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Re: License Management Services

From: stephen booth <stephenbooth.uk_at_gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 18:07:05 +0100
Message-ID: <687bf9c40510171007p51e4cb1cy@mail.gmail.com>


On 17/10/05, Marquez, Chris <cmarquez_at_collegeboard.org> wrote:
> >>(and pick up a bounty if any over use is discovered]).
> Interesting...true???

I don't know about LMS but last I heard BSA were offering $2000 for tip offs that lead to discovery of significant usage of unlicensed software. I.E. $2000 or more of extra Microsoft licenses sold, plus civil damages, as I recall licenses have to be bought at retail 'box off the shelf' prices direct from Microsoft rather than bulk discounted from a regular supplier so a few unlicensed desktops running office can soon hit that.

>
> >>I've yet to come across any company of a reasonable
> >>size that could be sure it was correctly licensed.
>
> Ahh...I think that is by (Oracle Corp. Sales Dept.) design!
> :o|
> You are "correctly licensed" when quota's have been met.
> ;o)
>

The aim is, of course, to sell more licenses.

The problem with any organisation of a reasonable size is that it's very difficult, almost impossible, to accurately track usage. All it takes is one manager to forget to tell the complaince manager/section about a new server or that they've added another 5 users to an application and it all falls apart. Procedures, such as those mandated under ISO9000, can help but if people don't follow the procedures then you're lost. From what I've seen a lot of companies have problems with teams or their managers setting up little Oracle servers (often on desktop PCs) for 'a quick test' or similar not realising (or caring) that that is a processor worth of license they're using an not paying for. If it really was a 'quick test', over and wiped in a few days, then there probably wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that such boxes have a tendancy to hang around and become an essential part of the business processes. Unlicensed, unmaintained, unsupported by IT and unknown to the DBA/DBA team. At one of my previous employers I once ran some network scanning software that basically went through every IP address in the range the company used and tried to connect to port 1521 (a quick and dirty test for if an Oracle Listener was running). As I recall, out of the thousand or so boxes about 40 reponded that shouldn't be running Oracle.

Stephen

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Received on Mon Oct 17 2005 - 12:09:18 CDT

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