The concept of downgrading licenses is built into the Software Asset Management plugin feature.
Downgrade rights is the process of having acquired the rights to the latest version of software
but using the rights to license earlier versions of the same software.
The Software Asset Management content
service generates downgrade rights. The downgrade rights correspond to a discovery map. A
scheduled job, Download software content: Downgrade Rights triggered on a
weekly basis, gets the downgrade rights from the Software Asset Management content service and
pushes the data to the Downgrade Rights [samp_dmap_downgrade_model] table.
Another scheduled job, SAM- Create downgrades/upgrades for a software
entitlement, picks up the information from the [samp_dmap_downgrade_model] table. The
table propagates the next version and the downgrade rights on the existing software models and
their corresponding entitlements (only if the entitlements are not of
Generic type).
If there is no software model corresponding to a discovery map, when populating the Downgrade
Rights [samp_sw_downgrade_model] table, a new software model is automatically created.
If the discovery map, corresponding to the software model, has downgrade rights, the Downgrade
Rights related list is automatically populated with a hierarchical list of downgraded versions of
the software.
Once downgrade rights are created and saved in the Downgrade Rights tables,
[samp_sw_downgrade_model] and [samp_downgrade_model], the downgrade rights can't be deleted.
However, you can deactivate the downgrade rights.
If you delete a software model, all records corresponding to the software model in the Downgrade
Rights [samp_sw_downgrade_model] table are automatically deleted.
The system does not allow duplicate downgrade rights to be created; either through the
scheduled job or manually in the Software Model and Entitlement form layout. If you try to
create, duplicate downgrade rights on software models or on entitlements, an error message
appears informing you that the downgrade model exists. If they have the same values in all the
following fields, downgrade rights are considered to be duplicates.
- Publisher
- Product
- Version condition
- Version
- Edition condition
- Edition
- Platform
- Language
- Software install condition
- Named User Type- is displayed only for SAP
products.
If you already have duplicate downgrade rights from previous Software Asset Management Professional releases, then those
duplicate downgrade rights aren't modified or deleted.
If you try to create a duplicate downgrade right for an inactive downgrade right, an error
message appears. The error message informs you that an inactive downgrade right exists and you
can reactivate it.
