Software License Management

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A license is the permission from a vendor to use a given software product (whether bought or free); the license entitlement details that permission.

Managing software licenses is a key component of a company’s relationship with software vendors, as a lack of effective license management not only limits the leverage a company has in negotiating with vendors (for a discounted price, better renewal terms, etc.) but also exposes the company to the risk of severe financial penalties should a vendor decide to conduct a compliance audit.

With the implementation of an effective license management solution, in addition to the greater operational efficiencies and cost savings, there are other advantages:

  • Contract renewals: An improved negotiation position with vendors, not only from the ability to obtain discounts for new purchases and more favorable renewal terms, but by identifying and eliminating unnecessary and underutilized licenses.

  • Budget and forecasting: The ability to accurately report on license usage, and the associated license and contract costs (by using Maximo IT to link software licenses to associated software and master contracts), helps to provide accurate data to current and projected budgets.

Maximo IT helps an organization achieve these license management goals, through the Licenses application to define the entitlements for each of your software products, according to their license agreements. License Management in Maximo IT offers:

  • Full lifecycle support
  • Creation and management of entitled licenses, supporting multiple license types
  • Managing how a license is internally allocated
  • Ability to generate Purchase Requisitions/Purchase Orders for licenses
  • Adding costs directly to a license and viewing cost records already associated with the license
  • Generating Audit ready License management reports, including license usage
  • Structured software license management processes
  • Centralized software management
  • Standard purchasing for licenses

License administration begins after a software catalog (or deployed asset data from a discovery tool) is imported into the IBM Control Desk database. The License application helps you import into Maximo IT your license data, set up your core license groups and license templates, and perform any value unit conversions necessary. Then create any new licenses and plan your license allocations.

You can then manage your licenses by associating to them software from the Software Catalog application, allocating license capacity, and managing all licenses to a state of audit-readiness. New licenses can be procured and existing licenses can be transferred, canceled, or deleted.