S 2.493 Licence management and licencing aspects regarding procurement for Lotus Notes/Domino

Initiation responsibility: Head of IT

Implementation responsibility: Purchaser, Specialists Responsible

Given the increasing complexity of the Lotus Notes/Domino platform and the usual licensing strategy of all major software manufacturers, mastering the topic of licensing becomes more and more difficult. At the same time, licensing aspects also play an increasingly important role for Lotus Notes/Domino. On the one hand, appropriate licensing results in significant savings, on the other hand, from a technical and organisational point of view, it becomes increasingly complex to ensure that licensing is appropriate regarding the agreement and the implementation and that it does not entail any or only low risks.

In particular, it must be taken into consideration that procedures requiring archiving may require the provision of program components over the entire archiving duration, since accessing archived data without these components may be impossible or extremely expensive. Usual licences with a fixed duration include a provision stating that all program copies must be destroyed upon expiration of the licence. Regarding Lotus Notes/Domino, emails, workflows, but also other components may be subject to archiving, e.g. in-house developed applications running on the Lotus Notes/Domino platform.

Process for licensing and licence management

The IT management must ensure that there is an appropriate process for licensing and licence management that is suitable for imaging the licensing of Lotus Notes/Domino.

Appropriate licensing requires the collaboration of the application owners for the Lotus Notes/Domino platform, the project managers for current projects on the Lotus Notes/Domino platform (particularly due to server licences for development and test systems), and the department responsible for procurement.

It must be ensured that the licensing and licence management processes are adapted at defined intervals and in the event of significant changes to the licence models of the manufacturer. Licence management must not only be able to provide an overview of the current licensing status, but also operate a strategical and proactive licence planning process, taking into consideration upgrade protection and required manufacturer support.

Particularities regarding Lotus Notes/Domino licensing on virtual machines (e.g. in VMware)

If Lotus Notes/Domino licences are used applying virtualisation technologies (such as in a virtual machine only using a part of the resources of a physical hardware), licensing using the Passport Virtualisation Capacity licensing agreement (formerly Sub-Capacity Licensing) may make sense. Licence management must provide for these options.

Technical support of the licence management for Lotus Notes/Domino is necessary starting from a certain number of licences. This may be imaged either with asset management and licence management processes and aids already existing within the organisation or must be drafted separately for the Lotus Notes/Domino platform. In this, the aids offered on part of the manufacturer such as the IBM License Management Tool (ILMT) can (or must, depending on the contractual agreements with the manufacturer) be used.

Licensing reports and licensing audits

It must be ensured that the contractual licensing agreements are known and implemented appropriately.

Certain licence models of the manufacturer require the customer to draw up and store (archive) licensing reports, written records, and to provide system tools. Since this is part of the agreement, this task must be performed applying the corresponding diligence. The implementation must be checked periodically.

Normally, licensing agreements provide for the implementation of licensing audits in the presence of external auditors of the manufacturer or independent auditors commissioned by the manufacturer.

The organisation must ensure that there is a "licensing audit" process guaranteeing competent preparation and support of licensing audits.

The licensing audit agreements concluded with the manufacturer regarding Lotus Notes/Domino must be taken into consideration when specifically designing this process for Lotus Notes/Domino.

Review questions:

• Is there an appropriate process for licensing and licence management that is suitable for imaging the licensing of Lotus Notes/Domino?
• Is there a "licensing audit" process guaranteeing competent preparation and support of licensing audits?