AWS License Manager
AWS Audit Manager provides an 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 to support your audit preparation
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:
| Framework name in AWS Audit Manager | Number of automated controls | Number of manual controls | Number of control sets | AWS services in scope |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS License Manager |
27 |
0 |
6 |
AWS License Manager |
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.
You can find this framework under the Standard frameworks tab of the Framework library in Audit Manager.
For instructions on how to create an assessment using this framework, see Creating an assessment.
When you use the Audit Manager console to create an assessment from this standard framework, the list of AWS services in scope is selected by default and can’t be edited. This is because Audit Manager automatically maps and selects the data sources and services for you. This selection is made according to the requirements of the AWS License Manager framework. If you need to edit the list of services in scope for this framework, you can do so by using the CreateAssessment or UpdateAssessment API operations. Alternatively, you can customize the standard framework and then create an assessment from the custom framework.
For instructions on how to customize this framework to support your specific requirements, see Customizing an existing framework and Customizing an existing control.
More AWS License Manager resources
License Manager links
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
Service 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.
