The Ultimate Guide to Application Licensing and Provider Policies for Application Virtualization 4.5

For some reason not many people seem to know that App-V since the earliest of (Softricity) days has the capability to enforce and track the usage of application (licenses). This is done via Application Licensing and Provider Policies. This article explains exactly how to set this up.

An incredibly powerful feature of Application Virtualization 4.5 which is the ability to control the licensing of packages.  Although App-V allows you to assign applications to specific users and groups, Application Licensing can allow further control of who can use the software and for how long.  It is important to make the distinction early on that the licensing applies per package, so there is no granular licensing control for specific applications within a package.

This article will provide the information and steps required across the App-V Management Server and Client for successfully managing licensing.  Most everything in this document should apply to SoftGrid 4.1 as well but strictly App-V 4.5 is addressed.

Here is an example of how Application Licensing through App-V can be a highly effective solution:

Contoso is a leading manufacturer of goods.  Contoso purchases 20 licenses of a sophisticated and expensive inventory tracking application.  Although most of Contoso’s applications have been purchased under an Enterprise model, it is cost prohibitive to do so with the inventory tracking application.  Also, there is only a certain amount of users per shift that need access to the application.

In order to maintain license compliance for the inventory application the administrator creates a Custom Provider Policy and an Application Licenses Policy.  The Application License Policy defines the boundaries of who can use the application.  The Provider Policy enforces the license.  When users launch any other application they will use the Default Provider Policy which does not enforce licensing. However, when they launch the inventory tracking application, they will use the Custom Provider Policy which will enforce licensing.

As a result of the two policies working together, all the benefits of App-V are maintained while keeping Contoso from violating the license agreement for the inventory tracking application.

Source: http://blogs.technet.com/b/appv/archive/2011/05/19/the-ultimate-guide-to-application-licensing-and-provider-policies-for-application-virtualization-4-5.aspx

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