AWS License Manager

With AWS License Manager, we can track license usage, set up automated distribution, activation, and tracking of software licenses across AWS accounts/organizations, and even set and enforce limits for the license across regions.

Here are some key concepts we need to know about AWS License Manager to better understand the service:

• License Manager dashboard: The License Manager dashboard is the central interface of AWS License Manager on the AWS Management Console. It provides us with a comprehensive overview and real-time visibility into our license usage.

• License types: The License Manager manages software licenses by separating them into the following two types:

  • Granted licenses: These are licenses purchased directly from the AWS marketplace.

  • Self-managed licenses: These are licenses purchased from a third-party vendor. For example, Windows server licenses purchased from Microsoft fall under this category.

• License Manager rules: License Manager rules are the guidelines or conditions we set up within AWS License Manager to enforce compliance with our licensing agreements.

• Automated discovery rules: Automated discovery rules in AWS License Manager are used to automatically discover and track software usage across AWS and on-premises resources. By setting up discovery rules, we can identify instances that are running specific software, ensuring that all our software applications are accounted for and managed under the defined licensing rules.

• User-based subscriptions: User-based subscriptions in AWS License Manager refer to a method of managing software licenses based on the number of users or subscribers rather than on traditional metrics like the number of processors, cores, or instances.

• Dedicated Instances: Dedicated Instances are Amazon EC2 instances running in a VPC on hardware dedicated to a single customer. In the context of License Manager, Dedicated Instances provide physical isolation. However, they don’t allow us to control instance placement or use our existing server-bound software licenses as efficiently as Dedicated Hosts.

• Dedicated Hosts: Dedicated Hosts are physical servers with EC2 instance capacity fully dedicated for our use. A key benefit of using Dedicated Hosts in relation to License Manager is the ability to apply our existing software licenses to the cloud. This is particularly important for software licenses that have strict hardware-based licensing requirements.

How AWS License Manager works

The software applications whose licenses are managed by License Manager, are primarily hosted on EC2 instances. Hence, the License Manager service mainly works with the Amazon EC2 service, in addition to the AWS IAM service responsible for permissions and access management.

We’ll explore how the AWS License Manager service works in the context of the Amazon EC2 and IAM services. Here’s an illustration detailing the setup and usage of the AWS License Manager service:

Here’s a breakdown of the diagram above on how we can set up and use the AWS License Manager service:

• Enable License Manager: The very first step is to go to the AWS Management Console and enable the AWS License Manager service.

• Set up IAM permissions: The AWS License Manager service will prompt us to enable IAM permissions for the service and will automatically set them up for us. We need to manually set up IAM policies for AWS EC2.

• Access License Manager dashboard: Once the License Manager is set up, we can go and access it’s dashboard.

• Check granted licenses: If we’ve already purchased software licenses from the AWS marketplace, they’ll be automatically granted under License Manager and appear under granted licenses.

• Create self-managed licenses: If we bought third-party vendor licenses, then we need to create self-managed licenses to use them with our AWS and on-premises resources:

  • We need to select the appropriate license type, and we can additionally also set limits based on the license type. For example, we can select the license type as “vCPUs” and set the limit to “8 vCPUs.”

  • We can optionally set up License Manager rules for automated management of the license.

  • We next set the automated discovery rules for the license, which the AWS License Manager’s automated discovery service will use to identify the appropriate resources.

• Discover resources: Use License Manager’s automated discovery service to discover resources and associate the appropriate license to them.

• Users create/delete license-consuming resources: The AWS users in organizations who are actually interacting with the resources running the software can then create and delete any license-consuming resources without any additional work.

Use cases

Here are some use cases of the AWS License Manager service:

• AWS License Manager can manage software licenses, which includes but is not limited to changing license types and automated discovery and tracking of existing software licenses.

• AWS License Manager can manage a collection of Dedicated Hosts as a single entity for simplification of the Windows BYOL experienceThe Windows "Bring Your Own License" (BYOL) experience on AWS refers to the ability for customers to use their existing Windows Server licenses on Amazon Web Services..

• AWS License Manager can automate the distribution and activation of software licenses purchased from the AWS marketplace across AWS accounts for end users.

• AWS License Manager can manage user-based license subscriptions on Amazon EC2.

Benefits of License Manager

Here are some of the benefits of the AWS License Manager service:

• License Manager helps us ensure compliance with software licensing terms and conditions.

• License Manager provides insights into software usage, which can help us optimize our license allocations and reduce costs.

• License Manager helps us centrally manage licenses for software deployed in AWS and on-premises resources.

Understanding costs

There are no additional charges for using AWS License Manager.

The AWS License Manager itself is a solution from AWS that allows us to manage software licenses. Hence, it’s important to note that we’ll still incur costs for those software licenses themselves and for AWS resources like EC2 instances where these software applications are running.

This lesson taught us about AWS License Manager, its potential benefits, and how it helps us manage software licenses and fine-tune licensing costs.