International Business Machines Corporation

Daniel Jack Wingard

Lawrence Allen Hurst, Jr

David Philip Arnfield

Ping Chen

James R Fritsch

Russell G Turner

Joseph Gregory Lovato

Lars R Iversen

Arthur Hawley Parmelee

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to software license management and provide a method, system and computer program product for authorizing customer managed software installation. In an embodiment of the invention, a method for authorizing customer managed software installation based on entitlement records can be provided. The method can include in response to a request to transfer a registered software product from an existing platform to a new platform, validating both an entitlement record and also a maintenance record for the registered software product and transferring the registered software product to the new platform only if both the entitlement record and the maintenance record validate.

Software configuration based on entitlement records

A single starting point configuration for a complex, configurable system, is determined by collecting machine-reported data from a configurable system; obtaining information regarding the configurable system from one or more document applications external to the configurable system; merging the machine-reported data and the external document application data to produce a proposed configuration starting point; creating a user-readable actual starting point configuration according to the merged data; receiving a system configuration change description; receiving a proposed final system configuration; and verifying that the system configuration changes applied to the actual starting point configuration yields the proposed final system configuration.

Starting point configuration determination for complex configurable systems

A single starting point configuration for a complex, configurable system, is determined by collecting machine-reported data from a configurable system; obtaining non-machine reported configuration information regarding said configurable system from one or more external document applications, merging the machine-reported data and the external document, and producing a proposed configuration starting point. A user may enter additional changes to the system configuration, thereby yielding a highly accurate starting point configuration. Prior to order fulfillment, the final system configuration, change order, and starting point configuration are verified to match and correlate.

The machine-native format of a machine reported configuration data set is identifying, and a set of rules is employed to translate the data set from machine-native format into a common format such as sales nomenclature. The common format configuration information is stored in a globally accessible repository, and retrieved to produce accurate and comprehensive configuration reports for complex configurable systems such as computer servers. These configuration reports may be utilized in order and need fulfillment, such as ordering system upgrades and repair components, scheduling manufacturing, assembly and shipping.

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Kingston, NY, United States of America

Daniel Jack Wingard