Establish and Document the Application's Software Licenses, Leases, and Subscriptions

This chapter explains how to establish and document the licenses, leases, and subscriptions an Application depends on.

Why Licenses, Leases, and Subscriptions Matter

Almost every Application depends on licensed software: the Application itself, if it comes from a vendor; the third-party and open-source components within it; and the platforms and services it runs on. Each carries obligations, costs, and expiry or renewal dates. An unknown license can expose the enterprise to compliance claims; an expired subscription can take an Application offline; an open-source license with unexpected conditions can restrict how the enterprise uses or distributes its own software.

Establish the Licenses, Leases, and Subscriptions

Identify every license, lease, and subscription the Application depends on, including:

• Vendor licenses or subscriptions for the Application itself.

• Licenses for third-party and open-source components within it.

• Licenses or subscriptions for the platforms, databases, middleware, and services it runs on, where these are attributable to the Application.

For each, establish its type (for example perpetual, subscription, usage-based, or open source), what it permits and requires, its cost, its quantity or usage limits, its renewal or expiry date, and who manages it.

Document and Share the Licenses, Leases, and Subscriptions

Record each license, lease, and subscription in the Application Documentation, with links to the agreements and to the enterprise’s license inventory where one exists. Track renewal and expiry dates as described in the chapter “Track the Application’s Expiring Dependencies — Certificates, Credentials, Licenses, and Vendor Support Dates.” Review the record with every Release that adds or removes licensed components.

Best Practice: Establish and Document the Application’s Software Licenses, Leases, and Subscriptions

It is a best practice to both establish and document the solution for an Application’s licensing: identify every license, lease, and subscription it depends on, with its type, permissions, obligations, cost, limits, renewal date, and manager, and link each one to the enterprise’s license records.

Benefits: Documented licensing protects the enterprise from compliance claims and from outages caused by unexpected expiry. It also gives Application Portfolio Management accurate cost information and highlights unused or duplicate licenses that can be eliminated.

Connections to Related IF4IT Practices and Inventories

The Application Portfolio Management (APM) Best Practices addresses license compliance, tracking all license types, tracking renewal dates, and capturing the total cost of ownership of every Application. The Vendors Inventory and Attributes describes how license-granting vendors are recorded.