Flexible appliance hosting with coordination of deployment, licensing and configuration

The system of clam 1 wherein the deployment manager, the license manager, and the configuration manager are arranged in a hierarchy in which the deployment manager is configured to act as a supervisor to the license manager and the configuration manager, while the license manager is configured to act as a supervisor to the configuration manager, and wherein potential license violations are escalated through the hierarchy from a point of detection to the deployment manager for output thereof using the graphical user interface.

A computer program product, the computer program product being tangibly embodied on a non-transitory computer-readable storage device and including executable code that, when executed, is configured to cause a data processing apparatus to:

• execute a hierarchical structure in which a configuration manager associated with operating parameters of one or more software appliances reports to a license manager configured to monitor and enforce license terms governing usage of the one or more software appliances, and in which the license manager is configured to report to a deployment manager configured to govern a deployment and operation of the one or more appliances, the deployment manager, the license manager, and the configuration manager;
• and
• output a graphical user interface using the deployment manager in which alerts are provided relative to each of the one or more appliances to provide information about potential license violations.