Beyond SAM: How to Optimize Your Software Assets
Software sprawl can be a big problem for big organizations. With thousands, tens of thousands or more employees multiplied by the number of applications each of them uses — either periodically or every day, with mixed individual and shared licenses — it can be a logistical nightmare without a detailed management process.
That process is software asset management (SAM), and if you’re a technology admin for a big company, you’re familiar with it. Good SAM systems do more than just track usage. They involve physical and virtual inventory, reporting, connections with purchasing systems, and working with supply chain for maintenance and renewal.
SAM is a business strategy that minimizes wasted time, resources, and legal risk.
Does your SAM strategy include license optimization?
Software asset optimization (SAO) is an important component of SAM — taking it beyond tracking and management to fine-tune your current software license inventory and predict future usage.
Altair’s SAO and SAO Predict optimization tools give license administrators, engineering managers, and business analysts the advanced reporting and analytics they need to get deep insight into usage and support data-driven planning. Without this level of reporting and analysis, SAM stops short of what it can accomplish for your business.
When you can visualize and analyze global software inventories and utilization rates across facilities, divisions, departments, and users, it’s easy to pinpoint underutilized assets for better business planning and forecasting. Altair’s SAO web portal includes 70+ alerts, usage and analytics reports with extensive drill-down capabilities.
What if…
SAO Predict is a “what-if” simulator, a new approach to exploring configuration alternatives using a virtual license manager. It lets you study the effect of controllable parameters on software licensing system performance, and it’s designed to tune your current configuration and guide decisions about future capacity.
This diagram represents the forecast of what to expect in a scenario when 196 users — measured at varying usage levels — are added to an enterprise license pool. Denials probability is on the y axis and license count is on the x axis. SAO Predict shows how many licenses will be needed to avoid denial probabilities beyond acceptable parameters.
To evaluate license usage, SAO Predict also uses metrics including total usage, number of checkouts, license wait time, capacity utilization percentage, and sustained peak percentage. Historical usage data can be exported from SAO and from third-party tracking systems.
With SAO Predict, your future license planning will be based on real data, and your SAM system will be capable of keeping up with today’s demanding software ecosystems.
Getting SAM right
Software asset management is critical for your business, for your budget, and for your team’s productivity, and getting it right means making your SAM system as efficient as possible — both now and in the future.
Take SAM further and learn more about Altair SAO.
That process is software asset management (SAM), and if you’re a technology admin for a big company, you’re familiar with it. Good SAM systems do more than just track usage. They involve physical and virtual inventory, reporting, connections with purchasing systems, and working with supply chain for maintenance and renewal.
SAM is a business strategy that minimizes wasted time, resources, and legal risk.
Does your SAM strategy include license optimization?
Software asset optimization (SAO) is an important component of SAM — taking it beyond tracking and management to fine-tune your current software license inventory and predict future usage.
Altair’s SAO and SAO Predict optimization tools give license administrators, engineering managers, and business analysts the advanced reporting and analytics they need to get deep insight into usage and support data-driven planning. Without this level of reporting and analysis, SAM stops short of what it can accomplish for your business.
When you can visualize and analyze global software inventories and utilization rates across facilities, divisions, departments, and users, it’s easy to pinpoint underutilized assets for better business planning and forecasting. Altair’s SAO web portal includes 70+ alerts, usage and analytics reports with extensive drill-down capabilities.
What if…
SAO Predict is a “what-if” simulator, a new approach to exploring configuration alternatives using a virtual license manager. It lets you study the effect of controllable parameters on software licensing system performance, and it’s designed to tune your current configuration and guide decisions about future capacity.
This diagram represents the forecast of what to expect in a scenario when 196 users — measured at varying usage levels — are added to an enterprise license pool. Denials probability is on the y axis and license count is on the x axis. SAO Predict shows how many licenses will be needed to avoid denial probabilities beyond acceptable parameters.
To evaluate license usage, SAO Predict also uses metrics including total usage, number of checkouts, license wait time, capacity utilization percentage, and sustained peak percentage. Historical usage data can be exported from SAO and from third-party tracking systems.
With SAO Predict, your future license planning will be based on real data, and your SAM system will be capable of keeping up with today’s demanding software ecosystems.
Getting SAM right
Software asset management is critical for your business, for your budget, and for your team’s productivity, and getting it right means making your SAM system as efficient as possible — both now and in the future.
Take SAM further and learn more about Altair SAO.
