A typical license agreement for a software version upgrade stipulates that you replace installations of the base product with the upgrade product. In other words, the license entitlement (usage, quantity, and so forth) is transferred from the base product to the upgrade product.
For example, if you purchase 10 licenses of the base product and then purchase 6 licenses of the upgrade product, you are entitled to 4 installations of the base product and 6 installations of the upgrade product. The total number of installations (10) you are entitled to remains the same.
To account for version upgrades, Asset Management provides a type of entitlement called a Version Upgrade. With a Version Upgrade entitlement, you specify a base entitlement for the upgrade. The following applies to the base entitlement:
It must belong to the same licensed product as the upgrade entitlement. In other words, you can’t create an Upgrade Version entitlement in LicensedProduct1 and use a base entitlement from LicensedProduct2.
It can be any of the three entitlement types: Full License, License/Maintenance, or Version Upgrade. This supports upgrades of upgrades.
It can support multiple Version Upgrade entitlements. For example, EntitlementA can be the base entitlement for VersionUpgradeEntitlement1 and VersionUpgradeEntitlement2.
When a licensed product contains a Version Upgrade entitlement, the Software Compliance Engine calculates the available license quantity for the Version Upgrade entitlement and subtracts that license quantity from the base entitlement.