By Sally Snow
As IT environments continue to grow more complex, software license management poses an even greater challenge than it has in the past, as organizations struggle to keep up with ever changing technology trends and software licensing models. The proliferation of virtualization, software as a service (SaaS), and the ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) trend are happening across companies of all sizes.
In an effort to make up lost revenue from shrinking IT budgets and server consolidation, software publishers regularly change the rules, introduce new license models, and are auditing their customers with even greater frequency than in the past. Proactive license management becomes a necessity to avoid unbudgeted true-ups and fines for non-compliance. While there is no shortage of IT asset management (ITAM) or inventory solutions in the marketplace, traditional ITAM and software asset management (SAM) solutions fall short in today’s complex environments.
While many organizations have made an investment in an ITAM or inventory tool, additional benefits can be recognized by focusing on the optimization of the organization’s software assets. Inventory is the first step in the hardware and software asset management process and there are many good tools that satisfy that need. But, software license optimization requires more than identifying software installations. It requires more than simply comparing installations to purchase quantities, too. Software license optimization tools require support for many complex license types prevalent in today’s environment, including the ability to accurately calculate license consumption for these models. Furthermore, true software license optimization involves applying each application’s product use rights to minimize license consumption and reduce ongoing software costs as a result.
What are Software Product Use Rights?
Product Use Rights are the rights specified in software license agreements that define how the organization is allowed to use the software. There are a myriad of complex scenarios and use cases that can be discussed in relation to product use rights, however, there are some very common use rights that are fairly standard across many software publishers (e.g. Microsoft, Adobe, IBM, Symantec, etc.), especially when maintenance is purchased along with the software license.
Upgrade Right- Allows the organization to install the latest version of the software available at no additional cost. This is a valuable benefit that usually comes with a license under maintenance; however, it is notoriously difficult to manage in many organizations. Complex scenarios come into play when an organization has some licenses under maintenance, and others that are not. Often, organizations that do not have an adequate software license optimization solution in place find this benefit so hard to manage that they routinely buy new licenses of the current version, rather than trying to keep track of upgrade rights manually.
Downgrade Right- Allows the organization to purchase a later version (usually the current version) of a product and install an earlier version of the product. This scenario often presents itself when the organization has a ‘standard image’, which is deployed to all desktops and usually changes every one to three years. For example, the standard image version of Microsoft Office may be Office 2007 Standard, but Office 2007 Standard is no longer available for purchase. If the organization needs additional licenses, they often have no choice other than to purchase the current version of the software.
Right of Second Use- Gives a user the right to install an application on a desktop, as well as a laptop and only consume a single license. This scenario sounds simple, but in reality, is quite difficult for common inventory tools to manage. Proper license consumption analysis involves determining a common ‘user’ (who must be the “primary owner” of those two devices) and then performing an analysis of hardware and software inventory to understand the combination of desktop/laptop installation evidence.
Right of Multiple Installations- Allows for multiple installations of the same application (usually different versions) on a device and counting the multiple installs as consuming only one license. Multiple installs can happen by accident or by design. Many applications don’t clean up completely on uninstall, resulting in artifacts of installation evidence remaining on the device. Many inventory tools, especially those not having application recognition or software fingerprinting capabilities, will mistakenly count these fragments of installation evidence as a legitimate software install. This scenario also presents itself when an application has been upgraded, and evidence of the initial installation remains.
Virtualization Rights- Typically allow an application or operating system to be installed on a physical host machine along with a number of installations of the software on virtual machines (server virtualization). The number of allowed copies running on virtual machines varies from one or two to an unlimited number, often depending on the edition of the software. As virtualization becomes more and more prevalent in the enterprise, managing this type of product use right takes on more and more importance. Without the proper software license optimization solution in place, managing virtualization rights can become difficult, if not impossible. Of course, there are many other types of virtualization technologies—application virtualization (e.g. Citrix XenApp, and Microsoft App-V) and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), for example. These technologies also require advanced license management tools to correctly calculate a license position for the software running in these environments.
Why bother with Product Use Rights? Because they can significantly reduce your license consumption and software spend.
A recent Forrester report states, “Software asset management (SAM), as organizations such as ITIL and ISO define it, is obsolete. Its base processes come from a bygone era of floppy disks and unique license keys, whereas today’s software licensing challenges include virtualized systems, a focus on usage instead of installation, and a proliferation of pricing metrics to track and control.”
Step up to Software License Optimization…Use what you have and only buy what you need.
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Readers may also be interested in reading our whitepaper: Maximize Software Cost Savings which discusses the application of product use rights to reduce software costs.