Software Asset Management Virtualization Adapter determines the license compliance of Microsoft SQL Server and Windows Server deployed on virtualization technologies by applying licensing compliance rules. This feature is activated and installed out-of-box in Software Asset Management.

Virtualization is a process of simulating hardware functionality and creating a virtual environment by which you can run more than one virtual machine on a single server in a clustered environment. The virtualization technologies supported by Software Asset Management are:

  • VMware
  • Microsoft Hyper-V
  • Red Hat

ITOM Discovery discovers virtualization technologies based on their relationship architecture. Software Asset Management depends on the discovered relationships to determine the license compliance of the software installs.

Software Asset Management Virtualization Adapter standardizes the relationship architecture through database views and metadata views, which are used by Software Asset Management to determine license compliance.

Software Asset Management considers the architecture of the virtualization technology while applying the licensing rules. For example, Microsoft Hyper-V architecture permits Windows Server Standard edition to use one running instance of the server software in the physical OSE on the licensed server in addition to two virtual OSEs if the physical OSE is used only to host and manage the virtual OSEs. Software Asset Management Virtualization Adapter automatically applies this rule set.