Template-based software discovery and management in virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) environments

Abstract

A technique to manage software licensing in an environment that provides virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). A license manager is configured to receive first information identifying software applications associated with a virtual machine template used in the infrastructure, as well as second information that a user has logged into the VDI from a client device, thereby creating a VDI session. For a particular time period of interest, the license manager calculates software application usage information from the first and second information. Preferably, the software application usage information represents an application count that is based on the user and the client device “pair” when the user has the VDI session during at least some portion of the time period. The software application usage information is provided to one or more other computing systems to take a given action, such as tracking, managing, auditing, enforcing and accounting for software usage in the VDI environment.

1 . A method for license management in a computing infrastructure comprising a server that manages a pool of virtual machines, comprising:
 receiving first information identifying one or more software applications associated with a virtual machine template used in the virtual desktop infrastructure;   receiving second information that a user has logged into the virtual desktop infrastructure from a client device, thereby creating a session, the session being associated with a virtual machine template;   for a particular time period, calculating software application usage information from the first and second information, wherein the software application usage information is associated with a licensing model that defines a usage metric based at least in part on the user having the session during at least some portion of the time period; and   providing the software application usage information to another computing system to take a given action.   
     
     
         2 . The method as described in  claim 1  wherein the computing infrastructure is a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). 
     
     
         3 . The method as described in  claim 2  wherein the server is a VDI server and the second information represents a virtual desktop connection between the client device and the VDI server. 
     
     
         4 . The method as described in  claim 2  wherein the session is a VDI session and the second information comprises one of: start date and time of the VDI session, end date and time of the VDI session, an identification of the user associated with the VDI session, and an identification of the client device. 
     
     
         5 . The method as described in  claim 2  wherein the given action is one of: tracking, managing, auditing, enforcing and accounting for software usage in the VDI environment. 
     
     
         6 . The method as described in  claim 1  wherein the second information identifies a client device that is a stateless thin client. 
     
     
         7 . The method as described in  claim 6  further including spawning a virtual machine from the virtual machine template to provide a virtual desktop for the user of the client device.