Software Licencing Overview
This chapter covers how xAssets discovers, recognises, and manages software across your organisation. Software Asset Management (SAM) in xAssets connects discovered software installations to licence entitlements, enabling you to maintain compliance and control costs.
How Software Data Flows
Understanding the data flow helps you interpret reports and troubleshoot issues:
- Discovery -- Network Discovery scans your assets and collects installed software data (from Programs and Features, EXE file headers, and registry entries)
- Recognition -- Each software title passes through the recognition engine, which classifies it (Primary, Secondary, Banned, Free, or Unknown), cleans the name, and determines whether it requires a licence
- Loading -- Recognised and unrecognised titles are loaded into the database and associated with the assets they are installed on
- Compliance -- Licence records are compared against installations to produce the licensing position
Unrecognised titles can be sent back to xAssets for classification in future recognition updates (see Unrecognised Software).
Key Concepts
| Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Software Title | An individual software program discovered on an asset. Classified as Primary, Secondary, Banned, Free, or Unknown. Only Primary titles are licensable. |
| Software Product | A licensable product that one or more software titles map to. For example, "Microsoft Office" is a product that maps to Excel, Word, and PowerPoint titles. |
| Software Licence | An asset record representing a software purchase -- a specific number of seats for a specific product at a point in time. |
| Agreement | A contract (e.g., a volume licence agreement) linked to licence records through parent-child relationships. |
| Recognition Record | A rule in the recognition engine that maps a raw software title to a cleaned name, classification, and licensing status. |
How Licences Work
Each Software Licence record covers exactly one product and represents a single purchase. It includes the number of seats and the licensing mode (per-computer, per-user, per-processor, etc.). For example:
- "Microsoft SQL Server -- 40 Processor Licences" is one licence record
- "Microsoft Office -- 25 User Seats" is a separate licence record
The licensing position compares the total licence entitlement for each product against the total number of installations discovered on your network. The result tells you whether you are compliant, over-licensed, or under-licensed for each product.
What Compliance Means
| Status | Meaning | What To Do |
|---|---|---|
| Compliant (green) | You own enough licences to cover all installations | No action needed -- review periodically |
| Over-licensed (blue) | You own more licences than you have installations | Consider whether excess licences can be reallocated or not renewed |
| Under-licensed (red) | You have more installations than licences | This is a compliance risk. Either purchase additional licences or remove the software from machines that do not need it |
Important: The licensing position is not updated automatically. You must run Calculate Licensing Position (or schedule it) after adding licences or running discovery. Viewing the report without recalculating may show stale data.
Assigning Computers to Licences
Computers can be assigned to specific licences using drag and drop or copy/paste. This enables you to identify exactly which computers are covered and which are not when a product is under-licensed. Assignment is optional -- the licensing position calculation works without it -- but it gives you much better visibility into which machines would need remediation.
Chapter Structure
| Page | What It Covers |
|---|---|
| Software Installed on a Computer | Viewing software on a specific machine |
| Software Products | Managing the software product catalogue |
| Software Licences | Creating and managing licence records |
| Licensing Position | Running and interpreting compliance reports |
| Upgrade Licences | Handling licence upgrades correctly |
| Reports | Generating compliance summary and detail reports |
| Unrecognised Software | Handling titles the recognition engine does not know |
| Software Updates | Keeping the recognition database current |
| Creating Software Titles Manually | Manually entering software records when discovery is not an option |
Related Articles
- Discovering a Network — how software data is collected
- Loading Discovery Data — how discovered software enters the database