SAM Pro: Testing License Reclamation for Red Hat Installations

Manu143
Tera Contributor

3 weeks ago

Hi community,

I am testing the license reclamation functionality for Red Hat Enterprise Linux in SAM Pro and would like to understand the recommended approach.

I have identified several Red Hat servers that appear as removal candidates. For testing purposes, I would like to reclaim a license from a non-production/test server and verify whether the reclamation impacts:

  • License consumption
  • License requirement
  • License gap after reconciliation

Could anyone advise:

  1. What is the correct process to reclaim a Red Hat license for testing?
  2. Is there a way to verify that the license was successfully reclaimed?
  3. After reclamation, which reconciliation job should be run to validate the results?
  4. For Red Hat server-based licensing, does reclamation reduce license consumption, or does the license requirement remain unchanged?

Any guidance or best practices would be greatly appreciated. PFA sceenshot for your reference

Thanks in advance!

Manu

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pr8172510
Kilo Sage

3 weeks ago

Hi @Manu143 ,

1. Process to reclaim a RHEL license

  • First, capture the current reconciliation results for the relevant RHEL product.

  • Navigate to Software Asset Workspace → License usage and open the Removal Candidates list. The exact navigation may vary by interface and release.

  • Select the removal candidate associated with the non-production server and verify that its state is Ready.

  • Select Reclaim to initiate the reclamation workflow.

  • If the installation is removed manually, ensure that the updated inventory is imported into ServiceNow. Automatic removal requires the appropriate removal integration to be configured.

2. How to verify successful reclamation

Check the removal candidate record after the workflow and inventory updates complete:

  • The Software Installation field becomes empty once the installation has been reclaimed and removed.

  • The Closed Complete state indicates that the software rights have been reclaimed.

An empty installation field alone is not sufficient to conclude that reclamation completed successfully, because candidates in other states can be closed or skipped. Verify the final state as well.

3. Which reconciliation job should be run?

Run Software Reconciliation for the relevant RHEL publisher/products after the installation data has been updated. Review the result under Software Asset → Reconciliation → Historical Results and confirm that the reconciliation status is Completed.

The SAM – Updating Existing Reclamation Candidates scheduled job updates eligible removal candidates in the Awaiting Revocation state when the software installation field is empty. It is a reclamation-candidate update job, not the reconciliation job itself.

4. Does reclamation reduce consumption or requirement?

This depends on the RHEL licensing metric and deployment topology. the SAM publisher pack for IBM supports RHEL Server and RHEL for Virtual Datacenters licensing using socket-pair-based and core-based metrics.

For core-based licensing, the requirement calculation depends on the physical host's cores or the VM-assigned cores, subject to the applicable host-capacity rules. Therefore, reclaiming an individual installation does not necessarily reduce the overall license requirement or license gap.

Compare the baseline and post-reclamation reconciliation results to determine whether the requirement, consumption, or gap actually changed in your environment.

 Software Asset Management Professional for IBM plugin (com.sn_samp_ibm) and the CMDB CI Class Models application are installed, these as required for RHEL reconciliation.



 Record the baseline results, reclaim one approved test-server candidate, ensure the installation data is updated, and run reconciliation again. Compare the results before drawing a conclusion about license consumption or requirement.