Managing Licenses with Altiris 7.1 SP2

[Migration User]

Hi,

Question 1: I would like to know how much license management can be done through Altiris 7.1 SP2 on various platforms (Windows, Linux, HP-UX and Solaris)?

Here is my understanding, please correct me if I am wrong:

You can manage licenses either through CMS or AMS but the methodologies are different:

1. CMS and AMS use the Inventory Solution to gather software information.
2. CMS uses the Symantec Management Console  enhanced views to perform operations like Manage Software, Add License Purchase and Add Software Product. 
3. With AMS you get more options than CMS. Like create Software Product item, resource, purchase, renewal information, and track them

Question 2: AMS says that "you can create and manage the software products that are not installed in your environment."  In what scenario can this be useful

Question 3a:Can AMS or CMS auto-detect all the softwares installed in Windows, Linux, HP-UX and Solaris?

Question 3b:Can I manage every information and track software licenses for every software in Windows, Linux, HP-UX and Solaris? Can I do that with both CMS and AMS?

Question 4: What part does application metering play in terms of license management? Does application metering work the same in Windows, Linux, HP-UX and Solaris?

I hope my questions are clear to understand. Please notify otherwise.

Thank you.

 

[SK]

Licence Management is performed via AMS, as that allows you to create actual license objects that can be associated with software objects.

Inventory Solution will tell you what software is installed on each machine.

Application Metering will tell you what software has been used on each machine (Windows only).

Our "Installed vs Used" report will allow you to perform license harvetsing (removing unused software from machines, in order to deploy it to users that will actually use it).