AWS License Manager

AWS Audit Manager provides a prebuilt AWS License Manager framework to assist you with your audit preparation.

What is AWS License Manager?

With AWS License Manager, you can manage your software licenses from various software vendors (such as Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, or IBM) centrally across AWS and on-premises environments. Having all your software licenses in one location allows for better control and visibility and potentially helps you to limit licensing overages and reduce the risk of non-compliance and misreporting issues.

The AWS License Manager framework is integrated with License Manager to aggregate license usage information based on customer defined licensing rules.

Using this framework

You can use the AWS License Manager framework to help you prepare for audits. This framework includes a prebuilt collection of controls with descriptions and testing procedures. These controls are grouped according to customer defined licensing rules. You can also customize this framework and its controls to support internal audits with specific requirements.

Using the framework as a starting point, you can create an Audit Manager assessment and start collecting evidence that’s relevant for your audit. After you create an assessment, Audit Manager starts to assess your AWS resources. It does this based on the controls that are defined in the AWS License Manager framework. When it's time for an audit, you—or a delegate of your choice—can review the evidence that Audit Manager collected. Either, you can browse the evidence folders in your assessment and choose which evidence you want to include in your assessment report. Or, if you enabled evidence finder, you can search for specific evidence and export it in CSV format, or create an assessment report from your search results. Either way, you can use this assessment report to show that your controls are working as intended.

The AWS License Manager framework details are as follows:

The controls in this AWS Audit Manager framework aren't intended to verify if your systems are compliant with licensing rules. Moreover, they can't guarantee that you'll pass a licensing usage audit.

Next steps

For instructions on how to view detailed information about this framework, including the list of standard controls that it contains, see Reviewing a framework in AWS Audit Manager.

For instructions on how to create an assessment using this framework, see Creating an assessment in AWS Audit Manager.

For instructions on how to customize this framework to support your specific requirements, see Making an editable copy of an existing framework in AWS Audit Manager.

Additional resources

License Manager APIs

For this framework, Audit Manager uses a custom activity called GetLicenseManagerSummary to collect evidence. The GetLicenseManagerSummary activity calls the following three License Manager APIs:

The data that’s returned is then converted into evidence and attached to the relevant controls in your assessment.

For example: Let's say that you use two licensed products (SQL Server 2017 and Oracle Database Enterprise Edition). First, the GetLicenseManagerSummary activity calls the ListLicenseConfigurations API, which provides details of license configurations in your account. Next, it adds additional contextual data for each license configuration by calling ListUsageForLicenseConfiguration and ListAssociationsForLicenseConfiguration. Finally, it converts the license configuration data into evidence and attaches it to the respective controls in the framework (4.5 - Customer managed license for SQL Server 2017 and 3.0.4 - Customer managed license for Oracle Database Enterprise Edition). If you’re using a licensed product that isn’t covered by any of the controls in the framework, that license configuration data is attached as evidence to the following control: 5.0 - Customer managed license for other licenses.