By Gwen Lyons
Software License Optimization provides a great opportunity to drive cost savings, mitigate license compliance risk, and automate asset management processes. In addition, software asset management (SAM) and software license optimization tools enable IT Operations organizations to more
efficiently manage Application Rationalization initiatives and IT planning processes.
A robust software license optimization solution can eliminate the intensive manual effort typically required to perform the application rationalization analysis and normalization of the installed
inventory data. It can efficiently generate normalized inventory reports outlining the deployment and usage level of all software products across the IT environment, showing:
- Where each software product is deployed
- Which applications are being utilized & when last accessed
- Categorization/classification of installed applications by functional groups
- Organizational alignment of the individuals utilizing the applications
This visibility enables identification of those applications with low/limited utilization levels. Customers can then assess on an individual application case basis:
- Whether the application is critical to performing business functions (vs. nice-to-have)
- Whether there is sufficient need to justify ongoing internal system admin/help desk support costs
- Whether there is sufficient need to justify ongoing external maintenance and support costs (vs. going unsupported—i.e. going off the maintenance plan)
- Whether there is an opportunity to right-size the support levels and costs to better align with application usage
- Whether the software licensing structure/metric is optimal based upon actual usage
- Whether there might be obstacles inhibiting usage (lack of user training, access issues, etc.)
Further, having a comprehensive report of all software across the environment enables IT organizations to make comparative assessments across applications as to:
- Which applications offer like-technology (duplication/functional overlap) and might be candidates for application consolidation
- Which applications better align with the current IT blueprint and future technology standards roadmap when determining sunset candidates
- Whether existing strategic vendors might have comparable technology available to supplant outlier applications in order to further shrink the vendor portfolio and aggregate buying power across fewer vendors—increasing the potential for higher volume discounts
Once the installed software base is verified, software license optimization processes and tools provide the ability to quickly align contract milestones, determine the impact to vendor license positions and calculate associated software cost savings. Software license optimization tools provide valuable insights into rationalization project timelines. They can also create a fact-based business justification for the often politically sensitive “actions” that result from Application Rationalization initiatives.
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See also this other recent blog on Application Rationalization.