Search for software licensing information

You can perform advanced searches on VM configuration and operational details that will provide cloud software licensing information used by Azure VMs and AWS EC2 instances with your search (for example, for Azure VMs, whether the Azure Hybrid Benefit is enabled, and for AWS EC2 instances, the Tenancy model or Image ID used are used).

For convenience, Commander also provides a number of predefined searches for software licensing information for Azure VMs or AWS EC2 instances running Microsoft Server.

The search results can help you determine whether your deployed Azure VMs and AWS EC2 instances are appropriately configured to make use of Windows Server or SQL Server license entitlements that you already have. For more information, see Cloud Software License Costs.

Run advanced searches for software licensing information

Access:

Tools > Search

Available to:

All Access Rights Levels

  1. From the Help Me Find section, select VMs.
  2. From the Location section, do one of the following:
    • To search all VMs in inventory, leave the default value of Global.
    • To search VMs from a particular location, click and select the location from the Infrastructure, Applications, or Storage views.
  3. In the Filter By section, select the filter you want.

    The following filters are helpful for cloud software licensing information searches:

    • Licensing > Azure Hybrid Benefit — Whether the VM is using the Azure Hybrid Benefit license.
    • Licensing > Tenancy — The Tenancy model used by an EC2 instance.
    • Licensing > Image Source — Indicates where the image is located. Note that an image source won't be displayed if the instance wasn't deployed from a template. This property is for AWS only.
    • Configuration > Image ID — The AMI ID of an AWS EC2 instance.
    • Configuration > Number of Cores — The number of virtual cores used by the VM or instance.
  4. Depending on the selected filter, different criteria are available in the next drop-down such as (this is a partial list only):
    • contains
    • doesn't contain
    • equals
    • doesn't equal
    • is
    • isn't
    • on
    • not on
  5. For the third field, either select another filter or enter a full or partial character string as allowed.

    If you're permitted to enter characters, you can use the following variables in this field:

    • * for a replacement of one or more characters
    • ? to replace a single character
  6. Optional: To search using more than one filter at a time, click and repeat steps 2 through 5 for each filter you want to add.

    For a complete list of the VM properties that you can search on, see VM, Instance, Template, and Image properties.

  7. Click Search.

    8. The results of your search are displayed under a separate Results tab. You can:

    • Click View Query to edit the search criteria displayed in the Results tab.
    • Export your search results to CSV format. For more information, see Export Search Results.
    • Click Save Search to save your search. For more information, see Run and Schedule Saved Searches.

Run predefined searches for software licensing information

For convenience, Commander provides a number of predefined searches for software licensing information for Azure VMs or AWS EC2 instances running Microsoft Server.

Access:

Tools > Search

Available to:

All Access Rights Levels

From the Public Searches section, select one of the following searches:

  • Optimization: AWS BYOL - Potential Violations: Finds all of the EC2 instances running Windows Server that are based on custom, non-Amazon Marketplace Images and use shared tenancy. These instances can only use existing license entitlements if you use Microsoft License Mobility through SA and you switch them to dedicated tenancy.
  • Optimization: AWS BYOL - Savings: Finds all of the EC2 instances running Windows Server that are based on Amazon Marketplace Images, which include a software license, and use dedicated tenancy. These are instances for which you may realize cost savings if you switch them to shared tenancy.
  • Optimization: Azure Hybrid Benefit - Potential Savings: Finds all of the powered-on Windows VMs that don't currently have the Azure Hybrid Benefit enabled. You may reduce costs for these VMs if you enable the Azure Hybrid Benefit and apply unused Microsoft Server license entitlements to them.
  • Optimization: Azure Hybrid Benefit - Savings: Finds all of the Windows VMs that have the Azure Hybrid Benefit enabled. These VMs will cost less if you allocated unused Microsoft Server license entitlements to them.

The search results automatically display in a separate Results tab.

Cloud software license reports

Commander provides a predefined Azure Software License Report that you can generate to view the current usage of Azure Hybrid Benefits for Windows VMs and Azure SQL database instances in a specified Azure cloud account.

For each listed resource, it also displays the price for the resource if the:

  • Azure Hybrid Benefit isn't enabled.
  • Azure Hybrid Benefit is enabled and a license entitlement is applied to the resource.

The report also displays the potential cost savings that could be realized if the VM or Azure SQL database has the Azure Hybrid Benefit enabled and a license entitlement is applied to the resource.

For more information, see Azure Software Licensing Report.