Service oriented license providing

The introduction of software and infrastructure into the service oriented architecture (SOA) concept, created an increasing interest for the integration of license management mechanisms into such environments. In the new era, ruled by the concept to provide everything as a service, the realization of it for licenses is very challenging and of great importance, given that it affects directly the software market and industry. In this paper we will present a service-oriented approach for managing and providing software licenses. The proposed solution exploits all SOA key characteristics, trying in the same time to resolve the restrictions and to confront the weaknesses of the current license management systems. By defining the roles emerging from the suggested architecture, we present new business models and market opportunities as the outcome of this license as a service (LaaS) proposed concept.