Glossary

A metric that counts only users who actually used the service in a measurement period, rather than everyone given access. Cisco, for example, defines an Active User for Webex as a knowledge worker who hosts at least one meeting.

Discovery that relies on a small program installed on each device to report hardware, software and sometimes usage data. Agentless discovery instead queries devices remotely over the network or through management interfaces; many programs combine both.

A Salesforce enterprise buying model that grants broad access to selected products, including AI agents, for a fixed term and fee rather than per-seat or per-credit billing.

A permissive open source license from the Apache Software Foundation that grants copyright and explicit patent licenses from contributors. Redistributors must include the license, keep notices, mark changed files and pass on any NOTICE file.

The provision in a license agreement that gives the publisher the right to verify the customer's compliance, usually with a notice period, frequency limit, obligation to cooperate and a rule for paying for any shortfall found. Its wording determines how an audit will run.

The formal written notice by which a publisher starts an audit under the agreement's audit clause, usually naming the scope, legal entities and timeline.

The public clouds, namely Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, in which Oracle's cloud licensing policy lets customers license Oracle programs by counting vCPUs instead of physical processors.

An IBM metric in which each unique person given access to the program needs a dedicated entitlement, whether or not the person uses it at a given time. Entitlements cannot be shared or reassigned except permanently.

Autodesk's pay-as-you-go offering in which customers buy prepaid token packs and consume tokens for each day a product is used, instead of buying a subscription for each user.

A Microsoft benefit that lets customers apply eligible Windows Server and SQL Server licenses with Software Assurance or subscriptions to Azure services, paying a reduced rate that excludes the software licence cost.

Support or maintenance fees charged for the period during which software was used without a license, often included in an audit settlement alongside the license purchase.

Using licenses an organization already owns to run software on third-party cloud infrastructure, instead of paying for software included in the cloud price. Each vendor sets its own eligibility and counting rules for BYOL.

A family of permissive open source licenses originating at the University of California, Berkeley. The common 3-clause version permits redistribution with notices kept and forbids using the contributors' names to endorse derived products.

A model in which the license requirement is based on the computing capacity available to the software, such as processors, cores, sockets, vCPUs, memory or storage, rather than on the people who use it.

Cisco's enterprise buying program for software and cloud subscriptions across suites, with growth allowances, true-forward reconciliation and value-shift options defined in its program terms.

A Microsoft license that grants a user or a device the right to access server software such as Windows Server. It is assigned either per user or per device and is separate from the license for the server itself.

A Microsoft partner program under which partners sell, bill and support Microsoft cloud services and some perpetual software for their customers, owning the customer relationship. Customers buy under the Microsoft Customer Agreement through the partner.

A group of physical hosts managed together so that virtual machines can move between them. Where a vendor counts every host a workload could run on, the cluster boundary can determine the licensing requirement.

Cisco's subscription buying program for Webex collaboration services, offered on named user, active user, enterprise-wide or shared meeting models.

The shortfall between the licenses a deployment requires and the licenses the organization owns, for a given product and metric. It is the negative side of an effective license position.

A model in which the number of licenses caps how many users or devices can use the software at the same moment, with licenses returned to a pool when sessions end. A license server usually enforces the limit.

A metric counting the maximum number of people or sessions using the software at the same time, rather than the number of people entitled to use it. It is typically enforced by a license server.

Any component recorded in a configuration management database because it needs to be managed to deliver an IT service, such as a server, application instance, database or network device. Some vendors meter subscriptions by configuration item categories.

A repository that holds information about configuration items (hardware, software, services and the relationships between them) used to deliver IT services. Asset and license tools often read inventory or topology from the CMDB or write normalized software data back to it.

A model in which the customer pays for measured use, such as transactions, compute hours, API calls or consumed credits, either pay-as-you-go or by drawing down a prepaid balance.

A lightweight, isolated runtime that packages an application with its dependencies and shares the host operating system kernel. Container platforms schedule workloads dynamically, so vendors define specific counting methods for them.

IBM's terms for licensing software deployed in containers on a virtual CPU capacity basis, which require the IBM License Service to measure deployment.

A licensing approach that uses copyright to require that modified and extended versions of a program remain free under the same terms when distributed. Strong copyleft licenses such as the GPL apply this to the whole combined work; weak copyleft licenses apply it more narrowly.

A single physical computing unit within a processor chip; modern processors contain many cores. Core-based metrics count these units, and vendors define whether physical cores, virtual cores or disabled cores count and what minimums apply.

A multiplier from Oracle's Processor Core Factor Table, set by processor type, that converts physical cores into Processor licenses. For most modern x86 chips the factor is 0.5, so a 16-core server needs eight Processor licenses.

The Red Hat subscription unit for OpenShift and some other products, equal to two physical cores or four vCPUs.

A prepaid or committed unit of value that is drawn down as services are consumed, at rates set by the vendor for each service. Credits let one purchase cover several consumption services.

A work based on an existing copyrighted work, such as modified source code or a program that incorporates it. Whether a combined program counts as a derivative work often decides whether copyleft obligations apply.

A metric in which each physical or virtual device that runs or accesses the software counts as one license unit, whatever the number of users.

A Client Access License assigned to one device, which any number of people may use to access the corresponding server software.

The capability to restore IT services at a secondary site after a failure. Standby and backup environments may or may not require licenses depending on whether the software is installed, running and whether failover rights apply.

The automated collection of data about hardware and installed software across an estate, using agents, agentless scans, directory services, virtualization managers or cloud APIs. Discovery produces the raw inventory that later steps normalize and reconcile against entitlements.

A license right that allows the licensee to deploy an earlier version or a lower edition than the one purchased, for example running a previous server release on a license for the current release. Availability depends on the channel and product.

Offering the same software under two or more licenses so recipients can choose, commonly an open source license alongside a commercial license for users who do not want the open source obligations.

A statement, per product and metric, of how many licenses an organization is entitled to versus how many its deployments require, showing any surplus or shortfall. It is computed from inventory, entitlements and the vendor's counting rules, and is the central work product of a software asset management program.

IBM's policy that lets customers bring existing IBM software licenses to named public clouds, counting virtual capacity according to the policy's conversion notes rather than physical hardware.

A Cisco metric for enterprise-wide subscriptions, such as some Webex offers, that requires coverage of all of the customer's employees rather than only the users of the service.

A metric that counts all employees of the licensee, and of its contractors and outsourcers who support its internal operations, regardless of who uses the software. Oracle uses it for the Java SE Universal Subscription.

The date after which a publisher stops providing fixes, security updates or technical assistance for a product version. It affects licensing when extended support must be bought separately or when a vendor stops selling new licenses for a deployment model.

The license terms that accompany a software product and bind the person or organization that installs or uses it. It typically sets the permitted use, restrictions, warranty disclaimers and termination conditions; enterprise customers often negotiate separate agreements that override it.

A Microsoft volume licensing agreement for organizations with 500 or more users or devices that licenses software and cloud services for a minimum three-year term, with Software Assurance included and an annual true-up for growth.

Autodesk's enterprise agreement under which larger customers access Autodesk products, often consuming them through Token Flex or capacity units rather than individual subscriptions.

A generic term for an organization-wide agreement with one publisher that covers many products or users under one price and set of terms, often for several years. Names and mechanics vary by vendor: Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, Adobe ETLA, Cisco Enterprise Agreement and Oracle ULA are examples.

A subscription variant of the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement in which licenses are rented for the term rather than owned, allowing counts to be reduced at anniversaries.

Adobe's multi-year enterprise agreement for licensing Adobe products across an organization under one term and price, with annual reconciliation of deployments.

A model in which the license quantity is set by the size of the whole organization, such as total employees or knowledge workers, rather than by actual users of the product. It removes per-user tracking but makes growth in headcount a licensing event.

The right to use software that an organization has actually acquired, as defined by its purchase records and agreements: product, metric, quantity, term and conditions. Entitlements are the supply side of a license position; deployments are the demand side.

Rights to run a passive standby copy of software for disaster recovery or high availability without licensing it separately, within limits. Microsoft grants such rights for SQL Server through Software Assurance.

An operational framework and cultural practice for managing the variable spend of cloud computing, in which engineering, finance and business teams share accountability for cloud costs and usage decisions. It is maintained by the FinOps Foundation and overlaps with software asset management where cloud marketplace software and bring-your-own-license use are involved.

Salesforce's consumption currency for AI agents and other usage-based services: customers buy or receive a quantity of credits and each action consumes credits at the rates on the rate card.

The unit of consumption in Autodesk Flex: each product has a daily token rate, and using the product consumes that many tokens for a 24-hour period from first launch. Token packs expire after 12 months.

A Microsoft use right for licenses covered by Software Assurance or subscriptions that permits deployment on outsourced shared servers, including most hosting and cloud providers, with exclusions for Listed Providers.

Software that gives users the four freedoms defined by the Free Software Foundation: to run, study and change, redistribute, and distribute modified versions of the program. It refers to liberty rather than price.

Proprietary software offered at no charge, usually with restrictions on commercial use, redistribution or modification. Free of charge is not the same as open source, and some freeware requires a paid license for business use.

ServiceNow's user type for people who work on records in an application, such as resolving incidents or completing tasks, as opposed to requesters or approvers.

The SAP aggregation metric used in RISE with SAP and SAP S/4HANA Cloud: users of different types are converted into a common count using fixed ratios, so that, for example, several lighter-use users equal one full user.

Licensing all the physical processor capacity of a server or cluster on which a program is installed or could run, regardless of how much capacity is assigned to it. It is the default under most vendors' terms when sub-capacity conditions are not met.

A variant of the GPL version 3 that adds an obligation to offer the corresponding source code to users who interact with a modified program over a network, closing the gap left by software offered as a service.

The Free Software Foundation's strong copyleft license. Anyone who distributes a covered program, modified or not, must make the corresponding source code available under the same license; version 2 (1991) and version 3 (2007) are both widely used.

A weak copyleft license from the Free Software Foundation, used mainly for libraries, that allows the library to be linked into programs under other licenses while requiring that changes to the library itself stay under the LGPL.

A method of physically or firmware-level segmenting a server into separate partitions with fixed processor allocations. Oracle recognizes only listed hard partitioning technologies, configured as its policy requires, as a way to license fewer than all processors in a server.

The part of IT asset management that tracks physical devices such as servers, end-user computers, network and storage equipment from purchase to disposal. Accurate hardware records matter for software licensing because many metrics count processors, cores or devices.

Reclaiming licenses from users or devices that no longer need them, for example after a leaver, a role change or prolonged non-use, so the licenses can be reassigned instead of purchased again. It depends on usage data and on the vendor's reassignment rules.

The peak value of a measured quantity, such as licensable capacity, during a reporting period. IBM sub-capacity reporting uses the peak rather than an average.

A processor feature, also called simultaneous multithreading, that lets each physical core run two hardware threads, so an operating system sees twice as many logical processors. Vendors differ on whether threads count toward licenses.

The software layer that creates and runs virtual machines on a physical host, such as VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V or KVM. Some vendors license the hypervisor itself per core or per socket.

IBM's free tool that discovers IBM software and measures PVU, VPC and other metric consumption on virtualized infrastructure. Running it and keeping its reports is a condition of sub-capacity licensing.

IBM's measurement service for containerized IBM software on Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift, which records the vCPU capacity used; IBM requires it for Container Licenses.

Use of a licensed system by people or machines through another application, interface or automated process rather than by logging in directly. Some vendors license such use explicitly: SAP, for example, offers Digital Access, which licenses documents created in SAP ERP by non-SAP applications.

A cloud model in which the provider supplies virtual machines, storage and networking while the customer installs and licenses the operating system and applications, often under BYOL terms.

An IBM metric counting each installed copy of the program on a physical or virtual disk made available for execution, with one entitlement required per install.

The maintained record of IT assets and software installations an organization has, with attributes such as location, owner, version and edition. U.S. federal audit work has identified a comprehensive, regularly tracked license inventory as a leading practice in software license management.

The series of international standards for IT asset management developed by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7, covering the management system (part 1), software identification tags (part 2), entitlement schema (part 3), resource utilization measurement (part 4), vocabulary (part 5) and hardware tags (part 6), among others.

The part of the ISO/IEC 19770 family that specifies requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and improving an IT asset management system. The 2017 edition is a management system standard designed to work alongside ISO/IEC 27001.

The part of the ISO/IEC 19770 family that specifies software identification (SWID) tags: structured files that identify an installed software product, version and edition so that it can be recognized reliably.

The part of the ISO/IEC 19770 family that defines terms for software entitlements and a transport format, the entitlement schema, for exchanging entitlement data including metrics, with the aim of easing proof of ownership and compliance management.

The part of the ISO/IEC 19770 family that specifies an information structure for resource utilization measurement (RUM), so that usage of software and other IT assets can be reported in a standard way.

The part of the ISO/IEC 19770 family that gives an overview of IT asset management and the standard vocabulary used across the series.

The part of the ISO/IEC 19770 family that specifies hardware identification tags, the hardware counterpart to SWID tags.

The set of processes, systems and technology an organization uses to detect, track, manage and optimize its IT assets through every stage of their lifecycle. ISO/IEC 19770-1 treats an IT asset broadly, covering hardware, software, subscriptions and cloud services the organization owns, pays for or uses.

The management system, in the ISO sense, that an organization puts in place to run IT asset management: policies, objectives, roles, processes and continual improvement. ISO/IEC 19770-1 specifies the requirements for such a system and is designed to be implemented alongside other management system standards such as ISO/IEC 27001.

A Cisco term for employees and contractors who use a computer or collaboration device for their work; some Collaboration Flex Plan models require all knowledge workers to be covered, with a stated minimum.

The state in which an organization's deployments and use of software stay within the rights it has acquired. Compliance is shown by an effective license position and tested by audits.

The IBM document issued for each program that states its license metric, any supporting programs, permitted uses and other program-specific terms, supplementing the IBM International Program License Agreement.

A code or file that activates software or unlocks licensed features. A key shows that software was activated but is not by itself proof of entitlement under most license agreements.

Oracle's license verification organization, which runs customer-led assurance reviews and Oracle-initiated audits of Oracle program deployments. For a period Oracle used the name Global Licensing and Advisory Services (GLAS) for this function.

The unit by which a license is measured and counted, such as a named user, a processor core, a device or a credit. The metric definition, together with minimums and counting rules, determines how many licenses a deployment needs.

The smallest number of licenses a vendor requires for a unit of deployment regardless of actual use, such as 25 Named User Plus per Oracle Processor, 16 cores per server for Windows Server, or 16 cores per processor for VMware Cloud Foundation.

A Software Assurance benefit that allows eligible server application licenses to be reassigned more often than every 90 days within a server farm and to be deployed on shared hardware at authorized mobility partners.

The overall way a product is sold and counted: for example per user, per device, per processor or core, per capacity unit, by consumption, or enterprise-wide. A license model combines one or more license metrics with the rules for assigning and counting them.

Reducing license cost and risk without reducing capability, by harvesting unused licenses, matching editions to real needs, consolidating workloads, applying use rights and benefits, and choosing the right metric. It is typically done after a reliable effective license position exists.

Broadcom's right for VMware Cloud Foundation subscribers to run their subscription on certified cloud service providers' infrastructure, subject to the program documentation.

Moving a license from one user, device or server to another. Vendors restrict how often this can happen: Adobe allows Named User reassignment once every 30 days under its business terms, while Microsoft generally limits server license reassignment to once every 90 days unless a benefit such as License Mobility applies.

A less formal compliance check than an audit, often presented by the publisher as an advisory or assurance engagement, in which the customer shares deployment data for analysis.

A service that issues, tracks and reclaims licenses for software on the network, used mainly for concurrent and token-based models. Its logs are often the best usage record for such products.

A cloud provider named by Microsoft whose shared infrastructure is excluded from the Flexible Virtualization Benefit, so customer-owned licenses can run there only under other rights such as License Mobility or provider-supplied licenses.

Moving a running virtual machine from one physical host to another without downtime, as with VMware vMotion. Licensing terms may require every possible destination host to be licensed or restrict how often licenses follow the workload.

A Salesforce user license priced by logins rather than by assigned users, where each unique login by a user in a day counts once.

A framework contract that sets the general legal terms between a customer and a supplier, such as liability, confidentiality and payment, under which individual orders are later placed. Salesforce, for example, publishes a Main Services Agreement that governs subscriptions bought through order forms.

An Oracle technical support policy under which all licenses within a license set must be kept on the same level of support, so customers cannot drop support on part of the licenses for a program while keeping it on the rest.

Vendor-supplied data collection tools or scripts that customers run during an audit to extract deployment, configuration and usage data for the publisher's analysis. What they collect, and how the results are interpreted, is often a point of negotiation.

A Microsoft purchasing agreement, accepted once, under which organizations buy cloud subscriptions, Azure and some software directly from Microsoft or through a partner, replacing much of the older agreement set for new transactions.

A transactional Microsoft volume licensing agreement with no organization-wide commitment, under which customers buy software licenses, Software Assurance and online services as needed.

A short permissive open source license that allows anyone to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense and sell the software, provided the copyright and permission notice are kept in copies.

A weak copyleft license, now in version 2.0, whose obligations apply file by file: modified files covered by the license must stay under it, while new files in a larger work may use other licenses.

A license assigned to one identified individual, who may use the software, typically from several devices, while other people may not share the license. SAP, Adobe, Atlassian and others each define their own named-user terms.

An Oracle user metric counting individuals, and non-human operated devices, authorized to use programs installed on one or more servers, whether or not they are actively using them. Many programs carry a minimum number of Named User Plus licenses per Processor.

A U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology practice guide that shows how to build an IT asset management solution for financial services using commercially available tools, with a focus on security.

A license bound to one specific machine, often through a hardware identifier, so that the software runs only on that machine.

The step that turns raw discovery records into consistent, recognized product data: one publisher name, product name, version and edition for each installation, regardless of how the file or registry entry spelled it. Normalized data is what allows installations to be matched to license entitlements.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure's compute unit, equal to one physical core with hyper-threading enabled; Oracle's BYOL rules convert Processor and Named User Plus licenses into OCPUs.

A license supplied by a hardware manufacturer (original equipment manufacturer) preinstalled with a device and generally tied to that device for its life. OEM licenses usually cannot be transferred to another machine and do not include volume licensing benefits.

The Open Source Initiative's ten criteria that a license must meet to be called open source, covering free redistribution, source code availability, derived works and non-discrimination, among others.

A license that meets the Open Source Definition: it allows free redistribution, access to source code, modification and derived works, without discrimination against persons, groups or fields of use. The Open Source Initiative reviews and approves licenses against this definition.

An internal team that sets and runs an organization's policy for using, contributing to and releasing open source software, including license review, obligations tracking and SBOM practices. It complements software asset management, which focuses mainly on commercial entitlements.

A Microsoft volume licensing program for smaller organizations that bundles licenses with Software Assurance over a three-year term, with an option to spread payments.

Microsoft's term for all or part of an operating system instance, running on a physical machine (physical OSE) or in a virtual machine (virtual OSE). Many Microsoft server rights are expressed as a number of OSEs per license.

The transaction document that records what a customer is buying under a framework agreement: products, quantities, metrics, term, price and any special terms. For many subscriptions the order form, not the price list, is where the entitlement is defined.

Owning more licenses, or paying for more subscriptions or support, than deployments require. It is the positive side of an effective license position and the target of license optimization.

IBM's volume licensing program for software, under which customers acquire licenses, subscription and support and manage their entitlements. Sub-capacity rights for PVU and VPC metrics are granted under this program subject to its conditions.

Broadcom's subscription metric for VMware Cloud Foundation and vSphere, counting physical cores with a minimum number of cores per processor, including cores deactivated in the BIOS.

A capacity model that counts the physical or virtual processor cores available to the software, usually with a minimum number of cores per processor, per server or per virtual machine.

A storage capacity metric used by Broadcom for VMware vSAN, where one tebibyte equals 2^40 bytes of raw physical storage capacity.

A model in which each device that runs or accesses the software needs a license, regardless of how many people use it. It suits shared workstations and kiosks.

A model in which each person who uses or is authorized to use the software needs a license, regardless of how many devices they use. Vendors differ on whether the count is of authorized people, active users or users over a period.

An open source license that allows use, modification and redistribution, including in proprietary products, with few conditions beyond keeping copyright and license notices. The MIT, BSD and Apache 2.0 licenses are permissive.

A license that allows use of a specific software version indefinitely after a one-time fee, subject to its terms. Updates and technical support are usually bought separately as annual support or maintenance.

An Oracle agreement that grants unlimited deployment of a defined set of programs without an end date or certification event, in exchange for an up-front fee and ongoing support. Its limits usually come from scope clauses such as the covered entities and programs.

A single physical computer with its own processors, memory and input/output. Many capacity metrics are counted per physical server, and virtualization rules often refer back to the physical host.

A cloud model in which the provider manages the runtime, middleware or database platform and the customer deploys its applications on top; licensing may be included or brought by the customer.

A contract clause that fixes unit prices for a set period or for additional purchases during the term, protecting the customer against list price increases. It commonly appears in multi-year enterprise agreements.

Oracle's capacity metric covering all processors where the programs are installed or running, counted as physical cores multiplied by the core factor from Oracle's Processor Core Factor Table. Processor-licensed programs may be used by any number of internal users.

An IBM capacity metric in which each processor core is assigned a number of units according to the processor technology in IBM's PVU table; the program needs entitlements for the total PVUs of the cores available to it.

Documentation that shows an organization is entitled to use software, such as contracts, order forms, invoices, license certificates or vendor portal records. Publishers usually require it during audits; installation media or keys alone rarely suffice.

Software whose copyright holder keeps exclusive control over its use, copying and modification and grants only limited rights through a license. Most commercially licensed enterprise software is proprietary.

Assigning a previously harvested license to a new user or device, closing the loop between reclamation and fulfilment of new requests. Re-harvesting is only possible where the license terms allow reassignment and the minimum assignment period has passed.

Comparing normalized deployment and usage data with entitlements, after applying the vendor's metric definitions, minimums and use rights, to determine where the organization is compliant, over-licensed or short. The output of reconciliation is the effective license position.

Red Hat's program that lets customers use eligible Red Hat subscriptions on certified public cloud providers instead of buying the software through the provider.

A charge a publisher applies when a customer who let technical support lapse wants to resume it, typically covering the lapsed period plus a penalty. Oracle's technical support policies, for example, set out how lapsed support is reinstated.

A clause in an audit settlement or agreement by which the publisher waives claims for past non-compliance within a defined scope once the settlement is paid.

Tracking the end dates, notice periods and price terms of subscriptions, support contracts and agreements so that each renewal is reviewed, resized or cancelled deliberately rather than renewed automatically.

An IBM metric based on the number of units of a specific resource used or managed by the program, such as servers, terabytes or managed endpoints, converted to entitlements by a tiered table.

Adjusting the size or edition of a resource to its actual requirement: fewer cores for an over-provisioned server, a lower-tier subscription for a light user, or a smaller cloud instance. In licensing, rightsizing can reduce processor-based and core-based license requirements directly.

SAP's subscription offering that bundles SAP S/4HANA Cloud with infrastructure, technical managed services and other tools under one contract, licensed by Full Use Equivalents.

The practice of tracking and governing software-as-a-service subscriptions: which applications are in use, who holds a seat, what each subscription costs and when it renews. It extends software asset management to cloud applications that are bought per user or per consumption unit rather than installed.

SAP's document-based metric for indirect use: instead of licensing each person who uses SAP ERP through a non-SAP application as a Named User, the customer licenses the business documents that such use creates, weighted by document type.

A customer-performed review of its own license position, sometimes requested by a publisher in place of or before a formal audit, and sometimes required periodically by the agreement. The customer reports its deployments and entitlements.

An enrollment under the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement for organizations that standardize on one or more server and cloud technologies, such as SQL Server or Windows Server, across their installed base.

A Microsoft model in which each server running the software needs a server license and each user or device that accesses it needs a Client Access License. Core-based server licensing with CALs follows the same logic with cores in place of servers.

A Microsoft program that lets service providers license Microsoft products monthly to host software services for their customers. Providers report usage every month to a reseller and follow the Services Provider Use Rights.

The commercial resolution of an audit finding, typically a purchase of the missing licenses, often with back support, sometimes combined with a new agreement or a release from past claims.

Hardware, software or cloud services used in an organization without the knowledge or approval of IT, commonly SaaS bought on a card. It creates licensing, security and cost risks that SaaS management aims to surface.

Software that has been purchased, and often continues to incur support or subscription fees, but is not deployed or not used. Identifying shelfware is one of the most common outcomes of a license optimization exercise.

A license that allows use of software by any number of users or devices at a defined location or within a defined organization, instead of counting individual copies.

The physical slot on a motherboard occupied by a processor chip. Socket-based metrics count occupied sockets regardless of how many cores each processor has.

The Red Hat subscription unit covering up to two occupied CPU sockets on a physical system; subscriptions can be stacked for larger systems but cannot be split across systems.

Segmenting a server by operating system or resource manager settings, such as most hypervisors, where allocations can be changed flexibly. Oracle does not accept soft partitioning as a means to limit the number of processors that must be licensed.

A delivery model in which the vendor runs the application and customers access it over the internet by subscription, usually priced per user or by consumption.

The discipline of controlling and protecting software assets across their lifecycle: knowing what software is deployed, what the organization is entitled to use, and whether the two match. It covers acquisition, deployment, usage, license compliance and retirement, and is the software-focused part of IT asset management.

A Microsoft maintenance offering bought alongside licenses that provides new version rights and benefits such as License Mobility, failover rights, Azure Hybrid Benefit eligibility and deployment planning services. Several virtualization and cloud rights are available only with active Software Assurance or an equivalent subscription.

A publisher's formal verification of whether a customer's deployments and use of its software are within the licenses purchased, conducted under the agreement's audit clause by the publisher or an appointed auditor. Findings of under-licensing usually lead to a purchase or settlement.

A formal, machine-readable record of the components and supply chain relationships that make up a piece of software. It supports vulnerability management and open source license compliance; SPDX and CycloneDX are common formats.

A small XML file defined by ISO/IEC 19770-2 that is installed with software and records who created it, its name, version and edition, and other identifying data. SWID tags make software recognition more reliable than inspecting files or registry entries.

A legal grant from a copyright holder that permits a licensee to use software under stated conditions, such as the number of users or processors, the permitted purpose and the term. Unlicensed use outside those conditions is an infringement or breach of contract.

The stages a piece of software passes through in an organization: request, approval, procurement, deployment, use, maintenance and retirement, together with the publisher's own lifecycle of general availability, support and end of support. SAM processes are usually organized around these stages.

Identifying a commercial product, edition and version from installation evidence such as file signatures, package databases, registry keys or SWID tags. A recognition catalog maps many raw evidence patterns to a single licensable product.

Software Package Data Exchange, an open standard from the Linux Foundation for communicating software bill of materials information, including components, licenses, copyrights and security references. Version 2.2.1 is published as ISO/IEC 5962:2021.

A short standardized name for a license from the SPDX License List, such as MIT, Apache-2.0 or GPL-3.0-only, used in source files and SBOMs so that tools can recognize licenses unambiguously.

A copyleft license whose sharing obligation extends to the whole program that incorporates the licensed code when that program is distributed, as with the GNU GPL. The GNU AGPL extends this to users who interact with the software over a network.

Licensing only the virtual capacity available to a program rather than the full physical capacity of the server. IBM permits it for eligible PVU and VPC programs under Passport Advantage, provided the customer runs the IBM License Metric Tool and keeps its reports.

A recurring-fee right to use software or a cloud service for as long as the subscription is paid, usually including updates and support. Most SaaS and many on-premises products are now sold this way.

The Microsoft term for a per-user license to an online service such as Microsoft 365, assigned to an individual user for the term of the subscription.

ServiceNow's capacity metric for IT operations and asset management products, in which each unit covers a set number of managed resources depending on the resource category.

The annual or multi-year renewal of technical support and software updates for licenses already owned. For perpetual licenses it is often the largest recurring cost, and lapsing it can trigger reinstatement fees or loss of upgrade rights.

A license that permits use of software for a fixed period, after which the right to use ends unless renewed. Term licenses for on-premises software differ from SaaS subscriptions in that the customer still installs and runs the software.

A prepaid unit exchanged for use of software, typically per day or per session, at a rate set for each product. Unused tokens usually expire at the end of a defined period.

A metric that counts completed business events, such as documents sent for e-signature, rather than users or devices. Adobe uses it for some Acrobat Sign plans.

A time-limited or feature-limited license that permits evaluation of software before purchase. Evaluation terms often prohibit production use, and continued use after the trial can create a compliance gap.

A contract mechanism that allows a customer to reduce the licensed quantity of a subscription at an anniversary or renewal, usually within limits set by the agreement. Not every program allows it, and some allow reductions only for particular products.

A reconciliation method in which growth found at the annual count is charged only from that point to the end of the term, rather than back to the start of the period. Cisco's Enterprise Agreement terms use this term for services growth.

A periodic reconciliation, defined in the agreement, in which the customer reports growth in users, devices or cores since the last count and pays for the additional licenses. Microsoft Enterprise Agreements, for example, let customers add users and devices during the term and settle the increase annually rather than ordering each addition separately.

The process at the end of an Oracle Unlimited License Agreement in which the customer counts and declares its deployments of the covered programs; the certified quantities become the perpetual licenses it keeps. Deployments in some public clouds may be excluded from the count unless the agreement says otherwise.

Atlassian's count for collections and some cloud products in which each person with access to at least one included app is billed once, however many of the apps they can use.

Oracle Cloud's consumption model in which customers pay as they go or commit funds in advance and consume any eligible Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and platform service at published rates.

An Oracle agreement that grants unlimited deployment of a defined set of programs for a fixed term, usually three years, in exchange for a fixed fee. At the end of the term the customer certifies its deployments, which then become a fixed quantity of perpetual licenses.

Measuring how much software is actually used, for example by application launches, active sessions, logins, transactions or consumed credits. ISO/IEC 19770-4 defines an information structure for resource utilization measurement so that usage can be exchanged between tools and vendors.

The specific permissions attached to a license: where and how the software may run, by whom, on how many devices or virtual environments, and with which benefits. Microsoft publishes them in its Product Terms; SAP in its Software Use Rights document.

A Client Access License assigned to one person, who may access the corresponding server software from any number of devices.

An IBM metric that converts a count of users into entitlements using a tiered table, so that the number of entitlements per user falls as the user count grows.

Adobe's membership program for buying and managing term licenses and subscriptions for teams and organizations, with a common anniversary date and volume discount levels.

A virtual processor presented to a virtual machine or container, which may correspond to a core or to a hardware thread on the host. Vendors that count vCPUs define how they map to physical cores and whether hyper-threading changes the ratio.

The conversion rules that translate virtual CPUs in a VM or cloud instance into the licensing units a vendor sells, for example two vCPUs to one Oracle Processor license in authorized clouds when hyper-threading is on, or one Red Hat core to two vCPUs.

The function that selects, contracts with and oversees suppliers, including software publishers and resellers. In licensing it covers negotiation of agreements, renewals, price protection and the handling of audits and disputes with each publisher.

A software-defined computer with its own operating system that runs on a hypervisor and shares the host's physical resources.

A Microsoft term for an operating system instance running in a virtual machine; some products may be licensed per virtual OSE, with a minimum number of core licenses for each.

An IBM capacity metric that counts the virtual cores available to a program in a virtual machine, or the physical cores where the program runs on a server without virtualization.

Running several isolated operating system instances on one physical host through a hypervisor. It complicates licensing because vendors disagree on whether the virtual machine, the host or the whole cluster is the unit that must be licensed.

Programs through which organizations buy many licenses under one agreement, with pricing, use rights and administration designed for business customers rather than retail buyers. Microsoft, for example, groups its Enterprise Agreement, MPSA, Open Value and related programs as volume licensing.

A copyleft license whose sharing obligation covers the licensed component and changes to it, but not larger works that merely link to or combine with it. The GNU LGPL and Mozilla Public License 2.0 are common examples.