Various techniques for software license inventory and asset management are disclosed. A fingerprint may be generated and associated with various copies of software applications installed on a software licensee's computer systems. Upon generation, each fingerprint may be stored in a license information database system along with relevant license information for that copy of the software application. A software inventory tool may then be used to collect fingerprints on installed copies of software applications and provide these fingerprints to the license information database system to obtain the corresponding license information. The output of the software inventory tool may be used by a licensee to comply with software license agreements and/or efficiently allocate information technology resources. Methods and systems that provide and process secured, dynamic and persistent tagging of software deployments and usage are also disclosed.