Patent ID: 8881131

Claim:
A method executed by a processor of populating a software catalogue with software product identifiers corresponding to software products being discovered on a plurality of data processing systems, the method including the steps of: scanning file systems of the plurality of data processing systems for detecting occurrence of sets of files, each of the sets being indicative of a licensed software product being installed on a corresponding data processing system; normalizing the sets of files; creating a list of a plurality of files identified in the sets of files; sorting the list according to a number of occurrences of each identified file across the sets of files; starting from that identified file which has highest occurrences in the sorted list, selecting an identified file on the sorted list; selecting a second file in the sorted list, wherein the second file occurs in all the sets containing the selected identified file; forming a footprint comprising information of the selected identified file and information of the second file; for each of the normalized sets, determining a corresponding product signature using the footprint associated with an installation of the licensed software product, the product signature being associated with the software product; and storing the product signature and an associated software product identifier in the software catalogue, wherein the signature in the software catalogue is used to identify an invocation of the licensed software product.