The particularity of Acresso FLEXnet Publisher (a License Management product) pattern is that, after retrieving a license file, it stores the file in a way that a user can read its full content, and infer Licensing data, regardless of the format that the file is presented in.
The initial driver for developing the Acresso FLEXnet Publisher pattern was to help our customers to accelerate and improve the accuracy of IBM Rational license audits. However, we developed the pattern to a stage where it can retrieve licensing files from any vendor, including Adobe, VMware and Sybase, among many.
Acresso FLEXnet Publisher
The pattern for this License Management product is able to retrieve all the vendor-specific Licenses Files, and store them separately, for a user to read them regardless of the different formats that each vendor presents them in.
Acresso FLEXnet Publisher in a Software Instance view
[!Images^AcressoFLEXnetPublisherSI.jpeg|width="630px"!]
This ScreenShot displays a view of an Acresso FLEXnet Publisher SI. Among the various attributes, note that there is a link to a License File.
Acresso FLEXnet Publisher - License File
[!Images^AcressoFLEXnetPublisherLF.jpeg|width="630px"!]
This ScreenShot displays an example of a License file as provided by VMware. The file contains many attributes of interest, including a Signature, the date when the License was issued, and the Type of the License (in this case, Permanent). Note: other vendors may present this file in completely different formats. However, by storing this file separately, Foundation allows a user to read each of them, and extract relevant data, regardless of their format.
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