Licence-aware management of virtual machines

When managing dynamic virtual environments, a consideration that is often overlooked is that of licences. This consideration is particularly important when the environment contains expensive enterprise software with complex licensing terms: if the management system does not understand those terms, it is very likely that too many licences will be used, placing the administrator in an awkward position with the software vendors. We describe a licence management technique integrated with an existing virtual machine management system, and demonstrate its ability to adhere to a variety of licence rules. We also describe two sets of licence rules in sufficient detail to motivate the design and implementation of the system. We evaluate our technique through simulation.