In my last post blog post, Microsoft SQL Server Licensing – A Deeper Look, we looked at different use cases of Microsoft® SQL Server® such as environmental considerations, multiplexing, SQL Server embedded in 3^rd party applications and Intranets. In this instalment, we are going to continue by looking at Software Assurance Benefits, SQL Server components and SQL Server 2017.

Software Assurance Benefits

Software Assurance benefits were introduced by Microsoft as a way of delivering greater value to it’s customer base outside of the commonly perceived version upgrade use cases. Microsoft offers a range of product specific benefits such as the ones outlined for SQL Server below in Table 1 – SQL Server Software Assurance Benefits Overview.

I see these benefits representing significant flexibility and with them, delivering significant cost savings by allowing customers access to use rights such as active/passive failover rights, cold disaster recovery (DR) and license mobility. A quick cost-based analysis of an environment where these benefits don’t exist (for example when licenses are required for a fail over system, DR or additional systems in a server farm – the license mobility 90-day rule) will show that investing in Software Assurance can be a worthwhile pursuit.

^{Table 1 – SQL Server Software Assurance Benefits Overview [1]}

The key item to note however is that these benefits are only applicable for as long as the SQL Server licenses are covered with active Software Assurance. Should a customer choose not to renew Software Assurance, none of these benefits would be available.

SQL Server Components

I occasionally see confusion regarding the licensing of SQL Server components such as SQL Reporting Services. I sometimes hear “its a component – not the full installation of SQL. Surely I don’t need a SQL Server license for that do I?” The short answer is “yes, yes you do”. When components are installed on the same device as SQL Server, there is no issue as the license consumed by SQL Server also covers all the installed components.

If any of the components are on a separate device however, these also need to be licensed with a SQL Server license (Core or Server + CAL model). There may be extenuating circumstances justifying this architecture such as distributed workloads etc. Where possible, however, the SQL Server landscape should be architected in a manner that enables an optimised licensing state.

Note:  There are no Microsoft licenses that cover just the components.

SQL Server 2017

Microsoft released SQL Server 2017 at the end of September 2017. Regarding the licensing options for 2017, these are the same as for the 2016 version. There are two editions available (Standard and Enterprise) as well as the same licensing models (Server + CAL or Core based). There are however, some additional features that have been incorporated in the new release. These include:

• Support for deployment on Linux platforms such as:
  • RedHat® Enterprise Linux®
  • Ubuntu®
  • SUSE® Linux Enterprise
• Support for Docker container technology

Note:  SQL Server 2017 licensing is platform agnostic. The same licensing models apply irrespective of the operating system being used (if the operating system is supported).

So, what is a Docker container?

A Docker container is like a virtual machine whereby only a fraction of the processing power may be required to run a given application. The below illustrations demonstrate how the two differ in configuration.

A typical virtual machine configuration shares the same physical hardware, but each virtual machine will have it’s own operating system and applications (otherwise known as an OSE) (See Figure 1 – Typical Virtual Machine configuration).

^{Figure 1 – Typical Virtual Machine configuration}

Where a Docker container differs from virtual machines is that the containers share the same hardware and operating system, but the applications are stored in the containers (refer to Figure 2 – Typical Docker Container configuration). The container method is less resource intensive and allows for faster deployment of services. Docker container technology may also bring cost saving opportunities for the operating system. In this configuration, Microsoft Windows® Server Standard edition would be sufficient. This is seen as a single OSE and supports unlimited Windows Server container use rights[2].

^{Figure 2 – Typical Docker Container configuration}

How many licenses do I need to license individual containers using the Per Core licensing model?

The process to determine this is essentially the same as for determining the cores under a virtual machine configuration scenario. For example:

Example 1 – I have a server that has two SQL Server containers, one with access to two virtual cores and the other with access to four virtual cores. I would adopt the following approach to determine how many SQL Server core licenses I require:

1. Ascertain how many individual containers are present
2. Count the total number of virtual cores in each container (keeping in mind there is a minimum requirement of four cores per container):
   1. Container 1 has access to two virtual cores but doesn’t meet the minimum requirement of four virtual cores. As a result, four SQL Server core licenses will be required
   2. Container 2 has access to four virtual cores. The same number of four SQL Server core licenses will be required
3. A total of six virtual cores are present, but since a minimum of four virtual cores are required for Container 1, the total licenses required are eight. I would need to purchase 4x SQL Server Per Core licenses.

Note: SQL Server core licenses are sold in packs of two.

^{Figure 3 – Example 1 – Per core licensing model}

How many licenses do I need to license individual containers using the Server + CAL licensing model?

When licensing SQL Server under the Server + CAL model, customers are required to purchase one server license per container running SQL Server regardless of the number of virtual processors allocated.

Note: The Server + CAL model is only supported by the SQL Server Standard edition license.

I would adopt the following approach to determine how SQL Server and CAL licenses I require:

Example 2 – This scenario has two SQL Servers, the first server has one SQL container and the second has two containers. There are also two users accessing the SQL Server containers:

1. Ascertain how many servers have SQL Server deployed, and how many servers have Docker containers being accessed:
   1. SQL Server 1 has a single container: one SQL Server license is required
   2. SQL Server 2 has two containers: two SQL Server licenses are required
2. Count the total number of users accessing the SQL Servers
   1. Two users are accessing the SQL Servers: two SQL Server User CALs are required
3. A total of three containers are being accessed across the two servers, and two users are accessing these instances, which brings the total licenses required to three SQL Server licenses and two SQL User CALs.

^{Figure 4 – Example 2}

Next time

In my next post, I will shift focus to other Microsoft products including Microsoft Office 2019 with a view of providing some “tips and tricks” on how to understand the varying licensing complexities and how they may relate to you and your IT environment.

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[1] The SQL Server Software Assurance benefits overview can be referenced in the SQL Server 2016 Licensing Guide

[2] Be sure to check with your software reseller and Microsoft for confirmation on supported OSE / Docker container license configurations.

In a previous blog, we announced that Flexera was named a Leader in the 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for SAM Tools. The “MQ” as many people call it, is a research methodology that includes a graphical positioning of four types of technology providers: Leaders, Visionaries, Niche Players and Challengers.

There are dozens of Magic Quadrant reports, and many of them now have companion research called “Critical Capabilities.” The Gartner Magic Quadrant for SAM Tools is no exception with the recently published Gartner Critical Capabilities for Software Asset Management Tools.

What are the Gartner Critical Capabilities reports?
According to Gartner, Critical Capabilities “enhances the Gartner Magic Quadrant with deeper insight into vendors’ product and service offerings by providing product ratings of key capabilities in critical differentiating usage scenarios.”

Basically, the Magic Quadrant looks at the vendors within a particular market, such as Software Asset Management. The companion Critical Capabilities looks at vendor’s products and ranks them against specific use cases, such as the size of the business or the maturity of their processes.

In addition, the Gartner Critical Capabilities compares the products against each other using a “critical set of differentiators.” Think of these as key product features or “capabilities.”

Flexera Scores Highest!
We’re excited to let you know that in the recently published Gartner Critical Capabilities for Software Asset Management Tools report, Flexera’s FlexNet Manager Suite for Enterprises scored highest in the Intermediate SAM Functionality and Advanced SAM Functionality use cases!

Advanced SAM Functionality

Intermediate SAM Functionality

12 SAM solutions were scored against three functionality use cases, to help three different types of buyers make strategic buying decisions:

• Basic SAM: For small to midsize companies
• Intermediate SAM: For medium to large companies
• Advanced SAM: For large enterprises with challenging licensing requirements

The report also rated each SAM tool’s ability to deliver 10 critical capabilities on a 1-5 scale. These critical capabilities include:

• Discovery of software procurements
• Identification of software entitlements
• Normalization of software entitlements
• Discoverer of platforms
• Identification of platform consumption
• Normalization of software consumption data
• Reconciliation of external information
• Optimization of entitlements & consumption,
• Ability to share information
• Total cost of ownership

So how did Flexera do in the scoring across the 10 Critical Capabilities? You can learn the answer to this and read a review of the FlexNet Manager Suite for Enterprises by downloading your own copy of the Gartner Critical Capabilities for Software Asset Management Tools!

The report is free, but it will be available for only a limited period of time.

If you are currently evaluating Software Asset Management tools, or just want to learn more about the importance of specific features, this report is for you. Download today!

This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Flexera.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Gartner: Critical Capabilities for Software Asset Management Tools, 16 April 2018

Discovery and collecting software inventory is the foundation for Software License Management. Let’s review the three steps needed to implement a reliable inventory process for sustainable license management.

Step One – Create a vision for the future

Beginning on a Software License Management (SLM) or Software Asset Management (SAM) project can feel a bit like climbing a mountain when you are not in top shape. However, you can reach the summit if you are focused, organized, have the right gear, and are well prepared. A good practice to prepare for a SLM project is to evaluate the current license processes that are in place, and see where the company fits within the Software License Optimization Maturity model. This is a very useful tool to help you evaluate your Software License Management processes, and find ways for improvements. It can also be used to help determine what is realistic to improve in short term and set the goals for the future.

Software License Optimization Maturity Model 

Step Two – Data gathering and planning

During the planning phase, you should collect as much information about your environment as possible. For example, how are users access their software, operating systems on devices in scope, Active Directory, virtualization technologies, remote applications, Oracle® Databases, configuration management databases (CMDB) the network design, and many other data points. You need to be looking at everything that can impact your license position. This can be quite challenging in some organizations where different people are administrating different IT silos. Organizing a Technical Workshop is an excellent way to get started on the inventory project. You should then invite everyone to that workshop who can contribute valuable details for the design of the inventory system. Don’t forget to involve the security team right from the beginning. Many projects come to a quick halt as security officers or other administrators were not informed about the project, and were not included in the planning phase.

At this point you should have a clear picture about your environment and design your strategy for the Inventory collection.

Step Three – Design your inventory collection with your vision in mind

The implementation design should reflect your future vision and address all solutions that were identified during the planning phase. Once important aspect of the design is the requirement to collect inventory automatically, and on a regular basis. This is needed from all desktop, mobile, and datacentre computers to keep the data up to date in your SAM tool. The design should also cover inventory collection for new computers, servers located in high security networks and in some cases, home and remote computers owned by the company. Share the completed design with your enterprise architects, system administrators, and the security team, and be sure to get their approval before you start collecting any inventory. Typically, the first phase of any new implementation is the testing phase. Allow the stakeholder’s time to review the implementation milestones and the data collected, once the testing is complete.

During the technical workshop, it is likely you identified existing inventory tools. You need to get more details about these systems before the data can be used. For example, what desktop and datacentre servers are covered by the tool? What is the frequency of inventory collection and what is the quality of the data? Be sure to request access to the system or get a sample of the data to evaluate if it contains everything required to make your license reports accurate. Sometimes it is tempting to take shortcuts and use these existing inventory systems without evaluating the quality of the data. If there are any inconsistencies, however, you will might lose faith in the reports that you get from your SAM tool.

Want to learn more about the importance of inventory and how to get data out of organizational silos and into the hands of the groups that need it? Be sure to watch our webinar “Data – Fuel for the Enterprise” Learn how accurate, immediate and actionable data aligns organizations and fuel enterprise decisions for years to come.

This webinar is on-demand, and you can access this valuable information at any time. Be sure to register and watch today!

Register Here

In the course of developing a software license compliance reporting program, the objective of optimization will uncover the need to review and measure data quality. The attributes that impact a license position are typically not controlled by a Service Management program or Security initiatives. They are attributes that are specific to software license metrics. The mitigation of gaps uncovered usually involve systemic changes to service management processes. Knowing and therefore measuring these attributes allows the required time, effort and funding to improve the quality of the data that will enable the optimization of a license position.

Here are 12 key inventory and asset performance metrics to consider during the implementation of your a Software Asset Management solution. Getting these 12 metrics right takes you to the state where you can begin to “trust the data.”

It is important to consider what metrics are important right from the start, which will establish a baseline and determine revised processes to mitigate each gap. The SLO Practice Guide found at Flexera’s Learning Center (login required) suggests the implementation steps related to metrics as follows:

Want to learn more about metrics? Be sure to read Chris Grinton’s blog “Track these software asset management program metrics for success.”

Be sure to watch our webinar “Data – Fuel for the Enterprise” to learn about the importance of data to Software Asset Management. You will learn how:

• To get data out of the organizational silos and into the hands of the groups that need it
• Accurate, immediate and actionable data aligns organizations and fuel enterprise decisions for years to come.

Register Here
This webinar is on-demand, and you can access this valuable information at any time. Be sure to register and watch today!

With the growing flood of new software being deployed today, a software asset manager’s job has never been harder.  The benefits of digital transformation come at a cost when it’s time to manage all those new technology assets.

Our engineers come to work every day committed to creating the best tools for IT. They’re passionate about delivering the most complete asset data platform and the ability to manage software from desktop to data center and on-premises to cloud for our customers. Our aim is to help your business get ahead by keeping you in control of your rapidly changing technology.  That’s why we were so proud to hear the news that Flexera is named a 2018 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Software Asset Management Tools!

We’re thankful for this recognition and appreciate the many comments and ratings.  And, we’re already hard at work bringing more innovation to the evolving practice of software asset management!

Check out more reviews like this one at Gartner Peer Insights.

“FNMS from Flexera is the ultimate Software License Optimization solution.”
— Software Asset Manager in the Energy and Utilities Industry

The Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice logo is a trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc., and/or its affiliates, and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice distinctions are determined by the subjective opinions of individual end-user customers based on their own experiences, the number of published reviews on Gartner Peer Insights and overall ratings for a given vendor in the market, as further described here, and are not intended in any way to represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates.

Good inventory is more than knowing how many physical and virtual devices you have.  It’s more than knowing that you have Microsoft Office installed on 80% of your devices or that someone has installed a copy of Microsoft Project on to his laptop.  Good inventory starts with having hardware and software information for 95% of your landscape – and that’s already challenging to achieve.  Then it’s having detailed information about each piece of physical and virtual hardware as well as knowing the details of the software installed on each device. That includes software title, publisher, version, and edition.  It also includes knowing the primary user of each device, which is critical for some of the more licensing calculations (e.g. Oracle Database licensing).

Good Inventory is Critical for Software License Reconciliation

Some licensing agreements are device based and some have second use rights.  Some are CPU based and some are core and socket based.  Others are even more complex with a combination of user or CPU, whichever is higher.  Some allow multiple versions to co-exist on a single machine.  Some have virtual machine restrictions. So, to get to software license compliance you need all the inventory details that affect the license compliance calculation.  Let’s take a look at a few examples to see why getting “good inventory” is so important.

Microsoft Second Use Rights

For certain desktop applications, Microsoft allows the licensed software to be installed on a desktop machine as well as a “portable” device if used by the same primary user.  This translates to a single user being able to install a licensed software application on both a desktop and laptop with a single license.  In terms of inventory, this means we need to identify the software, the primary user, and the chassis (laptop vs desktop).

SQL Server Per Core Based Licensing

If SQL Server is running on a physical machine, all physical cores must be licensed.  There is a minimum of four core licenses per physical processor.  In this case, the inventory would need to identify whether the device was a virtual or physical device and how many processors and cores per processor existed.  Unlike Second Use Rights, the primary user and chassis type are not considered in the license consumption calculations.  For more details on SQL Server, check out Greg Misso’s blog on SQL Server licensing.

Oracle Database on Virtual Machines

Oracle database licensing is one of more complex models.  Oracle Named User licensing depends on the number of users using the database.  This number is usually determined by the number of users registered in the Oracle database itself.  So, for inventory we need to look inside the database.   However, before the number of users can be considered, it has to be compared to the processors used to run the Oracle database.  When computing the processor value for Oracle databases, the number of cores, CPU type and clock speed need to be considered.  Also, if the database is running on a virtual machine, the physical host is evaluated for number of cores, CPU type and clock speed.  If the database is in a VM cluster, that cluster has to also be considered.  In that case, the contents of the database have to be included as part of the inventory.  And, there are yet more factors like the machine’s role (test, backup, production, etc.).

Getting and maintaining good inventory can seem daunting, but it is critical for effective software asset management. And with the help of the tools we’ve developed here at Flexera, it’s probably much more attainable than you think. Complex licensing terms dictate the need for some very detailed inventory attributes, but once you have the data, it can also benefit other processes in ITSM, Security, procurement and finance. For more on how Flexera helps you get to good inventory, check out our latest FlexNet Manager for Data Centers.

Ask any IT manager – Software Asset Management (SAM) is one of the most challenging elements of the job. It’s no wonder because the complexity of technology, data management, cloud solutions and mobile computing solutions continue to evolve faster than anyone can keep up.

I recently had the good fortune of taking Microsoft’s Software Asset Management (SAM) MCP exam. The program teaches 10 key SAM competencies that help drive an organization toward a complete end-to-end SAM program as defined within the ISO/IEC 19770-1.

Here’s a table from Microsoft’s SAM Optimization Model Brochure:

How well does your organization meet the 10 key competencies? Let’s look at a few areas in particular and examine how the Flexera’s FlexNet Manager Platform can help your organization optimize its SAM program.

Inventory Accuracy and Coverage

Microsoft defines the highest SAM optimization for hardware and software inventory as greater than 99% of assets. It is challenging to manage inventories when enterprises have various operating systems and software with specialized inventory requirements like Oracle databases and VMWare ESX/Vsphere. Even a tool like Microsoft’s SCCM that covers many operating systems cannot inventory Oracle databases.

FlexNet Manager can inventory all the operating systems covered by SCCM, plus systems like Oracle databases, VMWare Vsphere and ESX servers. FlexNet Manager is flexible and can stand alone or work in conjunction with SCCM to manage areas SCCM doesn’t. Its inventory agents cover Microsoft Windows, HPUX, Solaris, Linux, AIX and Mac. The system works with several virtualization technologies like VMWare, HyperV, nPar and lPar. It can integrate with other tools out of the box such as Hewlett Packard’s HPUD, IBM’s ILMT and Microsoft’s SCCM. It all adds up to broad coverage and a decent chance to achieve near 100% coverage of your software and hardware assets.

Plus, FlexNet Manager inventory agents can be automatically deployed and the inventory agent collection schedule can be managed from the central server and set to inventory as frequently as every day. You’ll have a very accurate picture of the enterprise software and hardware assets at any time.

Verification of entitlements

One of the challenges of any SAM program is compiling entitlement data and then somehow getting that information into a SAM tool for processing. With FlexNet Manager you can enter entitlement information a few ways. The most generic way is to key in data from the web-based GUI. However, any SAM tool does that. The next choice is to fill out spreadsheets with a predefined format and import it. FlexNet Manager also has the ability to read in Microsoft-specific MLS data and IBM’s Passport advantage data. Furthermore, FlexNet Manager will quickly convert the entitlement records into data that it can use to reconcile with inventory records to quickly generate a license position. By default, license positions are reconciled on a daily basis to give you a near real-time view into software usage compliance.

Operation management records

FlexNet Manager can also be used to manage financial and contract data for software and hardware assets. Contract managers, vendor managers, or accounting managers will then have the same central repository/view for software and hardware asset management as the rest of the organization. FlexNet Manager “business data adapters” easily allow you to develop adapters to import business data such as contracts, vendor, user and asset information without having any programming skill.

Retirement process

When a hardware asset is marked for retirement in FlexNet Manager, the program automatically harvests all the software entitlements. Since the entitlements are reconciled nightly, they will be available for reassignment the very next day.

As you work through the competency assessment to optimize your SAM program, I think you’ll find that the FlexNet Manager Platform intersects perfectly with many of the necessary competencies. Is the time right to make FlexNet Manager a vital part of your end-to-end SAM program? Check out some of our case studies to learn more!

Licensing policies for Indirect Access to SAP enterprise software systems have traditionally been extremely complicated, leaving many IT managers open to costly surprises. In April 2018, SAP announced a new Indirect/Digital Access pricing policy with the hope of simplifying the rules for Indirect Access licensing and minimizing license audit surprises.

The new Indirect/Digital Access pricing model addresses the licensing rules for accessing the SAP Digital Core without directly logging into the SAP system. It’s relatively clear that a license is required for a human user accessing the system directly or indirectly. The view gets a lot cloudier when it comes to third-party applications, devices, bots and other automated systems that require access to the Digital Core.

What’s different now?

Determining if your organization can realize significant savings on your SAP licensing costs requires understanding the new SAP pricing model, which is no mean feat. SAP now defines Indirect Access as “Digital Access” and calculates license requirements based on the type and number of system-generated business records or “documents” created via third-party access to the Digital Core.

SAP has identified nine different document types and assigned a multiplier to each type to determine pricing. There is a cost associated with the initial creation of each type of document, but no additional cost for reads, updates, deletes or creation of the additional documents automatically generated in the system when the first document is created. The more documents created in your system, the less you’ll pay per document.

SAP is also offering existing customers options to ensure the new pricing schedule meets their needs:

1. Do Nothing: The best option for organizations that do not create a lot of documents (e.g. orders) in their use of the business suite, and essentially want to maintain a status quo.
2. License Exchange: Customers can select existing user licenses to exchange for order licenses and receive a credit to use as needed. A license exchange is the best option when migrating to S/4Hana using a piecemeal ‘System Conversion’ approach.
3. Contract Conversion: Customers receive a credit for the value of all the equivalent user licenses in their existing contract to put toward a newly configured SAP S/4Hana-based solution.

Still sounds pretty complicated? Flexera can help.

FlexNet Manager for SAP Applications automatically collects and analyzes all your organization’s Digital Access usage data. You’ll be able to access comprehensive and accurate insights about your document creation activity to guide your licensing requirements. Even better, FlexNet Manager for SAP Applications will give you the usage data by internal department to be able to accurately charge back software use expenses.

To accommodate the SAP pricing changes, FlexNet Manager for SAP Applications is continuing to evolve with the following enhancements already in the works:

• Improvement of the rules engine to account for ‘Document’ licensing to ensure compliance and optimization
• Updates to the user consolidation logic for changes to Human Indirect Access and Static Indirect Read
• Introduction of ‘What If’ scenarios to proactively manage ‘Digital Access’
• Addition of compliance and optimization dashboards for ‘Digital Access’
• Management of changes between SAP ECC and S/4Hana licensing scenarios

Armed with the information already available in your system that can be gathered and analyzed by FlexNet Manager for SAP Applications, you’ll be able to determine what’s the best path for you to take to realize maximum value from SAP’s new Digital Access pricing.

To learn more, join us for an upcoming webinar called “Indirect Access – 50 Expensive Areas of Grey” and also read the “Navigating the Shift to SAP ‘Digital Access’ Licensing” white paper.

You’ve realized that managing your license position within your enterprise has gotten too cumbersome, and you need help. It’s become clear you need a Software Asset Management (SAM) solution for your organization. The software you choose is critical, but that goes without saying. How to choose the right software is a topic for another post. Once you have chosen your SAM tool, what is the most important first step to help ensure the success of the tool in your organization?

Documentation of your business requirements

How you use your SAM tool is driven by the unique requirements of your business, which must be identified during the planning and design phase of your software implementation. Capturing and logging all the key design decisions based on your business requirements is pivotal to using your SAM software to its fullest potential. In fact, if these key design decisions are not made and documented, your SAM processes may just flounder and fail.

It is the key design decisions that drive how you use the tool. All the decisions from HLD (High Level Design) to LLD (Low Level Design) need to be recorded in a design document that is approved by all stakeholders, from the SAM managers right through to executive stakeholders. Plans and procedures to measure performance of the tool must also be decided upon and documented to help ensure your SAM solution is achieving your key business objectives.

But that’s not the end of it. No organization is static, and while it’s important to capture all key design decisions at the very outset, it’s also critical to accept and understand that these may change over time. In this fast-moving business world, needs can, and certainly will, change and evolve over time. But, once again, it’s critical that these changes be documented and compared to any initial key design decisions.

The bottom line? Start any enterprise software implementation by working with your software implementation team to create a design document of your key business objectives. Document all design decisions, benchmark the success of the software in meeting the objectives, and adjust and log any adjustments you make to the original design decisions.

Maintaining flexibility and an open dialog with your Software Services team and Success Manager will ensure you achieve a successful SAM implementation, and continue to see a return on your investment over time. To learn more about how Flexera can help your organization with SAM success, click here.

In my role, I take part in a lot of sales calls with potential customers. During these meetings we often discover that the client utilizes an inventory tool Flexera hasn’t seen or touched, or they have a home-grown tool. Since most IT managers don’t want to buy another tool or deploy “yet another agent,” the same question almost always comes up – “Can’t you just write an adapter for that?”

Well, of course we can. We’ll happily sell more service hours, but the more important question is – should we? Many times, after some investigation, the answer is no.

Sometimes the home-grown tool actually does give us the information we need (Installer Evidence + File Evidence), and no adapter is needed. Or it turns out the client is OK with the risks of using the existing tool. Even with Installer and File evidence, there are some titles that really do require the Flexera Agent. What’s more, the Flexera Agent will likely still be needed in some areas in addition to creating a new Inventory Adapter.

The good news is that Flexera has the tools to help you write the Inventory Adapter yourself. Start by familiarizing yourself with the Database Objects available to build the Inventory Adapter. For this blog, we will assume you will be connecting to data in a database (SQL Server for simplicity).

Using Inventory Adapter Studio

Let’s start with the basics. FlexNet Manager Suite includes the Inventory Adapter Studio (IAS). When you create a “new” adapter using IAS, you will start with a pre-filled template and example queries.

Let’s look at in the Computer section and the first step – “Get domains from source database.” I’ve color-coded each section, and we’ll look at each one separately. Any text in bold is a field included in the example.

The left pane, in Blue, shows all of the steps that the adapter will take. In the example template, there are many steps that you may not need or may be collapsed. For your first adapter, you may want to step through each of these and only delete those steps that you do not have information for. But you can also leave them in place as you build your first adapter until you are absolutely sure they are not needed.

The center\top pane, in Yellow, contains information about the object and step you are working on.

• The Step Name should be unique and descriptive.
• The Execution options you will use for Object Adapters are ExecuteOnSource (meaning actions are taken on the SOURCE database, typically used to create temporary tables for staging data for use later in the adapter) and SourceToObject (meaning that you are outputting the query with data to be sent to FlexNet Manager Suite to populate the object).
• The Data Object Type contains the data objects that are defined and may be used to populate data in FlexNet Manager Suite.
• File sets the filename where this step will be stored on the file system and must be an XML.

Leave the other fields in the Yellow area alone for now. You can utilize them for Excel as a data source as well as version your code to work with multiple versions of a data source (when underlying schema changes), but we aren’t going into that here. Just above this pane is where you define your connection to the Inventory Source.

Moving on to the Red pane on the right side. If you have chosen the SourceToObject Execution type and selected an object from the Data object type, the right pane contains the object information you need to create from your query. A few very important notes, these data fields are case sensitive. So, when you write your query, you want to make sure your output fields match exactly.

You also want to make sure your data type matches. If the data object is expecting an int and your database contains an integer in a text field, you need to cast or convert it to an Int. Also, don’t overflow your varchar fields, utilize Left and Trim functions as needed.

Finally, the center Green pane. This is where you do your actual work and write your query. Think of this as your Query screen. You may use comments with the appropriate comment nomenclature for the database you are connecting (in our example, SQL Server, so ‘–‘ for single line or ‘/* */‘ for multi-line). While you may load data into temporary tables if you wish, there should be one and only one “Output” query. Rename your output fields to match the appropriate information in the object model (Red pane).

One of the nice things about how the framework is created is that you don’t have to have every field available at once. As long as you include the Primary Key (labeled Natural Key), you can use multiple queries (each as their own step) to build the object. So, if you have IP and MAC Addresses in a separate table, you can build the appropriate query to convert them to a comma delimited list separately from the rest of the Computer Object – which is indeed included in the example. You can run each step (once you’ve defined your inventory connection) by clicking the Run current script. You will see the output in the result pane.

Putting it all together

Now that you have an overview of how the IAS works, you “simply” put it all together. I know, there’s nothing “simple” about it. What you’re looking for, at a minimum, is what you need to calculate license positions, which means the Computer Object (with HostName, SerialNumber, Processor Information, Chassis Information and as much other information as you can) and installed software. Ideally, you will want Installation Information and Installed File Evidence information. The example template separates these out to pull the normalized Installer and File Evidence information, and THEN links that normalized information to a computer object. However, you also have access to Consolidated Objects – ConsolidatedInstallerEvidence and ConsolidatedFileEvidence if pulling all of the information into a single object is more feasible. It is best practice to separate Computer, Installer, File, etc. information into their own XML files, but it is not a requirement of the tool.

I’ve found creating a new “template”, saving it as an example, then starting clean and building one object at a time with a small dataset is the most helpful for me. First Computer, then Installation Evidence and finally any other objects I can access.

Of course, your Flexera Services and Strategic Success Team is available to help you every step of the way. Contact our services team for help with creating the adapter!

The days of technology being something that only IT worries about are long over. So why do so many businesses struggle to launch the transformative new capabilities that they need in order to win in today’s hyper-competitive markets? Gartner analyst Roger Williams warns, “By 2022, 30% of digital business initiatives will have failed due to inadequate ITAM capabilities.”

Staying relevant and thriving as a business today takes two key ingredients: the first one is having a vision for fast, customer-centric innovation, and the second is the ability to make that vision a reality.  So what do you need?  IT can’t roll out the needed digital business initiatives alone, but it can broker the right conversations across business stakeholders.  It also needs to provide the tech intelligence and insights that can be shared so that decisions can me made together.

For example, the Enterprise Architecture function in IT needs to make lifecycle decisions about deployed technology, rationalize applications and chart the course for rolling out new technology.  It’s more important than ever that those decisions are guided by a cross-functional digital business strategy that helps create an amazing end-customer experience.  It’s also critical to have the most accurate ITAM intelligence so that you can analyze and share the information that’s needed for decision making.

We’ll be talking with Ray Wang, Principal Analyst and Founder of Constellation Research, about this in an upcoming webinar.  Register now to hear Ray’s insights and join the discussion!

The results are in!
Flexera’s Software License Optimization solution was judged to be the Best Vertical Market Managed Service Solution in the first-ever UK Managed Services Awards competition. The award winners were named at the Managed Services Awards celebration following the ninth annual Managed Services and Hosting summit (MSH) held in September in London.

Sponsored by IT Europa and Angel Business Communications, the Managed Services Awards recognize excellence in the dynamic managed services sector of the information and communications technology industry. The awards showcase the best examples of real projects that demonstrate just how effective and productive managed services can be in organizations. Each award recognizes the growth of essential skills in the industry, while highlighting the real value being delivered by solutions within the category.

Announcing the award, IT Europa noted that Flexera’s Software License Optimization solution “assesses the current state of asset management maturity, builds the justification for a SAM and license optimization program, and develops best practice SAM processes and roadmaps for program implementation.”

Next Generation Software Asset Management
Flexera’s Software Asset Management (SAM) and Software License Optimization solutions are the recognized leaders among tools that help enterprises gain visibility and control of IT assets, reduce ongoing software costs and maintain continuous license compliance. The Flexera Software License Optimization solution takes traditional software asset management to the next level to help organizations realize ongoing cost savings of between 5 and 30 percent on software spend.

Unlike traditional SAM tools on the market, Flexera’s Software License Optimization solution is uniquely in three fundamental ways:

1. Uses complete built-in product use rights by vendor to automatically calculate license position, simulate cost impacts of changes, optimize contracts and analyze spend.
2. Recognizes complex virtual environments, performing license consumption calculations for virtual applications, virtual desktops (VDI), virtual machines (VM), hard partitions and sub-capacity licensing.
3. Produces continuous, automated license consumption analytics in a multi-vendor software environment, which virtually eliminates surprise true-up fees after an audit.

We work hard on customer-centric innovation and are proud to be recognized as the Best Vertical Market Managed Service Solution. Many thanks to IT Europa and Angel Business Communications for the honor.

Learn more about the MSH Awards
Learn more about Flexera Software License Optimization

Chances are your organization now spends a significant amount of money on cloud resources. The question is: Are you maximizing the value of that spend?

It may seem that on-demand cloud instances are extremely cost-effective, giving developers and IT teams easy and quick access to needed resources. However, Flexera’s RightScale team has measured cloud spend among enterprise users and identified that, on average, 35 percent is wasted. That wasted cloud spend adds up to more than $15 billion across just the top three cloud providers – AWS, Azure and Google!

It’s probably easy to understand that the decentralization of cloud use and oversight can lead to wasted cloud spend. But that’s not the only cause. Let’s take a look at some additional factors that lead to this significant amount of waste:

1. Cloud pricing is actually complex. The on-demand nature of cloud resources allows developers and IT teams to quickly ramp up or scale down when needed. But the flexibility comes at a cost that needs to be monitored on an ongoing basis. While cloud pricing may seem simple, the reality is there is a dizzying array of ways providers charge for access to cloud resources. Access to virtual machines and instances can be priced differently depending on the region, hours that they run, and countless other circumstances under which the resources are accessed. Pricing for storage capacity can be just as complicated with many different tiers and classes.

2. Instance sizes are often overprovisioned. There are many unknowns when migrating instances from on-premise to the cloud. What is the equivalent instance size in the cloud? Are performance characteristics the same? What instances and sizes make the most sense to realize maximum value from the cloud? Unfortunately, a lot of enterprises take educated guesses and end up overprovisioned. And once instances are in place, they rarely get downsized. 

3. Individual resource owners don’t see the full picture. With today’s agile development processes, teams may be automatically provisioning and tearing down instances for development and QA without realizing the total costs of the deployments. Hourly costs for cloud use may seem low, but when the resources are used for weeks, months or even years, the costs can really add up. Users may not be aware that bulk use discounts are even available. But the worst part is that resource owners may not receive the reports that show the true costs of their cloud use to be able to actually understand and adjust the cloud provisioning. 

4. Automation isn’t being used to optimize workloads. Many organizations take the stance that one-time optimization of an enterprise’s cloud spend is adequate. But that is not the answer. Identifying waste and resolving it must be ongoing to ensure cloud spend is under control. Automation makes it much easier to optimize cloud spend by resolving issues with unused, idle or underutilized accounts; instances running in higher-cost regions when they could be in a lower-cost region; older instances that should be updated to newer versions; and more.

Taking Control of Cloud Spend

According to data from Flexera’s RightScale team, 39 percent of cloud instance spend is on VMs that are running at below 40 percent of CPU and memory utilization, with the majority of those running at under 20 percent. It’s clear that a lot of enterprises are spending significantly more than they need to on cloud resources. How can you help your enterprise reduce that waste? Start with these recommendations: 

Recommendations for Reducing Wasted Cloud Spend

You can do it the easy way, or the hard way …

With the right tools, cloud spend optimization can be an efficient, ongoing process. Flexera’s  RightScale Optima optimization platform is the right tool and the easy way to optimize your cloud usage to realize significant savings on cloud spend. In collaboration with your organization’s cloud optimization goals, Optima analyzes your cloud utilization and automates actions to shut down unused resources or make adjustments to take advantage of lower prices or discounts. Learn more >>

NEXT:  Collaborating with stakeholders to reduce cloud spend

IT service management (ITSM) has long been the first place, tied closely with the procurement process, for integration with an IT and software asset management (ITAM) program. Since asset users access the service desk or knowledge base to resolve issues, sharing data was a no-brainer. The service desk is often at the front lines to receive hardware assets and store them in the stockroom. As a result, this integration has had an obvious impact on first call resolution (FCR) and customer satisfaction metrics. Organizations that are looking to expand the collaboration beyond the basics of hardware location tracking and break/fix will need to ensure that both teams have a clear understanding of the benefits.

Customers that have a close alignment between ITAM/SAM teams and ITSM have reported that when they work in partnership it makes both areas more efficient. Here are some of the benefits that we’ve heard ITAM/SAM teams mention:

Benefits of Better Collaboration

• Visibility into operating and labor costs associated with hardware and software
• Support effective vendor management
• Provide enriched data to support renegotiation activities
• Improved employee satisfaction with ITSM
• Enhanced accuracy of CMDB data
• More reliable inventory data for all technology assets
• Efficient and effective application migration activities

These benefits are achievable by all organizations that want to put the time and effort into supporting better communication, and can lead to higher levels of maturity.

For organizations that are undertaking digital transformation efforts, the collaboration across areas is even more critical to success. As the pace of IT change has accelerated with the adoption of Development Operations (DevOps) practices, the role of ITSM has evolved.  Now, a fully structured and collaborative ITAM/SAM discipline must adapt to continue providing value, as well.

To deliver benefits today, ITAM teams must be proactive and collaborative with ITSM on change management planning. Incident and problem management, the foundation of ITSM is still relevant, but change management, in the context of digital business transformation, has increased the criticality of the relationship. ITAM shouldn’t be involved in every standard change, but the changes that are impacting enterprise software that is installed and running on-premise and also in hybrid clouds, virtual systems and containers can be particularly problematic. Ensuring that these applications are properly licensed to run in these environments is an essential part of maintaining software license compliance. However, the change that happens in these environments can be both rapid and transitory in nature based on demand. Collaborating on the change management process and licensing associated with these applications requires SAM teams are proactively involved in the conversation.

When effective communication has been established with ITSM, the next opportunity is for ITAM/SAM teams to collaborate with Security and cloud teams. Flexera’s acquisition of RightScale is intended to facilitate the SAM team’s collaboration with the cloud deployment teams.  With cloud costs increasing and unused instances consuming resources, SAM teams are uniquely positioned to leverage their expertise on controlling cloud costs.

The job of an ITAM team is never done, is it? Just when your software asset management program starts to mature, cloud and SaaS raise the bar on what’s needed to keep spending and risk under control.  Now that we are starting to see SaaS spend management and cloud cost management solutions being used, we can already see the next thing that will raise the bar again: edge computing and IoT.  Edge computing uses local devices, edge gateways and edge servers to run software right where it is needed. That results in faster service and lower network resource consumption.

MarketsandMarkets estimates that edge computing spending will reach $6.7B by 2022 and is currently growing at 35.4 percent each year.  That’s not surprising given that edge computing will enable the next wave of customer experience innovation, making services more responsive and available whenever and wherever customers want.  But what new risks do companies take when starting to use edge computing technology? Gartner estimates that through 2020, 90% of organizations conducting edge computing pilots will risk costly penalties by breaching compliance with their software license agreements. (See Gartner research note “How To Mitigate Software License Risk From Edge Computing,” 17 Aug 2018)

So, the critical question becomes, “How do we safely adopt this technology?” At Flexera, we work with many customers today on matching the software they use with what’s been purchased. The more accurate the visibility into licensing and usage, the more they save and the less they risk in penalties. We’ve seen a huge drive from traditional data centers to XaaS delivery models, and it is more common for people to talk about cloud strategy as part of their software asset management programs.  Edge computing will broaden software asset management even further. In the future, software will not only be used by individual users, but also by bots, edge devices operated by a range of users and other automation software steered by AI.  Software publishers have only just started to reflect this kind of “indirect” or “digital” usage in licensing terms and conditions.  Once edge computing is adopted, this type of indirect access can quickly outpace individual use – and create a big cost risk in over-use penalties for early adopters.  Adding to the problem, many edge servers will run software that once was run on a single central server.

Here are three things that will be needed to safely adopt edge computing technology:

Accurate Data

As software publishers define different pricing terms for classes of direct and indirect usage, it will be critical to have accurate and enriched inventory data on a much wider range of assets.  Being able to distinguish between end user devices, bots, public multi-user devices, edge gateways, edge servers and automation can mean the difference between a high ROI edge computing rollout and a penalty nightmare. Discovering, classifying and frequently updating the full range of assets consuming software will be a must-have.

Broader Data Normalization

As the number of edge devices and asset types goes dramatically up, the likelihood of individual devices being identified by different names across a range of discovery data sources can lead to counting phantom devices and result in an inflated usage picture.  You’ll need a way to normalize the descriptions of each virtual and physical edge device so that usage can be accurately calculated.  Having consistent device identity data will also let you define automated policies preventing unauthorized devices from accessing certain software.

Edge Usage Analytics

Safely governing the use of edge computing technology also means having the analytics to accurately measure the various classes of software access/usage and comparing it with what’s been licensed.  Edge-ready licensing promises to be much more complex than today’s license terms and there’s likely to be a long phase of widely varied licensing models from different vendors. The sheer number of new edge devices, including swarms of IoT nodes, will make manual tracking impossible.  You’ll need an asset management tool with the analytics and automation to make use-rights entry and usage calculations feasible and scalable across the enterprise.

Edge computing promises to become the next big way that companies can stay relevant and grow by delivering new amazing customer experiences.  We at Flexera plan to do our part in enabling that future by helping customers limit their risk and stay in control of new technologies as they pioneer them.  We’ve been first to offer an end-to-end technology spend management suite covering SaaS, cloud, software and hardware and we’ve built the largest library of 2.1 Million current hardware and software products.  Now we’re setting our sights on the capabilities that will be needed for next generation edge computing technology.

For the second consecutive time, the Flexera team is pleased to announce that we have been recognized as a January 2019 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Software Asset Management Tools. We are extremely proud of this recognition, as feedback from our customers is always central to the development of our products and services.

This recognition comes a week after Flexera (RightScale) was positioned in the Leaders quadrant of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Management Platforms.

The Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice is a recognition of vendors in this market by verified end-user professionals, considering the number of reviews and the overall user rating. The Magic Quadrant recognition differs in that it is based on analyst opinion.

Check out more reviews like these at Gartner Peer Insights.

“Excellent Support and Powerful Product.” – IT Vendor Relationship Manager Lead in the Transportation Industry

“Very complete and flexible. Most comprehensive usage rights management module I’ve seen.” – IT Manager in the Government Industry

“Valued Partner.” – Asset and Configuration Manager in the Finance Industry

We’re thankful for this recognition and appreciate the many comments and ratings.  And, we continue to work hard at bringing more innovation to the evolving practice of software asset management and providing outstanding customer service and support!

Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice constitute the subjective opinions of individual end-user reviews, ratings, and data applied against a documented methodology; they neither represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Gartner or its affiliates.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Do you know about all the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications in use throughout your enterprise? How about who is using SaaS and how they are using it? Do you know why it matters?

A straw poll of the attendees of our August webinar with The ITAM Review discovered that only 20 percent of the respondents had a SaaS management tool-set in place. You may not be all that surprised. After all, since most SaaS subscriptions are based on the number of users, the license compliance risk for SaaS applications should be virtually nil, right? So, why is it important to manage and optimize SaaS applications?

A compelling business case for implementing a SaaS management solution can be summed up in two words: “shadow” and “sprawl.” Enterprises are adopting more and more SaaS solutions because they are easy to use and deploy, usually more cost-effective and, more to the point, easy to buy. Shadow SaaS refers to applications in use that IT knows nothing about. Out-of-control SaaS use is known as SaaS sprawl. While the use of SaaS applications helps enterprises be more agile and efficient, SaaS use presents significant challenges, particularly for IT, Procurement and Finance.

IT – Access and Control

Research by Cisco estimates 15 times more SaaS applications are being used in an enterprise than IT knows about. Individuals purchase subscriptions on their personal or company credit card, not knowing whether the enterprise already has a subscription in place. Or, free SaaS tools like Trello or Dropbox™ are easily accessed and adopted by departments, or even by single individuals within organizations who use their personal log-in information to work on the enterprise’s data and tasks. IT is often totally in the dark about all of it.

The IT team can’t control access and security when these “Shadow SaaS” applications are used across the enterprise.

SaaS management tools allow the IT department to learn what SaaS applications have been purchased by whom. The tools also provide integrations with single-sign-on and other technologies to provide visibility into all the SaaS accounts across the enterprise. Data is easily gathered to identify where SaaS redundancy  and functionality exist, who is using the tools, when they are used and the length of each session to determine if the tool is used enough to be worth the cost. Most importantly, IT can control access to the SaaS applications by employees who have left the company to ensure their access is denied the minute they are no longer employed.

Procurement – Cost Savings and Efficiencies

One reason SaaS applications are so popular is they show great value and are easy to buy and deploy by virtually anyone in the company. Check out the September 2018 statistic from Gartner: Cloud application services (SaaS) is forecast to grow from 72.2 in 2018 to $85.1 billion in 2019. As software vendors shift their business models from on-premises licensed software to public cloud-based offerings, this trend will continue.

But that’s a double-edged sword. On one side, teams can be up and running fast. On the other side, different departments, or even teams in different countries, may sign up with the same SaaS vendor for the same application (subscription redundancies). In addition to bypassing standard procurement policies, SaaS purchasing often results in unnecessary duplication, over-licensing and under-use. In fact, Gartner research estimates 30 percent of SaaS licenses in organizations are unused or underutilized.

For Procurement teams, there are great opportunities to become more “strategic” in the process. A SaaS Management tool should provide an easy view of all the SaaS applications purchased, along with all associated usage data throughout the enterprise.  With the comprehensive view of all SaaS in use throughout the enterprise, Procurement can discover ways to:

• Right-size contracts by leveraging actual usage data when negotiating and customizing contracts
• Reduce SaaS Spend by procuring/renewing only the applications and features used to maximize ROI
• Manage SaaS Renewals by tracking contract terms, license fees and important dates
• Identify SaaS Use in real time with data that shows who is using what cloud applications, how often they are used, and what features are accessed

Finance ­– Forecasting and Budgeting

Typically, SaaS purchasing, and usage data is siloed in the departments using the SaaS tools, if it is even available. It can take Finance teams a lot of time and effort to pull all the information together to get a global view of SaaS spend. And that assumes they know what SaaS applications are in use and where to get the data.

Forecasting the cost of the enterprise’s SaaS use is impossible when Finance doesn’t even know about a subscription to an application, who is using it, or if there are actually multiple subscriptions to the same applications. On the other hand, the Finance team may know about a subscription to a SaaS application, but there’s no data to determine if it’s really being used by employees. So, they budget to keep paying the subscription when they shouldn’t.

For Finance teams, a SaaS Management tool can provide a wealth of information in a singular, detailed view to help them accurately budget and forecast SaaS spend across the enterprise, including:

• Track SaaS expenditures across departments, by vendor or by other key business metrics
• Monitor SaaS Usage via real-time data about the use of all cloud applications throughout the enterprise
• Generate Accurate Reporting by scheduling the frequency of reports, tracking annual spend and ensuring every SaaS vendor is accounted for

At the end of the day, the end goal is to understand all the IT landscape, including SaaS, cloud-based subscriptions.

The use of SaaS applications will continue to grow as enterprises seek easier, more efficient ways to perform key business tasks. SaaS Management tools provide visibility into important use and spend data to ensure maximum value is realized from SaaS applications.

Next: Refocus your Vision to Manage SaaS

Want to know more about SaaS Optimization Best Practices? Watch the recording of our “SaaS Optimization Best Practice: Old Dog, New Tricks” webinar with the UK-based ITAM Review >>

Did you know that Flexera SaaS Manager can help you rein in your SaaS sprawl and runaway spend on more than 32,000 SaaS applications?

On-premise applications are moving to the cloud. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is becoming the first choice for new technology deployments. The future holds an explosion of IoT devices that will generate greater amounts of data at even faster speeds. And then there are the bots, artificial intelligence and cognitive systems on the horizon.

The amount of data that will be available to inform business decisions is daunting. And the number of ways the technology could expose your enterprise to compliance and security risks is even more staggering to imagine. If your enterprise is still struggling to implement effective management and governance of your technology and data assets, you better fasten your seatbelts – it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

“There is a massive proliferation of new technology, and most of us don’t know what’s inside our organization, let alone what is no longer used or retired. Having poor visibility into the asset landscape is a massive regulatory compliance risk,” explained R. “Ray” Wang, Principal Analyst and Founder of Constellation Research. Wang shared his views about the value of asset data and analytics during a recent webinar titled, Better IT Asset Management & Data Quality Empowers ITSM, Enterprise Architecture and IT Security.

Governance of an enterprise’s technology landscape is critical to the success of digital initiatives. Maintaining visibility into software and hardware assets throughout the entire enterprise is more and more important as technology continues to advance.

Wang continued, “There can be hundreds, even thousands of vulnerabilities that people don’t know until they have the threat landscape figured out. Once you have an accurate view of the IT infrastructure, you can actually figure out if you are compliant or not. Just saying ‘I don’t know’ is not good enough anymore.”

Manual asset management doesn’t measure up
Many organizations begin their asset management journey by using spreadsheets to itemize and track their IT assets. As businesses grow and hardware and software needs expand, the spreadsheet method can quickly spiral out of control. It becomes impossible to keep track of all the assets throughout the enterprise.

“Oftentimes the spreadsheet is missing key information that is needed for insights that drive technology decisions,” explained webinar moderator, Alán Lopez, Flexera Senior Director of Global Product Marketing. An optimization tool and a complete technology asset data source like Flexera’s Technopedia® dramatically improve governance compared to manual tracking with spreadsheets. Lopez went on to describe two advantages of using a technology asset management system and tools:

1. An accurate real-time inventory of technology assets ensures all the actions to manage the IT environment result in the expected productivity and security outcomes.
2. Connecting to sources of additional enrichment data and analytics dramatically improves optimization project outcomes and shortens the amount of time it takes to complete them.

Wang agrees, “We have to get the data quality in place. We can’t do it manually. If you don’t currently have it in your budget for 2019, this is something you need to put in as a line item.”

The caveat
Compiling asset data is just the first step. Lopez also outlined three issues with data quality that hinder accurate analysis:

1. Inconsistent Data results when information discovered about an asset comes from different sources. As an example: software vendors might have 10 different variations of their products. Or a single software instance could have 20 different variations based on the packaging, the bundle, etc.
2. Inaccurate Information can cause unexpected outcomes that could have a big effect on the business. Studies show 50 to 75 percent of data can be inaccurate. As automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are implemented, clean data will be essential.
3. Irrelevant Data is information scooped up in the automated discovery process that isn’t needed and is sometimes as high as 95 percent of the data collected.

Additional benefits add up
In addition to addressing compliance issues, ongoing inventory and analysis of the asset landscape provides the data you need to renegotiate contracts to better meet the needs of your organization, figure out if you are paying too much for user seats or maintenance contracts, or even assess the risks of end-of-life or lack-of-warranty situations.

For ITSM teams, an accurate, comprehensive inventory of the data landscape allows faster, more focused help-desk service to improve employee productivity. Knowing what assets and versions are in-use by each user also speeds up service catalog requests. Plus, clear and accurate visibility of the technology landscape gives intelligent service management tools the ability to identify ongoing problems, look for trends and predict problems before they happen.

Wang also discussed a vision of the future that includes automated processes involving bots, artificial intelligence and cognitive strategies. These processes will improve operational efficiencies by automatically identifying potential threat matrixes and even begin to predict issues and failures to head them off before they hit.

It’s exciting to think about all the ways technology is evolving to improve business performance and the customer experience. To take full advantage of the promise of new technologies, just remember, it takes a firm foundation of technology governance to build on.

SaaS usage continues to increase. Gartner forecasts that by 2021, SaaS applications will account for 45% of software spend.

Knowing that there are hundreds of SaaS applications in use across the enterprise, it is a category of software that can’t be ignored and will continue to present challenges. IT, Procurement and Finance all have a stake in ongoing SaaS Management from a security and financial perspective. SaaS continues to change the way software is purchased and Flexera continues to change the way SaaS applications are managed.

View this Infographic to see how Flexera SaaS Manager helped several companies overcome challenges using powerful insights into SaaS usage.

Interested in Learning More?

Learn how to take control of your SaaS apps with the Essential SaaS Management Toolkit

Interested in Learning More?

Learn how to take control of your SaaS apps with the Essential SaaS Management Toolkit

All of us at Flexera are incredibly proud to announce that Flexera has been named as a Leader in the 2019 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Software Asset Management Tools!

For the second time Gartner positioned Flexera as a market “Leader” (upper right quadrant) because of our Completeness of Vision and  Ability to Execute. Flexera (RightScale) was also a Leader in the 2019 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Management Platforms.

But as proud as we are for being a Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader for the second year in a row, we are even prouder of our scores in all SAM functionality use cases in the 2019 Gartner Critical Capability for SAM tools report and that Flexera was named a Jan. 2019 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Software Assets Management Tools for the second time, based on feedback from verified reviews we received on Gartner Peer Insights from customers and users of our solutions.

What are the SAM functionality Use Cases in the Critical Capabilities Report?

The report looks at five different functionality use cases for Software Asset Management tool buyers:

• PC and Mobile Licensing
• On-Premise Licensing
• Complex Licensing in Hybrid Environments
• Complex Licensing in Cloud Primary Environments
• IT/OT Licensing

So how did we do?

Flexera scored highest for all five use cases. In addition to Flexera’s traditional focus for on-premises SAM, the increased focus on cloud and SaaS licensing are represented in the use cases.

The Voice of the Customer
Gartner Peer Insights are reviews written by actual Flexera customers and users of our solutions. Our solution, FlexNet Manager Suite for Enterprises, is rated highly across all dimensions in the Gartner Peer Insights reviews. As of the time of this posting FlexNet Manager Suite had a score of 4.5/5 for Product Capabilities including a 4.8/5 for Satisfaction of FlexNet Manager Suite meeting an organization’s needs.

Source: Gartner peer insights

What did some of these Flexera customers have to say?

• “Quick implementation with rapid cost avoidance opportunities”
• “Easy to use and intuitive with a supportive vendor”
• “Very complete and flexible. Most comprehensive usage rights management module I’ve seen”
• “Excellent support and powerful product”
• “Flexera is your one stop shop for Asset Management”
• “Awesome tool and Technical Support is second to none. Really matured our SAM capability!”

These customer reviews illustrate a common thread. They demonstrate Flexera’s excellent product quality, innovation, customer service and support. They also illustrate how FlexNet Manager Suite delivers software cost savings, value and return on investment to customers of all sizes and in all types of industries.

Our leadership among SAM suppliers is not by accident. We’ve always led through innovation. As enterprises increasingly adopt SaaS and public cloud technologies, we have also significantly expanded our portfolio to offer solutions that help customers optimize and govern their full hybrid IT landscape.

Flexera also takes a customer-first approach to ensure customer success—a quality noted in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Software Asset Management, April 2019 report.

For information on Flexera’s position as a Leader in Gartner’s 2019 Magic Quadrant for Software Asset Management Tools, download a complimentary copy of the full report here.

Thanks again for making us #1

The Flexera Team

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Gartner Peer Insights reviews constitute the subjective opinions of individual end users based on their own experiences, and do not represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates.

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Software Asset Management Tools, Roger Williams, Matt Corsi, Ryan Stefani, 24 April 2019

Gartner Critical Capabilities for Software Asset Management Tools, Roger Williams, Matt Corsi, Ryan Stefani, 24 April 2019.

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.