Patent ID: 8387149

Claim:
An apparatus to manage license keys, the apparatus comprising: a computer useable storage medium storing a computer readable program; a processor executing the computer readable program, the computer readable program comprising: a license key service module creating a license key service object of a license key service class that extends a Storage Management Initiative specification (SMI-S) Common Information Model (CIM) CIM_Service class, wherein the license key service object comprises a plurality of management operations comprising a get all license keys operation that acquires all license keys to operate an application program from a service, an install license key operation that copies the license key to the license key object, writes a time stamp of a time the license key is retrieved from the service as an installation date to the license key object, calculates an expiration date as the installation date plus a specified time interval from the service, and writes the expiration date to the license key object, and a remove license key operation, and communicating a pointer to the license key service object; a hosted license key service module creating a hosted license key service object of a hosted license key service class that comprises the license key service object and that is an object of a SMI-S CIM CIM_ComputerSystem object; a license key module creating a license key object of a license key class that extends a SMI-S CIM CIM_ManagedElement class, wherein the license key object comprises a license key and employs the plurality of management operations; and a management module managing the license key using the license key object, license key service object, and hosted license key service object.