Oracle International Corporation

Ann Catherine Scullion

Jason Aron Alonzo

Umesh Madhav Apte

John Leong Yee

Software device groups allow owners and administrators to be defined for various intelligent devices, instead of tracking by primary user. A software license compliance management system obtains discovery information for these devices to determine software installed or active on these devices. The management system also obtains the number of licenses for each software package and determines whether the software is in compliance, or if the number of instances exceeds the number of licenses. This determination is flexible and can handle various license types, such as per user, per device, and per processor. For any exception, the group owner is informed and then can re-allocate licenses, purchase additional licenses, or request the uninstalling of a software instance(s). Device groups also can include sub-groups with sub-group owners responsible for handling any exception in that sub-group.

Device based software authorizations for software asset management

A reconciliation process identifying financial assets in a financial system that do not also exist in the real world, such as is indicated in a discovery system, generates a list of exceptions that can be examined by type of exception. The list of exceptions also includes aggregate financial impact information for the exceptions, such as aggregate cost, fair market value, and net book value. An interface allows a user to view the financial impact information and better decide how to handle the assets corresponding to the exceptions, such as by retiring at least some of the assets, routing some of the exceptions to another user better able to handle the exceptions, or storing the list so that an investigation can be done into at least some of the assets. The financial impact information becomes particularly critical near quarter-end and year-end, as any material impact to the books requires timely disclosure.

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Livermore, CA, United States of America

Ann Catherine Scullion