Licence management is a challenge for the future

At the Novell Brainshare Europe conference, Novell EMEA president Javier Colado hit the nail on the head when discussing software asset management. Whilst describing Novell’s new strategy, Intelligent Workload Management, Colado said “CIOs both need to support flexibility and regulatory compliance.

“Intelligent workload management provides an ability to mange [application] workloads in a secure and scalable way," he continued.

Colado said that in the next decade companies will have a physical software stack, a virtual stack, and a stack in the cloud, all of which will need business and IT service management, as well as security. Identifying and keeping track of licencing of all of those elements is a huge part of that.

Here at Inatech we recognise the continually changing challenges of licence management, especially as applications move towards the cloud. IT departments need to be sure that they are not breaking rules, overspending on unnecessary licences, or buying licences without planning for the long-term. Our Enterprise Software Asset Management (eSAM) offering helps clients to keep on top of their software.

We launched eSAM at the Las Vegas Oracle Collaborate event, and we could see from that what a need there is for good software asset management.

We recognise that managing software assets can create admin headaches and mounting costs, and with eSAM, many of our clients have reduced these significantly. As well as this, our clients have found that eSAM has reduced compliance risks and the mitigation of audit threats, and helped them to plan long-term software budgets and vendor management initiatives.

For more information, you can download our whitepaper on licencing. It summarises factors warranting a need to purchase a software license; taking stock of existing licences; insights into license purchasing; and negotiating with Oracle.