I was wondering what approaches others are adopting re. the configuration and consumption of Visual Studio / MSDN in FNMS?
One approach is to allocate a user (with a Visual Studio / MSDN entitlement assigned) to a non-prod system as an assigned user and use this to drive consumption of the named user license. My concern with this approach is that it is static and doesn't accommodate for any adds/moves/changes and will need constant maintenance which is not always practical in larger organisations.
I am wondering what other approaches others are adopting?
We are using a two tactics. For server machines dedicated to testing and development, we place these in a Testing or Development role. We restrict access to these machines to personnel who have MSDN licenses or to business personnel participating in acceptance testing. Then, for the corresponding licenses and per the license terms, we enter exclusions for these roles. The second tactic is to use the named user Visual Studio MSDN license from the PURL. This grants the development team rights to use development software on machines to which they are the compliance user (either calculated user or assigned user).
We avoid physically assigning users to machine if possible and rely on inventory to generate calculated user.
Regarding your inital comment about changes, yes this is and will be an ongoing process. It always is. For all FNMS customers. At least it is in the sense that somewhere someone has to make a decission, who gets a MSDN license.
You might want to check your existing processes and see if there is anything to tap in and automate the user allocation (via a FNMS Business Import). Active directory group memberships are usually a good way to go.
Best regards,
Markward
Softline Group is Europe's leading independent expert in Software Asset Management.
