Custom Rule Based Determination of Pricing Information

A computer-readable storage medium comprising computer-interpretable instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to determine a pricing information for an instance of an application program, the application program instance running on a computer system, by performing:

• receiving a software discovery result for the application program instance from a software discovery module, the received software discovery result comprising:
• an indication of an application program from which the application program instance was instantiated;
• and
• one or more values of parameters of the application program instance and/or of parameters of the computer system;
• receiving, by a rule engine, at least one custom rule associated with the application program indicated in the software discovery result, the at least one custom rule comprising one or more conditions;
• evaluating, by the rule engine, the one or more conditions of the received at least one custom rule on the parameter values of the received software discovery result;
• and
• in dependence on a result of the evaluation, processing the at least one custom rule, the processing comprising determining the pricing information for the application program instance.

A computer system for determining a pricing information for an instance of an application program, the computer system comprising:

• an audit server (hosting a rule engine, the audit server being connected via a network to one or more computer systems, the computer systems respectively hosting one or more application program instances;
• wherein the rule engine is adapted for:
• receiving a software discovery result for a selected one of the application program instances from a software discovery module, the application program instances running on one or more computer systems, the received software discovery result comprising:
• an indication of an application program from which the selected application program instance was instantiated;
• and
• one or more values of parameters of the selected application program instance and/or of parameters of the computer system on which the selected application program instance is running;
• receiving, by the rule engine, at least one custom rule associated with the application program indicated in the software discovery result, the at least one custom rule comprising one or more conditions;
• evaluating, by the rule engine, the one or more conditions of the received at least one custom rule on the parameter values of the received software discovery result;
• and
• in dependence on a result of the evaluation, processing the at least one custom rule, the processing comprising determining the pricing information for the selected application program instance.