METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MANAGING LICENSE OBJECTS TO APPLICATIONS IN AN APPLICATION PLATFORM

• US 20080209503A1
• Filed: 10/03/2007
• Published: 08/28/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/03/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Brooks, David, Palke, Amy, Moses, Evan, Tamm, Steven, Hess, Ron
• Granted Patent: US 9,230,068 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/12 Protecting executable software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for managing license objects to applications in an application platform database system. The method includes associating an LMA with an application installed to the application platform by a developer, notifying a license manager to which the license manager application is installed of the installation of the application to the application platform, and managing subscriber access to the application using the license manager application.

Claims

1. A method for managing license objects to applications in an application platform, comprising:

(a) associating a license manager application (LMA) with an application installed to the application platform by a developer;

(b) notifying a license manager to which the LMA is installed of the installation of the application to the application platform; and

(c) managing subscriber access to the application using the license manager application.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein associating an LMA with an application installed to the application platform by a developer includes:

(a) downloading, by a third party License Management Organization (LMO), the LMA; and

(b) installing the LMA by the License Management Organization.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein notifying a license manager to which the license manager application is installed of the installation of the application to the application platform includes:

(a) creating, by a third party developer, a custom application and specifying the License Management Organization (LMO) when packaging the custom application;

(b) uploading, by the third party developer, the custom application into the application platform; and

(c) sending a message to the LMA so the LMA can get package information for the custom application.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein managing subscriber access to the application using the LMA includes:

(a) downloading a custom application by a subscriber; and

(b) tracking a subscriber'"'"'s installation of the custom application by the LMA.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

(a) tracking a subscriber'"'"'s upgrade of the custom application by the LMA;

(b) tracking a subscriber'"'"'s uninstallation of the custom application by the LMA wherein a message is sent to the LMO and the license object status is changed to uninstalled;

(c) tracking a subscriber'"'"'s version upload to the application platform.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

(a) notifying of a new version of a custom application being uploaded to the application services platform.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

(d) notifying of upgrading versions of a custom application.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein associating an LMA with an application installed to the application platform by a developer and a related package includes applying name spaces to schema in an on demand database environment.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein associating an LMA with an application installed to the application platform by a developer and a related package includes applying name spaces to schema in an on demand database environment and presenting the associated LMA and related package to a user in a multi-application user interface.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the LMA is a managed package application that can be upgraded by the installing organization but may not be edited by a subscriber.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the subscriber instance of a downloaded package is asynchronously updated to all linked database schema via a two phase commit process and updated to the host organization database schema, wherein the database schema updates include one or more status mode changes, and one or more properties associated with the license object.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the LMA is an unmanaged package that cannot be upgraded.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the method for managing license objects associated with applications in an application platform further comprises a multi-tenant proxy user process step to access the LMA'"'"'s and LMO'"'"'s wherein the multi-tenant proxy user process includes a cross instance two phase commit sub-process across multiple user instances.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein the method for managing license objects to applications in an application platform utilizes an LMA to perform the provisioning of user defined services and applications wherein the provisioning creates a new client service configuration instance.

16. The method of claim 12 wherein the provider defined rules are implemented to execute subscriber access security limits to any object that results in the total objects per user accessed to an amount exceeding a provider determined maximum associated with the contracted license amount subscriber package instance.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

preventing a subscriber from accessing any object that violates the provider determined maximum objects or user instances per license; and

associating the license violation data to the publisher and host.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 8 wherein associating the LMA with an application installed to the application platform by a developer includes:

(a) program code for downloading, by a third party License Management Organization, the LMA; and

(b) program code for installing the LMA by the license Management Organization.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 8 wherein notifying a license manager to which the license manager application is installed of the installation of the application to the application platform includes:

(a) program code for creating, by a third party developer, a custom application and specifying the License Management Organization. when packaging the custom application;

(b) program code for uploading, by the third party developer, the custom application into the application platform; and

(c) program code for sending a message to the LMA so LMA can get package information for the custom application.

21. The computer readable medium of claim 8 wherein managing subscriber access to the application using the LMA includes:

(a) program code for downloading a custom application by a subscriber;

(b) program code for tracking a subscriber'"'"'s installation of the custom application by the LMA; and

(c) program code for notifying of a new version of a custom application being uploaded to the application services platform.

13. A method for managing license objects to applications in an application platform, comprising:

performing a verification process to determine if a predefined data element value violates a set of provider controlled rules;

validating a version control step in an LMA to determine whether a user selected version is an upgrade or an extension and managing necessary prerequisite package installations;

associating a license object with a user and a package;

installing a license package associated with an LMA such that an application installed to the application platform by a developer and downloaded by a subscriber matches the license on either a per package basis or on a per object basis;

applying a set of provider defined rules to those packages that are managed wherein the verification and validation steps appear to the subscriber as a record edit; and

replicating the application of the provider defined rules verification and validation results to the host and publisher.

18. A computer readable medium comprising:

(a) program code for associating a LMA with an application installed to the application platform by a developer;

(b) program code for notifying a license manager to which the license manager application is installed of the installation of the application to the application platform; and

(c) program code for managing subscriber access to the application using the license manager application.

22. A method for providing a bootstrap sequence when a license management application (LMA) is created to install into the licensing management organization (LMO), comprising:

(a) creating the LMA in a host or partner developer organization and specifying an associated license management organization with the LMA;

(b) making a check call to the organization to make sure that it has the LMA already installed;

(c) uploading the LMA into an application exchange directory by the host or partner developer organization;

(d) when the LMA is downloaded into the LMO, determining if the package exists;

(e) creating the package by a message server if it does not exist;

(f) downloading the LMA by the LMO and creating a package license in the LMO; and

(g) executing an installation sequence.

23. A method for managing license objects to applications in a multi-tenant application platform, comprising:

installing a licensing management organization (LMO) to obtain a proxy user in a partner organization wherein said proxy user has authority to disable the package and appears to the subscriber as editing a record in a multi-tenant application platform;

providing the proxy user to edit package objects, version objects, and licensee objects in a database schema wherein the proxy user determines status changes as either active or disabled and implements notification of a new or upgraded version of a custom application being uploaded to the application services platform application exchange and wherein the licensee objects comprise license properties including package version, license status, install date, the number of seats, formula for the number of seats, expiration date and formula, the proxy user, account and contact information;

replicating all license property, package and version object updates across the subscriber instance of the multi-tenant application platform in the network when a package is installed;

replicating all updates of the subscriber instance associated with the multi-tenant application platform across multiple time zones; and

providing said replication asynchronously to perform updates when a subscriber organization instance is offline for maintenance.