Identifying Software

• US 20130013614A1
• Filed: 07/07/2011
• Published: 01/10/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/07/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: 1E Limited
• Original Assignee: 1E Limited
• Inventors: Mayo, Andrew
• Granted Patent: US 8,463,792 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/740
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce

Abstract

Software installed on a computer network is often inconsistently, or even incorrectly, identified. The same software may be identified in different ways. A catalogue of standardised identifiers is provided. The actual identifiers of software installed on the network are accessed and they are mapped to the standardised identifiers of the catalogue. The standardised identifiers are used to manage the installed software, monitor license compliance and/or, monitor maintenance agreements amongst other uses. Data relating to the use of the software may also be obtained and associated with the identification data. The usage data together with the standardised identifiers allows managers to more reliably manage software on the network. For example un-used software may be un-installed and licenses cancelled or reallocated.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method of establishing the identity of software installed on a computer having a processor, the software being purportedly identified by identification data associated with the installed software, the method using a catalogue of established software identification data, the method comprising:

mapping, by the processor, the purported identification data to established identification data in the catalogue; and

using, in further processing by the processor, the identification data to which the purported data is mapped as the established identification data of the installed software.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the established data in the catalogue has the form publisher name, product name and version identifier, and the mapping comprises processing the purported identification data to isolate portions of the purported identification data apparently respectively corresponding to a publisher name, a product name and a version identifier.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein processing the purported identification data to isolate the portions of the purported identification data comprises removing data representing predetermined symbols and other predetermined data.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein processing the purported identification data comprises a first process of processing the publisher name, a second process of processing the product name, and a third process of processing the version identifier, wherein the second process uses the result of the first process and the third process uses the results of the first and second processes.

5. The method according to claim 2, further comprising mapping each of the portions of the purported identification data to a corresponding portion of the established data in the catalogue.

6. The method according to claim 5, further comprising:

comparing an isolated purported publisher name with words in a dictionary;

weighting the name with a first weight if it is not in the dictionary and with a second weight if it is in the dictionary; and

matching the purported publisher name to a publisher name in the catalogue in dependence on the weighting.

7. The method according to claim 5, further comprising:

comparing two isolated words which purport to be parts of a publisher name with words in a dictionary;

weighting each word with a first weight if it is not in the dictionary and with a second weight if it is in the dictionary; and

selecting from the catalogue as the established publisher name the one of the words occurring most often in the catalogue if both words have the first weight.

8. The method according to claim 5, further comprising:

comparing two isolated words which purport to be parts of a publisher name with words in a dictionary;

weighting each word with a first weight if it is not in the dictionary and with a second weight if it is in the dictionary; and

if both words have the second weight, selecting from the catalogue as the established publisher name the either the one of the words occurring in the catalogue or the lexicographically lowest word if both occur in the catalogue.

9. The method according to claim 5, wherein the step of mapping the product name to the established product name in the catalogue comprises matching the product name to products associated with the established publisher name.

10. The method according to claim 9, further comprising removing from the product name predetermined symbols and other predetermined data.

11. The method according to claim 9, further comprising detecting data in the product name which may be a version identifier and removing that data from the product name, and storing the removed data.

12. The method according to claim 5, wherein mapping the version identifier to the established version identifier in the catalogue comprises removing from the version identifier predetermined symbols and other predetermined data, then combining the resulting version identifier with the established publisher and product names, and matching the combination to the catalogue.

13. The method according to claim 1, wherein the step of using the established identification data comprises correlating the established identification data to data identifying licensed software in a licensing database.

14. The method according to claim 13, further comprising mapping identification data in the licensing database to established identification data in the catalogue.

15. The method according to claim 1, further comprising obtaining usage data, mapping the usage data to data in the catalogue, and processing the mapped usage data to associate it with corresponding established identification data.

16. The method according to claim 15, wherein processing the usage data comprises matching a product code of the usage data to a product code associated with the identification data.

17. The method according to claim 16, wherein, if no product code is present in the usage data, the product code is inferred from the usage data associated with other software having matching identification data.

18. The method according to claim 16, wherein, if matching by product code is not achieved, the usage data is matched to identification data using publisher-product-version identification data of the usage data and of the identification data.

19. The method according to claim 15, further comprising matching usage data to data in the catalogue, matching identification data to data in the catalogue and associating the usage data with the identification data if both match to the same data in the catalogue.

20. The method according to claim 15, further comprising using a combination of identification data and usage data to manage the identified software.

21. The method according to claim 20, further comprising un-installing unused software or underused software.

22. The method according to claim 1, wherein the catalogue includes data indicating whether software requires a license and the method further comprises comparing identification data of the installed software with the catalogue to determine which installed software requires a license.

23. The method according to claim 1, further comprising using the established identification data to identify a plurality of different versions of similar software and to replace the different versions of the software with a single version of the software.

24. The method according to claim 1, further comprising using the established identification data to determine whether the software identified by the established identification data is subject to a maintenance contract.

25. The method according to claim 1, further comprising determining whether the data relating to identification of software on a computer is trustworthy.

26. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a computer program, the program comprising instructions which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to establish the identity of software installed on another computer, the software being purportedly identified by identification data associated with the installed software, by

accessing a catalogue of established software identification data;

mapping the purported identification data to the established identification data in the catalogue; and

using the identification data to which the purported data is mapped as the established identification data of the installed software.

27. A computer system, comprising:

a plurality of user computers coupled to a network; and

one or more administrative computers, coupled to the network, on which a systems management tool and an identification data processing engine are installed,

wherein the systems management tool stores software identification data and computer identifiers identifying the software installed on the user computers, and also stores usage data relating to the usage of the installed software, and

wherein the identification data processing engine has a catalogue of standardised software identification data and is configured to map identification data derived from the systems management tool to the standardised identification data of the catalogue to produce standardised identifiers of the installed software.

28. The computer system according to claim 27, wherein:

the administrative computer also has a license management tool installed thereon which stores data identifying licensed software and the computers on which the license management tool is installed,

the identification data processing engine is further configured to;

map identification data derived from the systems management tool to the standardised identification data of the catalogue to produce standardised identifiers of the installed software,

map identification data derived from the license management tool to standardised identification data of the catalogue to produce standardised identifiers of the licensed software, and

map usage data derived from the systems management tool to the standardised identifiers of the installed software, and

the license management tool is configured to correlate the standardised identifiers of the installed software and the usage data mapped thereto with the standardised identifiers of the licensed software.

29. The system according to claim 27, wherein the standardised identifiers have the form publisher name, product name, version identifier.

30. The system according to claim 29, wherein the version identifier has the form name or year, major release number, minor release number.

31. The system according to claim 28, wherein the catalogue includes data indicating which software should be licensed.

32. The system according to claim 27, further comprising agents on the computers which report the identification data and usage of software installed on the computers.

33. The system according to claim 32, wherein the identification data reported by the agents comprises such one or more of publisher name, product name and version identifier as exists for each item of software installed on the computers.