Championing the professional management of software
and protecting members rights

By: Patrick Gunn, Flexera Software
This year almost two-thirds of UK companies intend to extend their current use of server virtualisation and about one-third of UK CIOs will start implementing some form of desktop virtualisation. This is according to the Citrix Virtualisation Index. While these numbers show a healthy rate of adoption of these technologies, there are areas of concern. Software licensing is the second biggest concern, behind security, for both server and desktop virtualisation, as revealed in the same Citrix survey. Software license management is complicated enough in the physical world due to complex license models, use rights and restrictions. With virtualisation, software license management becomes even more challenging—the virtual environment is more dynamic, and there are new rights and restrictions. What’s more, desktop virtualisation is inherently user-centric, while traditional software license models are device-based. This desktop virtualisation licensing issue has yet to be addressed by software publishers.
For those of you who are looking at rolling out desktop virtualisation, there are at least three potential license metrics that you could use for virtual desktop applications: pay-per-device (desktop, laptop, or thin client), pay-per-user authorised to access the application, or pay-per-user who actually uses the application. Under the standard Microsoft license model, enterprises still have to pay per computer that is used to access an application—meaning that every device that could be used for access must be licensed. However, it is in your interest to be able to pay per user that actually uses the application. After all, not everyone who has access may use a given application, and one of the benefits of desktop virtualisation is giving users the flexibility to access applications from any PC, not just their own. Software licensing should not be a hindrance, and organisations should demand alternative licensing approaches from software vendors.
A further complication with device-based virtual application licensing involves the situation where one version of the software is installed on endpoint devices and another version is installed on the application server. For example, if a desktop computer has a lower version than the one installed on the server, then a license for the server version is required for that desktop device when it is used to access the virtual application. Therefore, you need to carefully manage the reconciliation between local installations and software that can be accessed using the virtual desktop technology.
Using an enterprise license optimisation solution is perhaps the only reliable way to ensure compliance and minimise software costs in virtual environments. Also, the use of such a tool will provide you with leverage to negotiate the most economical licensing model with softwa

By: Randy Littleson

Steve Schmidt, vice president of product management at Flexera Software, discusses the challenges enterprises face in getting the most out of their investments in software.  He details the importance of data and value of understanding software usage to ensure continuous software compliance and optimising software spend.

Click here to view the video

By: Steve Schmidt
Half of the “usage + entitlement” equation that is used to build a software license compliance position and plan for real enterprise license optimisation, is obviously the entitlement data, but it often does not get the same level of attention as the usage data. Increasingly, though, companies are asking for a deeper level of understanding of what it is and where it comes from. They want to know more about entitlements, which in this context is being defined as a “right to use” the software in a certain way, such as to download, install, re-host, upgrade, downgrade, etc.
An obvious source of entitlements is the database of financial records within the Enterprise utilising the software, including Purchase Orders. These highlight the specific products purchased, including part numbers, descriptions and quantities. Expense reports may also need to be scoured depending on the internal processes of the organisation and the ability of employees to handle their own software procurement.
What if the entitlements are not available in the company records, or there are questions with regard to completeness or currency? This often happens in a decentralised organisation or in an organisation where controls were loosened during organisation changes, M&A activity, or other unique circumstances. An option is to go to the Vendor for this data. The vendor could be the original software publisher, or a distributor/reseller in their value chain. If all purchasing is done through a small number of suppliers, the task becomes easier. This step can also be used to validate internal records, if for no other reason.
A key part of the entitlement data set that is often overlooked is the use rights that are needed to answer questions such as: Can I use the product on another system, and under what conditions? Can I use an older version of the software? Can a suite be split up for use on different systems? This type of data may exist in the end-user license agreements (EULAs), either in simple click-through format or long form contracts. Some may require reviewing documented vendor policies posted for the general public or in customer support centers, or a discussion with the vendors.
Start there… and then seek to automate and optimise. Companies that have been on the path of actively managing software license compliance and enterprise license optimisation for some time have established processes to keep the data current, house the data in a central location with controlled global access, and run software that aggregates and analyses the data for them.
What additional sources of entitlement data do you utilise, and under what circumstances?

By: Vincent Brasseur, Flexera Software
Software asset management has become a concern for most companies in the last past few years with the kick-start from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and ISO / IEC 19770-1, followed by well-publicised software audit results performed by publishers or affiliated organisations. The fear factor of a software audit is a substantial driver to start a software asset management initiative to lower corporate liability and ensure software license compliancy. Beyond traditional software asset management, companies are now looking for Enterprise License Optimisation to provide major benefits, such as, providing key data for renegotiating contracts with software resellers or publishers, inserting intelligence into software procurement decisions, and improving license allocation and usage.
Enterprise License Optimisation goes well beyond inventorying applications and collecting software usage data. A typical optimised license management program consists of 5 distinct steps that are usually completed in sequence:
1. Inventory of all devices to list software installations and collect application usage data,
2. Application Recognition to scrub the raw inventory data and provide a comprehensive list of software titles for each managed device,
3. Purchased versus Installed Reconciliation to match inventory and usage against purchase orders and contracts,
4. License Compliancy to apply terms and conditions and check if they are met,
5. License Optimisation that will allocate licenses according to the needs of the organisation, preventing over licensing or unused licenses.
Each of these steps has their own challenges. The most daunting ones are not in inventorying applications or collecting software usage. They are usually found when:
- bringing non-homogeneous data (inventory, human resources, purchase orders…) into a single repository to organise, reconcile and maintain data integrity and accuracy over time,
- adhering to complex publisher licensing models coupled with terms and conditions that are not fully understood and or applied properly.
A quick illustration can be found in the reconciliation between inventory and purchase order data. This is where many software asset management projects fail as this task is extremely time consuming and difficult for the license manager if performed manually. Tools that provide a Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) library used to match purchase orders to inventory data as well as to provide details on the license purchased help overcome this challenge. Another example is the difficulty of staying up to date on terms and conditions; licensing rules and Product Use Rights are modified on a regular basis by the publishers. Microsoft, for one, publishes their Product Use Rights guide each quarter and it is generally more than 120 pages long. Accurately applying these rules may change the compliancy status of licenses or achieve some of the optimisation goals.
As a result, tools used for software asset management and Enterprise License Optimisation must automate data reconciliation across data sources as well as maintain continuously updated embedded knowledge on SKUs, publishers, license agreements, and associated terms and conditions.

By: Randy Littleson
Amy Konary of IDC talks about “information as power” when it comes to software licensing use. Understanding how software is used is a critical insight to both enterprises and software vendors alike. Amy discusses what companies can do with this information to better their software license management

By Randy Littleson: Flexera Software
Jim Geisman, Principal & Founder, Software Pricing Partners, discusses the relationship between software vendors and their customers. He discusses why each party is afraid to share data with the other and discusses the value of doing so in terms of improving vendor/customer relations.
View the video here

By Randy Littleson: Flexera Software
In this interview, Amy Konary of IDC talks about how vendors and enterprises are moving closer together on their viewpoints related to software licensing. She discusses where a true “partnership” relationship is emerging and where it is not. She details the areas of breakdown and avenues to move vendor/customer relationships to a new level.
View the interview here

By: Natalie Lias

When an organisation commits to a software solution and begins the formal purchase process, often the IT architecture and infrastructure specialists who have been critical to evaluating and specifying the solution are not included in the process. The effort IT specialists have put into creating business requirements and ensuring the software’s capability to deliver is considered concluded, and the final purchase process is turned over to procurement in conjunction with the legal department. Unfortunately, “throwing it over the wall,” while typical in many organisations, is a disaster waiting to happen when considering complex software purchases.
The procurement and legal teams are typically experts in negotiation, indemnity, intellectual property, and other issues which are common across strategic purchases for your enterprise. These skills are critical and necessary for the successful culmination of a software license purchase, but they are not sufficient! Although there are exceptions, for the most part, dedicated procurement staff lack detailed knowledge of IT and software requirements.
This lack of expertise can have disastrous results when the specific terms and conditions of a contract are being negotiated. Because typically procurement staffs are evaluated internally on the level of discounts they achieve, they may accept licensing limitations from the software vendor that seem harmless but can seriously undermine the architecture and functionality required by the IT technical personnel who originally created the purchase requirements!
For example, a purchasing professional, in the course of negotiation, may accept limited use rights for a particular license order. While this might be acceptable to the IT business owner, who is purchasing the licenses for a specific purpose, often lower-level IT staff are not made aware of these limitations. Instead, they are simply told that “new licenses are available,” so the restrictions and limitations get lost in translation. This can be a costly mistake if the vendor later conducts an audit and finds restricted license types used for general purposes.
What’s the solution? Certainly not to have your database administrators involved in discussions with legal and procurement (a recommendation that would be sure to irritate all involved). Rather, the software purchase business owner needs to understand that software license rights that are being traded away to achieve a larger discount may hobble the enterprise’s flexibility to use licenses and may create a software compliance nightmare. Non-standard license terms are certainly one way to achieve larger discounts and greater software value, but these advantages need to be vetted by the IT staff who will be implementing the software to ensure that after all their hard work, they can still get their jobs done.

By Andy Ellwood: iQuate

iQuate has discovered discrepancies between accepted and actual Oracle deployment and usage information in every customer we have worked with, and our customers have used this accurate data to achieve greater levels of control in several key areas.

For example, a high profile UK government agency delivering public facing services outsourced its  IT operations to a large Systems Integrator. In order to ensure they were compliant, the SI employed a team of Oracle experts to perform a manual Oracle inventory count.

iQuate were engaged to verify the result of this audit using iQSonar. The tool was initially deployed in a test environment to satisfy the client that running the tool would have no detrimental impact on the performance or availability of key business critical applications.

Once deployed across the entire network, iQSonar discovered that the manual audit was incorrect. This discrepancy was caused by the SI having prepared a list of Options installed, rather than Options in use. Had this been reported to Oracle, the licence position would have been overstated to a list price value of £1.1m

In a separate example iQuate was engaged with a major international insurance services organisation. During the scanning process our team was told Oracle would not be discovered on Windows-based or Virtual servers because installation  of Oracle on Windows or Virtual environments were against company policy and the customer had strict processes and procedures in place that governed the installation of software.

Within the first day, iQSonar had discovered Oracle on Windows server and Virtualized Windows and Linux servers, despite management being assured only days previously that this was not the case.

iQSonar uncovered seven digit  licence savings for the customer, and also prompted a review of operational procedures that led to improved operational management and control.

iQSonar is the only third party tool verified by Oracle as providing accurate and definitive Oracle deployment and usage data.

By: Steve Mullins

The Virtualisation Boom
Datacenter server virtualisation saves space, power and hardware cost for thousands of enterprises by consolidating physical machines. The reduction in the number of physical machines is achieved by increasing hardware (CPU and memory) utilisation from a typical 10-15% to as much as 75-85%. In addition to the savings on hardware purchases, there are reduced cooling requirements and maintenance cost savings associated with fewer machines. Energy cost savings have been estimated to be in the range of $300 to $600 per year for each server that is eliminated by virtualisation. The total savings due to virtualisation can be in the millions of dollars per year for large enterprises. This is why 60% to 80% of IT departments have server consolidation projects underway, according to analyst reports.
For more information, and to read the full report, please click here.