Recycling Software Licenses
License Recycling is becoming an increasingly popular, proactive strategy for reducing future software license fees. License Recycling, sometimes referred to as License Harvesting, is simple in concept but tricky to implement for both political and technical reasons. Essentially, License Recycling is the process of identifying copies of software, within the managed estate, that are underused and making those copies available to individuals, or environments where genuine need can be established – thereby avoiding the cost of an additional license to support the genuine need.
Recycling licenses in this way obviously reduces the amount of money spent on new licenses for any particular software title; even in medium sized estates the scale of this saving is regularly measured in millions of dollars. The challenges to effective License Recycling are as follows:
- Accurately identifying copies of software that are genuinely not being used
- Automating the process of recycling to the point where the savings are materially greater than the cost to recycle
- Managing the cross-charging/reimbursement issues for recycling across departmental budget boundaries
- Cost-effectively distinguishing between low-use and limited use of titles to identify downgrade opportunities
Survey provides unique software usage tracking technology that can unambiguously identify whether the licensed users are effectively using their enabled software applications. Survey can do this for all classes of application; traditional rich-client tools, web-based applications, and applications delivered via Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. Traditional methods of identifying usage, such as manual surveys or usage extracted from Asset Management tools can be costly to implement and dangerously inaccurate.
Features |
Benefits |
|---|---|
1 The key challenges to effective license recycling are as follows: |
1 Ensures accurate analysis of application usage. Whether the application is delivered as thick client, thin client, virtual desktop or web application, the same usage analysis applies. |
2 Support for all application delivery models. |
2 Correlates usage with cost to reveal immediate cost-benefits. |
3 Software purchase history integration. |
3 Enables savings based on downgrades to read-only or report based solutions. |
4 Distinguishes read-only activity from read/write activity. |
4 Whether a window invocation results in a change to underlying data object is fundamental to the validity of an audit. |
5 Integration with configuration management. |
5 Reduces costs based on automation or recycling or downgrades. |
Identifying Low Use Licenses
Adobe Acrobat - Low use examples
Installation Usage Summary
