Software entitlements are purchase records of your software. These are important foundational data that are important for correct license compliance position calculation. Essentially Software entitlements data is reconciled with your software installations and the licensing rules engine of SAM pro to determine if you are compliant or not.
Process to review Software Entitlements
Detailed Steps
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Activity S.No. |
Activity |
Activity Details |
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4.1 |
Review Entitlements without PPN |
PPN or Publisher Part numbers are authorized SKU number from the publisher that helps recognize the purchase of the software product. It is a best practice to always use the PPN when adding entitlements- this is because ServiceNow content services provide the much-needed enrichment data on this PPN such as downgrade rights, software model, End of life information, license metric, rights per pack and many more This helps SAM Pro in applying the correct licensing terms.
To understand how ServiceNow can be used to add data for the entitlements you can check here. For MLS Import check here
Where to find this issue SAM Health check Recommended Actions for SAM Managers/Analysts:
If PPN exists in the SAM Library
However, sometimes that is not possible. Issue 1: The PPN you entered is not there in ServiceNow content library: Action 1: In this case you can either inform ServiceNow to perform research and add those PPNs in the library, this might take time and usually involves you to creating a case to ServiceNow Or
Video for creating custom PPN here. Documentation on PPN suggestion here. Check the figure below to understand this activity in detail
Issue 2: You don’t have the PPN (Publisher Part Number) In some cases, you might not have the PPN due to reasons such as non-availability of specific procurement data. In these cases, till the time you get the information on PPN you can create a custom PPN and follow the above approach
The sub flow for the same is documented below
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4.2 |
Review Entitlement missing unit cost |
As Entitlments are purchase records, cost is important. The cost data is used to calculate details like true up or potential savings.
Where to find this issue SAM health check Recommended Actions for SAM Managers/Analysts: Add the entitlement cost to the entitlement missing unit cost. Please note that this information cannot be filled in by ServiceNow content as it is specific to every customer based on their agreement with the publisher Note: For Microsoft products we understand that the licenses are sold is packs of 2 or 16 in most cases. Herein the unit cost would need to be entered as a unit cost of each entitlement rather than in packs (for example if SQL Server 2 core pack= $x, the unit cost= $x/2)
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4.3 |
Review Expiring Entitlements |
Entitlements of type subscription or maintenance need to be renewed. If not renewed, they can lead to incorrect license compliance figures. For example: If you don’t renew your software assurance (maintenance) entitlement for SQL Server you will not get the benefits that software assurance provides you
Where to find: Look for the maintenance expiration chart on the SAM overview. Check figure below Recommended Actions for SAM Managers/Analysts: Extend your maintenance entitlements |
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4.4 |
Review Maintenance entitlement missing base license |
Maintenance entitlements such as Microsoft software assurance entitlements need to be related to base entitlement (or perpetual entitlements) for them to work correctly. In case these are not related, the maintenance entitlement will not be consumed at all and will lead to wastage of license. Where to find: SAM health check Recommended Actions for SAM Managers/Analysts: :
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4.5 |
Review Entitlement in draft stage |
Entitlements in the draft stage will not be considered for licensing. This may happen when you have not published your entitlements. Where to find: On Software entitlement list view Recommended Actions for SAM Managers/Analysts: Publish you draft entitlement check video check video here
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4.6 |
Review If Entitlement have the correct license metric |
In most cases, when you select PPN, the license metric is auto populated by ServiceNow content services. However, there may be scenarios where the license metric is not populated or correctly populated when you don’t use a PPN. Hence, it is vital for you to recheck if the correct license metric is selected. A license metric ensures that the right licensing model is applied as per the licensing terms and conditions of the publisher. For example: Oracle DB server can either be licensed-by per processor or per named user license metric only. To read more about license metric to be used for Microsoft products check here: Where to find: If you run SAM health check for different products like Oracle DB server, Java, Windows Server, SQL Server, M365, there are checks which can auto verify if the right license metric is selected.
Recommended Actions for SAM Managers/Analysts: Chage to the right license metric and thereby run reconciliation. To understand support on SAM Pro existing license metrics check here. In case there is a certain licensing model (metric) not in the list, you can either try to create a custom license metric (check 4.12) or raise an enhancement request to ServiceNow. Create an enhancement request from here
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4.7 |
Review Entitlement with “incorrect” License consumption rules |
License consumption rules are a powerful feature in SAM Pro that help restrict license consumption of an entitlement to few entities. To check how it works you can check here Understand License consumption rules from Video here and ServiceNow Docs here The problem that happens is that due to the wrong configuration of this rule it may lead to wrong or no consumption at all. For example: If you write a rule to restrict license consumption to an IT Department and in the CMDB none of the users have the Department populated it may lead to no consumption. Hence, it is important to periodically review your license consumption rules and adjust them if necessary. Or you may not have linked your consumption rules to the entitlement in which case the rules will not be applied.
Where to find: Check consumption rules under License Operations Recommended Actions for SAM Managers/Analysts: Review your license consumption rules and check if they are configured correctly so that consumption can happen. |
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4.8 |
Review Entitlement with allocations |
Customers use allocations to ensure licenses are consumed by specific deployments. To read more about it refer here
The issue happens when allocations are wrongly created, such as allocation for SaaS Software, allocation on cluster resources, etc.
Where to find: Run SAM health check for the various products such as SQL Server, Windows Server, Oracle DB server, M365 to check allocation issues Recommended Actions for SAM Managers/Analysts: 1. SaaS Software: 2. Server Software: Microsoft Guidelines:
Oracle Guidelines:
Check the figure below to understand this activity in detail
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4.9 |
Review Entitlements are created for CAL records |
For certain Licensing models like Microsoft Server/CAL licensing model, Oracle DB- Named user plus licensing models for the CAL records or Client access records need to be created for correct license compliance determination.
To read about CAL setup check here
Where to find this issue: SAM health check Recommended Actions for SAM Managers/Analysts: Create CAL records for these license metrics if not created as per setup process |
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4.10 |
Review requirement to have correct license pack information |
For Microsoft software using the per core or per core CAL license metric, licenses are sold in packs. For example: SQL server core licenses are sold in packs of 2. Hence, the purchased rights are = Number of packs * rights per pack.
In most cases, the PPN automatically adds the right per license pack information.
However, in some cases the information is not present.
Recommended Actions for SAM Managers/Analysts: Update the rights per license pack and number of packs to automatically calculate the Purchased rights
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4.12 |
Review requirement to have a custom license metric |
ServiceNow supports a wide variety of licensing models (license metrics) for correct license compliance determination. To check the supported license metric view here:
However, we understand that licensing models are always getting updated and new licensing models are getting introduced which SAM Pro might not support at the time.
Recommended Actions for SAM Managers/Analysts: In these cases, you have 2 options:
1. Create a custom license metric: This can be done for simple licensing models. Check here
2. However, there can be more complex licensing models which may not be supported even through a custom license metric. In these cases, please create an enhancement request to ServiceNow |
High Level process to review Entitlements without PPN
High Level Process to manage allocations on Server or SaaS Software
Review Expiring maintenance
Review PPN Suggestions
Common FAQs on Software Entitlements
Q1. What is the best practise approach to create software entitlements?
Ans. Always use PPN (Publisher part numbers)- that way the details of the software entitlement are prefilled such as license metric, rights per pack , downgrade rights etc. In addition, ServiceNow auto creates software models with all enrichment data added automatically. In case, you dont have PPN or for some reason the PPN is not available in the ServiceNow content library follow step 4.1
Q2. What things do wrong mostly with License consumption rules?
In many cases the license consumption rule has been writing correctly but the underlying data in the CMDB may be missing/ incorrect. For example: If you write a rule to restrict license consumption to an IT Department and in the CMDB none of the users have the Department populated it may lead to no consumption. Hence, it is important to periodically review your license consumption rules and adjust them if necessary.
Other common issue is that you may not have linked your consumption rules to the entitlement in which case the rules will not be applied.
Q3. What usually goes wrong with allocations?
Ans. In most cases we find for
- Server Software-
a. the allocations are added correctly for a licensing layer. Say you want to license all virtual machines in the cluster, you allocate but forget to add allocation for 1-2 virtual machines.
b. You add allocation but dont follow the licensing rules of the publisher. For example: performing Host layer licensing on SQL Server Standard is not allowed as per Microsoft Licensing Rules. If you allocate the product will show as “allocated not in use”
c. You allocate license to an invalid entity such as allocate the host. You should not allocate license to a cluster, either allocate on the host(s) or VM(s) of a cluster. However, if you add allocation to them, they too will show as “allocated not in use”
d. You allocate to Virtual machine having no software installs- this will consume rights incorrectly even if there are no software installs on it
- SaaS Software
a. You have allocated license for the SaaS Subscription software: In most cases, allocation for SaaS subscription software is not required. Ideally you (with the help of the SaaS Portal admin) assign the license on the SaaS portal
Q4. What is the impact of not relating maintenance entitlements?
Ans. Maintenance entitlements such as Microsoft software assurance needs to be linked with your base perpetual licenses. for them to be considered for license compliance. In case, you have not linked they will not be considered for license compliance and be ignored.
Q5. How is True Up calculated by SAM Pro?
Ans. Check details here
Q6. What happens if maintenance entitlement expires?
Ans. Maintenance entitlement such as Microsoft software assurance provides a vast range of benefits such as license mobility, unlimited virtualization, new version benefits., azure hybrid benefits These benefits are auto applied by sam pro while licensing. Hence, if maintenance expires these benefits will no longer apply. The affect could be immediate non compliance or more number of rights required etc. The way to check if maintenance is expired directly is to check the software entitlement list view- active maintenance (false signifies its expired!)
Q7. I had a PPN (example:7NQ-00068) for Microsoft server product such as SQL Server Standard . I entered it which created a software model for SQL Server Standard with Perpetual and software assurance license type . However, after few hours it changed to SQL Server 2022 Standard. Why is that?
Ans.Microsoft provides generic Publisher Part Numbers (PPNs) that indicate the product edition but not the specific version. ServiceNow SAM Pro auomatically reads these PPNs, checks the Software Assurance (SA) end date on the entitlement, and checks the Content Service to identify which product version was current at that time. It then automatically updates the software model to that version, ensuring your SA benefits are applied to the correct release. It mentions the details in the comments.
Q8. How to quickly determine which installs were licensed by while entitlements/models?
Ans. Use the license consumption analysis feature. Details check here
Q9. Am I right in assuming that renewing a contract with associated entitlements, automatically modifies the dates on the entitlement?
Ans. No currently this is manual. Hence, contract renewal has no automatic bearing on software entitlements linked to it.
