtke, Lupe Brown, Wade Wallace, Chris Blatchley, and Budi
Darmawan
IBM Austin, International Technical Support Organization
Gabrielle Velez
IBM Rochester, International Technical Support Organization
Sandra Freudenberg
IBM Boulder, IGS SDTC
Pierre-André Schranz
IBM Switzerland
Terry Paul, Murray Taylor, James Jones, Paul Jacobs, Yang Fan, Carolanne
Graham, Jayne Muise-Brown
IBM Canada
Ulrik Soerensen
IBM Denmark
Carlo Romano
IBM Rome
David Ertl
ITLM Product Manager, IBM Austin
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Preface xxi
24. Comments welcome
Your comments are important to us!
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xxii Introducing IBM Tivoli License Manager
26. 1.1 Software License Use Management requirements
The topic of software license use management has been discussed and debated,
and tools have been developed and redeveloped over the past 15 years or so,
with various technologies employed by many companies to fulfill either perceived
or requested customer needs and software publisher wants. In an effort to
resolve these issues, a customer group initiated a work effort which led to the
creation of A Requirement for Software License Use Management, a 1996
document (copyrighted by the international user group SHARE Inc.), which
subsequently led to the development of the international standard for license use
management, XSLM, from The Open Group. A Requirement for Software
License Use Management is available on the Internet at:
http://www.xslm.org/html/Something_about_XSLM/About_XSLM/Original_Requirements/
original_requirements.html
To help put the topic in perspective, the following materials in this section are
excerpted from A Requirement for Software License Use Management, which
are copyrighted in the License Use Management Project of GUIDE International
Corporation, August 29, 1996 , and are included herein with the express
permission of the copyright holder:
The key factors driving the need for comprehensive license use management
are:
– Escalating software costs
– The high administrative burden of license compliance control
– The lack of effective customer control over the use of software
Customers must deal with multiple products, from multiple software suppliers,
on multiple platforms, with multiple licensing models. Given the exponential
growth in complexity, there is a clear requirement for an overall framework for
license use management that is:
– Extensible, flexible and comprehensive
– Independent of software supplier
– Independent of platform
– Independent of operating environment
– Independent of implementation
– Adaptable to future technologies
License use management tools, processes, products, and systems must:
– Meet the needs of both customers and software suppliers
– Be cost-effective for both customers and software suppliers
– Provide facilities to define license terms and conditions
– Record and report use level data
– Determine, report on, and verify compliance to license terms
2 Introducing IBM Tivoli License Manager
27. – Allow customers to control and optimize the use of licenses within the
terms and conditions of the license policy
Customers and software suppliers agree that software charges should
directly correspond to the value or expected value of the software. There is,
however, no single universal value metric or way of measuring value. The
value metric will differ from product to product and even from customer to
customer. In addition, software suppliers are entitled to a fair return on their
investments and require assurance that their software assets are protected
against intentional and unintentional misuse.
Improved price to value
For example, a customer wants to acquire a customer service package for
each of its branch offices. Some branches have mainframe systems, some
have RISC systems and others have PC networks. The number of users
varies greatly by branch so the customer wants a choice of licensing models.
The customer wants to manage user authorizations centrally. Finally,
corporate headquarters wants to charge back usage based on the number of
invoices printed per month.
The software supplier offers a choice of licensing alternatives for this product
that assures reasonable protection of the software supplier's assets. The
software supplier not only offers a choice of licensing models, but also allows
customers to acquire generic user authorizations, that is, a user authorization
can be applied to any of the three platforms. Additionally, the software
supplier has designed the product to collect information on invoices printed as
well as information on the number of users.
Price to value: Customer X supplier
Customer Perspective Software Supplier Perspective
Choice of licensing models Improved customer satisfaction
Better cost to value relationship Cost recovery and fair return on
investment
Central management of users and
operational efficiency Assurance of asset protection
Support for multiple use metrics
Reduced administrative burden
As licensing practices have become more diverse and environments more
complex, customers have developed costly, people-intensive methodologies
to manage software licenses. Customers' license management environments
often mirror their operating environments: a hybrid of uncoupled software,
some internally developed, others acquired.
Chapter 1. Introduction to license management 3
28. This problem is illustrated in the following example: A customer has a mobile
workforce where each member has the capability of selecting the software
best suited for the territory. All software is acquired and controlled centrally.
This results in hundreds of software licenses that must be managed, involving
management of keys, if required, and running tallies of the number of licenses
to take advantage of discounts. The implementation of license use
management tools and processes is key to the customer in a decentralized,
multiple platform environment.
Administrative burden: Customer X supplier
Customer Perspective Software Supplier Perspective
Use staff to develop applications, not Use staff to focus on core business
tools competencies
Capture all data from all applications on Reduced infrastructure required to
all platforms from all software suppliers support keys and product registration
within a single framework
Increased probability that customers will
Select applications on the merit of the acquire the appropriate number of
application and not if it fits into the licenses (or authorizations)
existing license management tool
Cost-effective customer managed use
Enhanced interoperability
Customers are faced with heterogeneous, distributed computing
environments that challenge their ability to monitor and control the use of
licensed software. They need the ability to capture use level data to facilitate
product acquisition justification, planning and budgeting for software,
implementation of charge-back systems to recover software costs, and
workload balancing. They also need the ability to ensure that their use of
software products complies with license terms and conditions.
For example, a customer has hardware servers from two different suppliers
installed at two locations at corporate headquarters. This customer has
acquired licenses for 150 users of a software product. Performance on one of
the servers has been slow, resulting in multiple user complaints. Without
access to use level data, the customer is unaware that 125 users are using
the server that has the noted performance problems and only 50 users are
accessing the other server. The customer is also unaware that 175 users,
which is 25 users beyond the entitled number, are using the application. With
the capture of and access to use level data, the customer will have the data
necessary to charge the appropriate departments for usage, to balance the
workload, and to fairly compensate the software supplier for use.
4 Introducing IBM Tivoli License Manager
29. Administrative burden: Customer X supplier
Customer Perspective Software Supplier Perspective
Balance the workload, resulting in better Potential for minimizing the overuse of
performance software
Acquire additional 'user authorizations' Improved ability for fair return on
(licenses), as needed, to comply with investments and cost recovery
the terms and conditions of the license
Increased customer satisfaction
Charge the appropriate departments for
usage
Optimize use of licenses
(End of excerpt)
1.2 Asset Management and Asset Protection
More broadly, a primary concern of customers, Asset Management refers to the
customers' ability to understand the inventory of software installed. For a more
complete solution, the customer often wants to understand the use of that
software and its association with the various hardware identifiable boxes together
with the relationship of that data to a customer's contracts with vendors regarding
software acquisition and entitlements. Software shipments from vendors
(physically and online), software inventory records for asset and tax purposes,
software deployment records regarding who is assigned the right to use each
piece of software and for how long by individual and/or department and/or
identifiable hardware box are also relevant associations in a vibrant Asset
Management system.
As such, an integrated asset management system manages the physical,
financial and contractual information about software assets. It covers the total
customer view of its (software) assets, including elements such as product
inventory and use that match against entitlement, contracts, purchasing and
accounts payable. The customer aim of good asset management is to:
Avoid compliance issues
Achieve maximum use of the assets (software) at minimum cost
Take advantage of knowledge of product use levels and contract expiration
dates
Similarly, as a primary concern of software vendors, Asset Protection refers to
the vendors' ability to ensure the customers' use of the vendors' products is in
compliance with the contract terms and conditions, the pricing models, and the
Chapter 1. Introduction to license management 5
30. agreed contractual entitlements. This would typically be managed or controlled
through license management tools.
The basic challenge to balance both the customers' and the vendors' needs is
the need to bridge between contractually defined entitlement levels and the real
physical customer IT environments, where actual license deployment and use
takes place. This ideally implies on one side a basic requirement for detailed,
well-maintained record of entitlements, inventory and use for the customer, and
on the other side the presence of license management tools in the customers' IT
environment capable of monitoring and counting in a way reflecting the
contractually defined rules.
1.3 License Use Management
License Use Management includes tools and processes to:
Enable, without serious risk of revenue loss to vendors, the implementation of
products priced on their use rather than on potential processor capacity, and
so on (for example, the number of concurrent or registered users or
resources)
Provide customers with tools to manage the access to and usage of software
products
Enable, without risk of revenue loss to vendors, supply before buy
merchandising (for example, trial, pre-packaged, pre-loaded or electronically
transmitted software)
License Use Management, correctly implemented, serves the interests of both
customers and software vendors. License Use Management assists Customers
by enabling use-based charging and:
Collecting basic use statistics and monitoring use levels
Informing customers when entitled use levels have been or are about to be
exceeded
Measuring resource use for the purpose of establishing software charges
Generating reports and statistics on use
Providing data to both enable customer charge back systems and leverage
software volume
Opportunities
Providing a means to demonstrate license compliance to external and internal
auditors
License Use Management assists software vendors by:
6 Introducing IBM Tivoli License Manager
31. Adding assurance that intellectual property is protected and that software
licenses are used within entitled limits
Enabling software family packaging and supply before buy merchandising
Potentially reducing software distribution costs
Regarding license use management, generally IBM's announced direction is to
implement self-compliance, that is, Customer Managed Use for IBM-owned
use-based priced software products, whereby a customer will not need to
request a use-key from IBM which controls the use-levels for which the customer
is licensed (a process and license management tool capability known as vendor
managed use). During an enrollment process the customer administrator is
asked to enter the overall licensed use-level for each product and then the
customer can track product use with the license management system by using
the administrative tools supplied.
Other software contains the ability to communicate product use with the license
use management system, allowing a customer to be able to receive information
about the licenses used (for example, the number of users or number of
resources used or managed) by these products. Changes and/or usage data is
logged in special files, which can be used for internal and external audit
purposes. A customer can also use the license use management administrative
tools to receive reports of use and compare this information to the use levels that
have been licensed. As a result customers are able to take action to either
increase or decrease product use and license use payments to their suppliers.
1.4 License management system
A license management system controls or allows the customer to control the
execution of a product based on the entitlement for which the customer has
contracted. In the context of widely distributed products, Web-based and
client-server implementations, and in the presence of a wide variety of pricing
models, the ability of a customer to manage the installation is virtually impossible
without a tool. Therefore, a well-conceived license management tool will allow
customers to operate within their entitlements and allow vendors to recover
revenue which would have been lost without such a tool, independent of
customers' basic honesty.
An effective license management system, designed to support both the
customer's asset management needs and the vendor's asset protection wants,
typically requires initial product enrollment in the form of an electronic file, or key,
with data relevant to the entitlement agreed to by the customer, in a license
management system repository. At product execution time, a license server is
asked to validate that the request is within the entitled levels. The license
Chapter 1. Introduction to license management 7
32. management system informs the product of the status; and the product, in an
ideal implementation, executes accordingly. The license management system
does not directly effect the product execution. It is the product that decides to
execute or not, based on information received from the license management
system and the license management policy of the vendor. Relevant data is then
logged to allow effective customer management and audit capability.
Within that context, the following brief descriptive terms are commonly used:
Vendor policies
These policies can be categorized as follows:
Customer Managed Use (CMU)
This vendor policy requires the customer to set the entitlement against which
the license management system will manage compliance. This policy allows
two types of implementation, hard and soft compliance.
Vendor Managed Use (VMU)
Vendors provide customers with product keys reflecting the customer
entitlement, against which the license management system will manage
compliance. This policy has only one implementation — hard compliance.
The purpose is vendor asset protection, affording the customer no latitude in
managing the installation.
Compliance
Various approaches may be perceived in achieving customer compliance:
Trust
Completely trust the customer to manage without tools.
Soft
The customer is provided tools to manage by warning if an (often
self-declared) entitlement level is exceeded. An audit trail is established
through a secure, audit log of all relevant events.
Hard
The customer, through use of license management tools, is precluded from
non-compliant use.
Hard and soft compliance are implemented in the same way with respect to the
license management system, which simply determines whether a requested use
authorization is within the stated entitlement. It is the reflection of the vendor
policy (hard or soft compliance) within the application product being managed
that dictates whether the product will execute or not, based on the response from
the license management system to the request to execute. Therefore, with Hard
8 Introducing IBM Tivoli License Manager
33. compliance, if the requested execution exceeds the entitlement, the product will
not go into execution. If, on the other hand, the vendor policy is Soft compliance,
under the same circumstance, the product will go into execution anyway and
inform the license system of this fact for logging in its audit database.
1.5 Conclusion
In any definition of asset protection schema and related license management
policies, a number of factors should be considered. The challenge for the vendor
is to achieve the optimal balance between maximizing revenue recovery against
both the administrative cost for the vendor and the potential customer
satisfaction impacts due to cost, operational burden, and perceived intrusion. In
addition, the balance must consider practical aspects of the business models,
such as requirements on vendor operational processes, availability and quality of
collected data, rolls of the Business Partners, and the competitive environment.
Care must be taken to ensure that any attempt to eliminate software product
over-use (willful or overt) will likely require implementation of additional control
measures that are not only costly but will also be likely to place an unwarranted
burden on all customers. Compliance enforcement should also serve to protect
the interests of the compliant customer, and should not willingly favor the
non-compliant customer.
Another basic parameter to consider is customer and business partner
satisfaction. The customer satisfaction considerations for a given compliance
enforcement schema will need to include both tangible factors, such as the
administrative burden and potential operational limitations imposed, but also less
tangible factors, such as the potential perception of a scheme as being intrusive
or “spying" on the customer.
For some customers imposing any level of license management discipline,
however reasonable from a vendor's view, might be perceived as painful; while
for others, the technical personnel making, for instance, operational capacity
allocations potentially affecting software compliance may not be those that
manage software entitlements or acquisitions. The compliance enforcement
schema therefore needs to be sufficiently robust to cover the great span in the
(broad) customer base in terms of business processes and organization,
technical capabilities, and particular license management practices.
Further, the vendor's asset protection process requirements imposed on the
customer need to be balanced as to appear reasonable and a logical component
of the over-all business model and the benefits the customer receives from it. A
strong logical correlation to the business model will also alleviate at least the
rational concerns over potential vendor "spying."
Chapter 1. Introduction to license management 9
34. With the advent of IBM Program License Agreement (IPLA), software terms and
conditions and pricing models are geared to reflect more directly the
customer-perceived value of software, together with capacity-on-demand
hardware for distributed systems products. As in the case of z/OS and Workload
License Charges (WLC), the dynamic aspect of software execution and pricing
demands a consistent, easy-to-use, cross-platform license management tool.
The IBM direction to fulfill this quintessential business need is IBM Tivoli License
Manager.
Ultimately, the customer will be looking for value in terms of help to manage
over-all software costs; a successful schema and tool set must therefore provide
support for the customer's own asset management processes while ensuring the
vendor's asset protection. It is with this intent that IBM Tivoli License Manager is
offered.
10 Introducing IBM Tivoli License Manager
36. 2.1 IBM Tivoli License Manager overview
License Management is one of the many processes involved in the delivery of IT
services. By having a real-time control on software assets, an enterprise could
understand exactly what resources are needed to support its business. Currently
the main portion of the investment required to set up an IT infrastructure is
related to software, not to hardware.
Figure 2-1 on page 13 shows an example of an ineffective licensing process for a
fictitious company called ACME enterprise. ACME enterprise needs to buy the
most recent version of the CSI HR software that has already been tested and
deployed in about 100 machines of both the HR and Finance departments of the
ACME enterprise.
The pricing policy for the CSI HR software is based on the number of concurrent
users. Since the IT department of ACME enterprise, in this scenario, is not able
to control how many licenses are concurrently in use by the HR and Finance
departments, a total of 100 licenses need to be acquired as the ACME enterprise
won’t be able to prove the makers of the CSI HR software how many licenses will
be used concurrently.
12 Introducing IBM Tivoli License Manager
37. CSI HR Software 4
Sales Specialist IT Operator
The IT Operator starts
making an Inventory
but as the Software is
installed on all
machines, the IT
Operator requests 100
licences because he
could not control how
20 users in the HR
many license are used
Division
concurrently.
1 3
6
There is a The IT Administrator
The IT Manager asks the IT Operator
need to buy
signs the to count the number
the new
license contract of required licenses
version of the
for 100 licenses. for this new version.
CSI HR
Software
80 users in the
Financial Division
5 The IT Administrator,
based on the information of
the IT Operator, requests
100 licenses.
2 The IT Manager asks the IT
Administrator for the number
IT Manager IT Administrator
of required licenses for this
new version.
Figure 2-1 Software licensing requirements
IBM Tivoli License Manager (ITLM) can help enterprises meet the software
assets management objectives by accomplishing, often silently, a certain number
of tasks described as follows:
Collecting information about installed products using an inventory scan
technology.
Identifying the start and the stop of a software on any machines.
Comparing the installed, used and procured licenses.
Metering software usage even for products that have no license
requirements.
Informing Administrators when license usage reaches a defined level.
Enforcing license agreements by refusing to start a application in case there
are no licenses available.
Assigning pool of licenses to users and/or machines.
Chapter 2. IBM Tivoli License Manager general overview 13
38. Maintaining a historical software usage information and providing reports
allowing the planning of license needs.
Providing real-time reports for inventory and software usage information.
Continuing with our example using the ACME enterprise, as shown in Figure 2-2,
one year has past since ACME enterprise acquired the CSI HR software and
now, it is time to negotiate the maintenance contract for this software. The
maintenance pricing policy is still based on the number of concurrent users.
During the past year, ACME enterprise has deployed the IBM Tivoli License
Manager solution. Using this technology, the IT Administrator doesn’t need to ask
the IT Operator to make an inventory, because IBM Tivoli License Manager
makes it automatically. Furthermore, as IBM Tivoli License Manager is able to
analyze the start and the stop of software, the IT Administrator analyzes, within
the reports provided by IBM Tivoli License Manager, that the average of the
concurrent users is 45. So, the maintenance contract could be signed for only 45
licenses instead of 100. This way, ACME enterprise has saved the cost of 55
licenses that have never been used.
14 Introducing IBM Tivoli License Manager
39. CSI HR Software ITLM collects usage of CSI HR using
Sales Specialist 4 inventory information and Software
entitlement.
5
ITLM stores all
information in a RDBMS
and can provide
historical or/and real- 20 users in the HR
time reports. Division
1
It is time to 7
negotiate the The IT Manager
maintenance could negotiate
contract for the maintenance
the 100 3
contract for only
licences of 45 licenses The IT Administrator
CSI HR instead of 100. defines the Software
Software entitlement in ITLM for
CSI HR. 80 users in the
Financial Division
6
The IT Administrator
reads in the report that
only 45 licenses are
concurrently used.
The IT Manager asks the IT
IT Manager 2 Administrator if the 100
IT Administrator
licenses are still needed.
Figure 2-2 Software licensing solution: IBM Tivoli License Manager
An IBM Tivoli License Manager solution can be seen as a three part solution:
IBM Tivoli License Manager Components
IBM Tivoli License Manager Software Entitlement
IBM Tivoli License Manager Reports
IBM Tivoli License Manager Components
The IBM Tivoli License Manager solution is composed of two
types of components: Physical and Logical. This is
discussed in more detail in 2.2, “IBM Tivoli License Manager
physical components” on page 16 and 2.3, “IBM Tivoli
License Manager logical components” on page 23.
Chapter 2. IBM Tivoli License Manager general overview 15
40. IBM Tivoli License Manager Software Entitlement
The IBM Tivoli License Manager provides a way to create
software entitlement and licensing policies for any kind of
software. This allows you to strictly apply licensing contract
policies or to measure software usage. Software entitlement
is part of the IBM Tivoli License Manager logical
components and is detailed in 2.5, “Licence Management
process” on page 30.
IBM Tivoli License Manager Reports
The IBM Tivoli License Manager solution provides some
predefined reports and a full integration with the IBM Tivoli
Data Warehouse product. Reports are part of the IBM Tivoli
License Manager Logical components and are introduced in
2.3, “IBM Tivoli License Manager logical components” on
page 23. Detailed information for Reports will be provided in
Chapter 6, “Reporting with IBM Tivoli License Manager” on
page 185.
2.2 IBM Tivoli License Manager physical components
A common way of organizing software to run on distributed systems is to
separate functionality into two parts: clients and servers. A client is a program
that uses services provided by other programs called servers. The client makes a
request for a service, and a server performs that service. Server functionality
often involves some sort of resource management, in which a server
synchronizes and manages access to the resource, responding to client requests
with either data or status information. Client programs typically handle user
interactions and often request data or initiate some data modification on behalf of
a user.
A common design of client/server systems uses three tiers: a client that interacts
with the user, an application server that contains the business logic of the
application, and a resource manager that stores data. In the context of an IBM
Tivoli License Manager solution, which is also based on a three tier architecture,
an Administration server acts as the resource manager, a Runtime server as the
application server, and agents as clients, as shown in Figure 2-3.
16 Introducing IBM Tivoli License Manager
41. Tier 3 Tier 2 Tier 1
Agents
DB2 RDBMS (Clients)
Runtime server
(Application server)
Agents
DB2 RDBMS (Clients)
(Resource)
Administration server
(Resource Manager)
Agents
(Clients)
DB2 RDBMS
Runtime server
(Application server)
Agents
(Clients)
Figure 2-3 Three-tiered client/server architecture
The IBM WebSphere Application Server provides the middle tier in this
architecture, allowing clients to interact with data resources as a Relational
Database Management System (RDBMS).
IBM WebSphere Application Server is an environment for open distributed
computing. Users and processes on a wide variety of platforms can interact by
using the facilities provided by WebSphere. Both the IBM Tivoli License Manager
Administration and Runtime servers are applications running on top of IBM
WebSphere Application Server. These applications consist of object-oriented
business logic that use a RDBMS for data storage. An application running on
IBM WebSphere Application Server consists of the following components, each
performing a different function:
HTML and JSP pages providing the user interface and program flow.
Enterprise beans containing the application’s business logic that handle
transactional operations and access to databases.
Servlets coordinate work between the other components of the application.
They also can dynamically generate Web page contents.
JavaBean components enable the other types of components to work
together.
Chapter 2. IBM Tivoli License Manager general overview 17
42. Relational Databases implement persistence and query functions for
enterprise beans. In the context of IBM Tivoli License Manager, the RDBMS
is provided by IBM DB2 Universal Database Enterprise Edition.
Figure 2-4 shows you the complete IBM Tivoli License Manager physical
architecture and components. In addition to that, it also describes the complete
data flow between the components of each tier as well as between the internal
component of the IBM Tivoli License Manager Administration and Runtime
servers.
Web Browser Web Browser
B M N
HTTP(s) HTTP
HTTP(s)
HTTP(s)
A F L
C
D
E
HTTP Server HTTP Server
H
WebSphere Plugin WebSphere Plugin G
HTTP(s) HTTP(s) J
I
IBM WebSpere IBM WebSpere
O
K
Application Server Application Server
Administration Server Runtime Server
JDBC JDBC JDBC JDBC
Agent Scan Engine
IBM DB2 IBM DB2
Licence Usage
WAS40 TLMA WAS40 TLMR Control Process
ITLM Administration ITLM Runtime server ITLM Agent
server
Master Catalog Runtime Catalog Agent Catalog
Figure 2-4 IBM Tivoli License Manager physical components
Figure 2-4 is discussed in more detail in the following sections.
18 Introducing IBM Tivoli License Manager
43. 2.2.1 IBM Tivoli License Manager Master Catalog
IBM Tivoli License Manager maintains a Master Catalog where details of all the
products that can be monitored are stored. This Catalog resides on the
Administration server and a subset of it is periodically downloaded to each
Runtime server. This subset of the Master Catalog, called Runtime Catalog, only
includes those entries from the Master Catalog that relate to products that have
been discovered running on nodes by Agents that are assigned to the Runtime
server. A copy of the Runtime Catalog is also downloaded to each node where
the Agent is installed.
The IBM Tivoli License Manager Catalog Manager application enables you to
add entries to the Master Catalog, using information from the following sources:
The Unknown file table, which contains entries for all applications that were
detected by Agents but that were not already in the Master Catalog.
The IBM Tivoli License Manager Catalog updates that will be provided by IBM
on a regular basis.
For information on managing the IBM Tivoli License Manager Master Catalog,
refer to 5.9, “Managing software product components” on page 174.
2.2.2 Network communication
This section provides information regarding the protocols used to communicate
between each different component that makes up the IBM Tivoli License
Manager solution.
Support applications
As shown in Figure 2-4 on page 18, the IBM Tivoli License Manager solutions
are composed of the following support applications:
HTTP Server
IBM WebSphere Application Server
IBM DB2 Universal Database Enterprise Edition
An IBM Tivoli License Manager solution mainly uses HyperText Transfer Protocol
(HTTP) for its communications. In some cases, HTTPs, which is a secure HTTP,
can be used to secure the communication between the Administration server and
the Runtime server. The communication among the Web Browsers and the
Administration and Runtime servers can also be encrypted. However, there is no
possibility of using HTTPs to secure the communication between Agents and
Runtime servers.
The HTTP requests made by an Agent or by a Runtime server are first received
by an HTTP server which must be installed on each Administration and Runtime
Chapter 2. IBM Tivoli License Manager general overview 19