SystemWeaver License Manager A business aware license scheme and implementation

Abstract

Over the past decade, the field of programming and computing in general has been marked by the exponential growth of software, web applications and online services. The dynamic of the software industry led to an increase of unauthorized duplication, illegal distribution and use of computer software. Besides, the software companies’ constant will of maximizing their revenue, translated into considerable challenges in terms of security and software piracy prevention. A common method that many IT companies employ for preventing and minimizing the losses due to software piracy is the implementation, besides the actual product, of a license manager application. This one aims to control where and how the software product is used, and prevents its illegal copy and distribution. The present thesis was conducted at Systemite AB and its purpose was to investigate and implement a license manager for the company’s main product, SystemWeaver. For the implementation, the license manager required firstly a rigorous analysis of the company’s current licensing model and the security threats to which the software product is subjected to. The design and implementation decisions were based on the company’s current needs, tradeoffs between the proposed system architecture and available technologies, possible optimizations and future development. In order to test the validity, functionality and performance of the developed license manager, the system was applied into a simple, practical scenario. The first part of this thesis presents an overview of the existing software platform that will integrate the license manager application, the company’s current licensing model and the threats to which the main product (SystemWeaver) is subjected to. The second part describes the analysis, design and implementation of the license manager starting from the general, conceptual architecture of the system to the detailed definition of its comprising modules.