Patent Application
20200372518
This application claims priority of Taiwan Patent Application No. 108117944, filed on May 24, 2019, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
The disclosure relates to a method and a device for determining the number of software licenses. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to a method and a device for determining the number of software licenses based on the actual status of using the software.
There is always a problem with how many software licenses are sufficient. Too many software licenses can result in an increase in authorized purchase and maintenance costs. Too few software licenses can result in increased labor costs in overtime and the cost of idle employees, and increase the risk of illegal authorization.
Therefore, how to provide a decision-making mechanism to evaluate and measure these factors and find the optimal number of software licenses is an important issue in software licensing.
The following summary is illustrative only and is not intended to be limiting in any way. That is, the following summary is provided to introduce concepts, highlights, benefits and advantages of the novel and non-obvious techniques described herein. Select, not all, implementations are described further in the detailed description below. Thus, the following summary is not intended to identify essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended for use in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.
A method and a device for determining a number of software licenses are provided in the disclosure.
In an embodiment, a method for determining a number of software licenses is provided in the disclosure. The method is used in an electronic device and comprises: obtaining the number of software licenses and a full utilization rate of the software in a preset period; obtaining a number of employees who work overtime, a number of overtime hours, amount of time spent using the software, and cost related to the overtime in the preset period; computing opportunity cost based on the number of employees who work overtime, the number of overtime hours, the amount of time spent using the software and the cost related to the overtime; and determining an expected increase in number of the software licenses according to the opportunity cost and the full utilization rate.
In some embodiments, the method further comprises: obtaining authorization cost and an amortization period for the software; and determining the expected increase in number of the software licenses according to the opportunity cost, the authorization cost, the amortization period and the full utilization rate.
In some embodiments, the number of software licenses, the full utilization rate, the number of employees who work overtime, the number of overtime hours, the amount of time spent using the software, and the cost related to the overtime in the preset period are obtained from a storage device.
In some embodiments, the preset period is one month or one year.
In an embodiment, a device for determining a number of software licenses is provided. The device comprises a control circuit, a processor and a memory. The processor is installed in the control circuit. The memory is installed in the control circuit and operatively coupled to the processor. The processor is configured to execute program codes stored in the memory to: obtain the number of software licenses and a full utilization rate of the software in a preset period; obtain a number of employees who work overtime, a number of overtime hours, amount of time spent using the software, and cost related to the overtime in the preset period; compute opportunity cost based on the number of employees who work overtime, the number of overtime hours, the amount of time spent using the software, and the cost related to the overtime; and determine an expected increase in number of the software licenses according to the opportunity cost and the full utilization rate.
The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the disclosure, and are incorporated in and constitute a part of the present disclosure. The drawings illustrate implementations of the disclosure and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the disclosure. It should be appreciated that the drawings are not necessarily to scale as some components may be shown out of proportion to the size in actual implementation in order to clearly illustrate the concept of the present disclosure.
Various aspects of the disclosure are described more fully below with reference to the accompanying drawings. This disclosure may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to any specific structure or function presented throughout this disclosure. Rather, these aspects are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the disclosure to those skilled in the art. Based on the teachings herein one skilled in the art should appreciate that the scope of the disclosure is intended to cover any aspect of the disclosure disclosed herein, whether implemented independently of or combined with any other aspect of the disclosure. For example, an apparatus may be implemented or a method may be practiced using number of the aspects set forth herein. In addition, the scope of the disclosure is intended to cover such an apparatus or method which is practiced using other structure, functionality, or structure and functionality in addition to or other than the various aspects of the disclosure set forth herein. It should be understood that any aspect of the disclosure disclosed herein may be embodied by one or more elements of a claim.
The word “exemplary” is used herein to mean “serving as an example, instance, or illustration.” Any aspect described herein as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other aspects. Furthermore, like numerals refer to like elements throughout the several views, and the articles “a” and “the” includes plural references, unless otherwise specified in the description.
It should be understood that when an element is referred to as being “connected” or “coupled” to another element, it may be directly connected or coupled to the other element or intervening elements may be present. In contrast, when an element is referred to as being “directly connected” or “directly coupled” to another element, there are no intervening elements present. Other words used to describe the relationship between elements should be interpreted in a like fashion. (e.g., “between” versus “directly between”, “adjacent” versus “directly adjacent”, etc.).
The storage device 120 can store a database for storing the number of software licenses, a full utilization rate and an average utilization rate of the software in a preset period, the number of employees who work overtime, the number of overtime hours, the amount of time spent using the software, and the cost related to the overtime in an overtime period during the preset period, wherein the preset period is one month or one year.
Then, in step S310, the electronic device obtains the number of employees who work overtime, the number of overtime hours, the amount of time spent using the software, and the cost related to the overtime in the preset period from the storage device. Furthermore, in step S315, the electronic device computes the opportunity cost based on the number of employees who work overtime, the number of overtime hours, the amount of time spent using the software, and the cost related to the overtime. In step S320, the electronic device determines an expected increase in number of the software licenses according to the opportunity cost and the full utilization rate.
The details of how the electronic device determines the expected increase in number of the software licenses according to the opportunity cost and the full utilization rate in
The electronic device can obtain the number of software licenses, the full utilization rate and an average utilization rate of the software during a preset period from the storage device. The electronic device can derive the relationship between the expected increase in number of the software licenses and a target average utilization rate according to the number of software licenses, the full utilization rate and the average utilization rate. For example, it is assumed that in December 2018, the number of software licenses is 48, the full utilization rate is 35.03%, and the average utilization rate is 90.66%. The relationship between the expected increase in number of the software licenses x and a target average utilization rate t can be expressed by the following formula:
48×1×90.66%+x×35.03%<=(48+x)×1×t
wherein x can be expressed further as following:
x≥48×(90.66%−t)/(t−35.03%)
wherein it is assumed that when a user sets the target average utilization rate t=90%, the electronic device may compute the expected increase in number of the software licenses x≥0.58. It is assumed that when a user sets the target average utilization rate t=75%, the electronic device may compute the expected increase in number of the software licenses x≥18.81.
Next, the electronic device may obtain the number of employees who work overtime, the number of overtime hours, the amount of time spent using the software, and the cost related to the overtime during the overtime hours of the weekdays in December from the storage device.
As shown in
Next, it is assumed that the calculation period is the total working hours minus off-peak time, 6 hours. The electronic device calculates that 6×35.03%=2.1 hours of authorization time can be provided for each software license purchased according to the full utilization rate, 35.03%.
The electronic device can calculate the opportunity cost based on the number of employees who work overtime, the number of overtime hours, the amount of time spent using the software and the cost related to the overtime.
Next, the electronic device can obtain the authorization cost and an amortization period for the software from the storage device. It is assumed that the authorization cost of the software is $498,750 and the amortization period is 5 years. The electronic device determines the expected increase in number of the software according to the opportunity cost, the authorization cost, the amortization period and the full utilization rate.
In another embodiment, the user may input an associated confidence index, and the electronic device can generate the best recommended number and cost-effectiveness under various associated confidence indices according to the associated confidence index.
Therefore, the method and device for determining the number of software licenses provided in the present disclosure can link the actual status of using the software to the opportunity cost to calculate the most reasonable and optimal expected increase in number of the software licenses.
In addition, the CPU 308 could execute the program code 312 to perform all of the above-described actions and steps or others described herein.
As shown above, the calibration parameters can be obtained according to paired information observed by selected pairs through the tree network topology formed by the selected node pairs in the disclosure. Since the environment parameters further are taken into consideration in the present disclosure, selecting inferior node pairs can be avoided and problems that cannot be solved by existing solutions can be solved. Furthermore, in addition to excellent performance, the suitable node pairs can still be found by using the calibration method and the wireless communication device for achieving the channel reciprocity proposed in the present disclosure even though the environment parameters change. The suitable node pairs may perform information exchange between the nodes to calculate the calibration parameters, so that interference from the downlink signal is minimized.
Various aspects of the disclosure have been described above. It should be apparent that the teachings herein may be embodied in a wide variety of forms and that any specific structure, function, or both being disclosed herein is merely representative. Based on the teachings herein one skilled in the art should appreciate that an aspect disclosed herein may be implemented independently of any other aspects and that two or more of these aspects may be combined in various ways. For example, an apparatus may be implemented or a method may be practiced using any number of the aspects set forth herein. In addition, such an apparatus may be implemented or such a method may be practiced using other structure, functionality, or structure and functionality in addition to or other than one or more of the aspects set forth herein.
Those with skill in the art will understand that information and signals may be represented using any of a variety of different technologies and techniques. For example, data, instructions, commands, information, signals, bits, symbols, and chips that may be referenced throughout the above description may be represented by voltages, currents, electromagnetic waves, magnetic fields or particles, optical fields or particles, or any combination thereof.
Those skilled in the art will further appreciate that the various illustrative logical blocks, modules, processors, means, circuits, and algorithm steps described in connection with the aspects disclosed herein may be implemented as electronic hardware (e.g., a digital implementation, an analog implementation, or a combination of the two, which may be designed using source coding or some other technique), various forms of program or design code incorporating instructions (which may be referred to herein, for convenience, as “software” or a “software module”), or combinations of both. To clearly illustrate this interchangeability of hardware and software, various illustrative components, blocks, modules, circuits, and steps have been described above generally in terms of their functionality. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the overall system. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in ways that vary for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present disclosure.
In addition, the various illustrative logical blocks, modules, and circuits described in connection with the aspects disclosed herein may be implemented within or performed by an integrated circuit (“IC”), an access terminal, or an access point. The IC may comprise a general purpose processor, a digital signal processor (DSP), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or another programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components, electrical components, optical components, mechanical components, or any combination thereof designed to perform the functions described herein, and may execute codes or instructions that reside within the IC, outside of the IC, or both. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor, but in the alternative, the processor may be any processor, controller, microcontroller, or state machine. A processor may also be implemented as a combination of computing devices, e.g., a combination of a DSP and a microprocessor, a plurality of microprocessors, one or more microprocessors in conjunction with a DSP core, or any other such configuration.
It should be understood that any specific order or hierarchy of steps in any disclosed process is an example of a sample approach. It should be understood that the specific order or hierarchy of steps in the processes may be rearranged while remaining within the scope of the present disclosure. The accompanying method claims present elements of the various steps in a sample order, and are not meant to be limited to the specific order or hierarchy presented.
The steps of a method or algorithm described in connection with the aspects disclosed herein may be embodied directly in hardware, in a software module executed by a processor, or in a combination of the two. A software module (e.g., including executable instructions and related data) and other data may reside in a data memory such as random access memory (RAM), flash memory, read-only memory (ROM), erasable programmable read only memory (EPROM), electrically-erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), registers, a hard disk, a removable disk, a compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), or any other form of computer-readable storage medium known in the art. A sample storage medium may be coupled to a machine such as, for example, a computer/processor (which may be referred to herein, for convenience, as a “processor”) such the processor can read information (e.g., code) from and write information to the storage medium. A sample storage medium may be integral to the processor. The processor and the storage medium may reside in an ASIC. The ASIC may reside in user equipment. In the alternative, the processor and the storage medium may reside as discrete components in user equipment. Moreover, in some aspects any suitable computer-program product may comprise a computer-readable medium comprising codes relating to one or more of the aspects of the disclosure. In some aspects a computer program product may comprise packaging materials.
Use of ordinal terms such as “first,” “second,” “third,” etc., in the claims to modify a claim element does not by itself connote any priority, precedence, or order of one claim element over another or the temporal order in which acts of a method are performed, but are used merely as labels to distinguish one claim element having a certain name from another element having the same name (but for use of the ordinal term) to distinguish the claim elements.
While the disclosure has been described by way of example and in terms of the preferred embodiments, it should be understood that the disclosure is not limited to the disclosed embodiments. On the contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements (as would be apparent to those skilled in the art). Therefore, the scope of the appended claims should be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar arrangements.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 108117944 | May 2019 | TW | national |
