Adobe is one of the best examples of how the software licensing landscape is experiencing changes as software vendors change their technologies and underlying licensing to meet the ever growing needs for SaaS and Cloud software. To help with the specific Adobe examples, Flexera has released it's "Adobe Practice Guide" which is now available along with all of our other "Flexera Practice Guides" in the Flexera Learning Center. Below is an excerpt from the guide with a brief history of Adobe Licensing to help illustrate the changing landscape of software licensing today. Recent History of Adobe Licensing Since 2013 Adobe has transformed its core product offerings from traditional boxed perpetual licensed software to a subscription model. Even though they still have locally installed software as well as cloud-based SaaS software, Adobe has now transitioned virtually all offerings to the subscription model. The most common example of this mixed model (locally installed/subscription model) is Creative Cloud (CC), from enterprise level to consumer. Core products such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat and the Creative Cloud Suite are still deployed locally but licensed on a monthly subscription basis. Each time an end-user runs a locally installed product, it automatically checks for an active cloud subscription online before the application will function. Other offerings such as Marketing Cloud are traditional SaaS solutions without locally installed applications. During this transition to subscription, we have witnessed many soft agreements with Adobe for forfeiture or conversion of perpetual licensing to subscription. In these cases, there have been verbal agreements to relinquish all perpetual licensing in exchange for an initial discount on enterprise subscription licenses. However, we have not encountered these agreements documented in contractual form. For this reason, many Adobe customers continue to deploy and use older perpetual licenses where needed. For conversion to subscription, there has been little clarity from Adobe on what end-users can do with old perpetual products they may still use. Also, there has not been a clear or simple path to transition large populations of users with varying mixes of older perpetual product versions and editions along with current Creative Cloud level subscriptions. To further muddy the waters, perpetual licensing was managed on a per-device basis (with secondary use-rights) while Creative Cloud is managed on a named-user basis. Accurately tracking license consumption when mixing these differing models in a large environment is quite difficult, making consolidation of all users to Creative Cloud more attractive. ... View more

Thanks to the work of the great team listed below, we've published the first version of our " IT Data Management Practice Guide ". Let us know what you think.   This guide is now available via the Community Learning Center (with a Community logon). It can be found in the " Getting Started with Data Platform " learning path as well as the generic " Flexera Practice Guides " linked from the Community home page.   This guide built on the previous work done for the Enterprise Architect & IT Service Management Guides and hence replaces those two. We've taken those concepts and incorporated the practice of managing your IT data as well as added other common use cases for using good data.   The Guide contains the following sections: Data management overview Establishing your data connections and integrations Data normalization/enrichment Common goals, KPI's for data management   Authors are: Dan Anderson; Greg Leonard; Jason Lilleboe; John Sorensen; Kim Rasmussen; Natalie Lias; Nicolas Bessmer; Resno Resnofendri; Robert Miller; Steve Mullins; Tom Boudreau. ... View more

We are excited to announce the latest release of the Software License Optimization Guide . The guide is now available in the Community Learning Center along with expanded Learning Tracks tied to topics in the guide. The guide provides Best Practice recommendations to those responsible for organizing what to do (workstreams) and when to do it (milestones) as they relate to establishing an optimized license position. It covers best practices to establishing key objectives designed to achieve quick time to value in initial milestones, as well as enhanced value through later milestones. The guide divides the workload into separate workstreams for differing teams, and  associated learning tracks are linked to these workstreams to provide role-based How To's and video demonstrations to help those involved in all aspects of  planning, discovery, inventory & establishing the optimized license position. A Flexera Community Logon is required to access the guide and the key Learning Tracks related to the Software License Optimization Guide: Getting Started with Software License Optimization in FlexNet Manager Discovery, Inventory & Application Normalization License Creation & Optimization with FlexNet Manager Reporting & Governance with FlexNet Manager Two Worksheets have also been provided along with the guide: SLO Project Task List Worksheet Reporting & Governance Worksheet We're always looking for real world input and feedback on best practices you've found helpful to your program and using FlexNet Manager. We ask that you post those experiences and feedback to the FlexNet Manager Community Forum. Best Regards, Steve Mullins Enablement Manager Flexera ... View more

To better understand the results of the reconciliation, Flexera has created a couple of new views in the FlexNet Manager 2019 R2 release. One available from the “Show assessment details” button on the consumption tab of a license. Show Assessment Details   And the other “Show licenses assessed” on the license tab of a device and user showing all of the licenses considered during a reconciliation and providing reasons why the license was consumed or not. Show Licenses Assessed For each application/license possible pair, it gives the result of the license assessment (Consumed, Rejected, or Not assessed), together with a summary reason. For example: It might be consumed because allocation of a license entitlement to this device triggers automatic consumption Or it may have been rejected because the number of cores, required for calculating consumption for this license type, is missing for a device For more information on the new License Transparency and the reconciliation process, be sure to refer "Understanding Reconciliation Results " article available in the online help as well as the " Understanding How Licenses Work" learning track  from the "License Creation & Optimization" online course available in the Community Learning Center.   ... View more

So why would you want to consider reviewing the recently published Flexera's "Microsoft Practice Guide" which is available in the Community Learning Center to help guide you? License Models Well, it's not about license models though the guide provides details on each of the models below. Most Microsoft license models are relatively straight-forward. Per Device (desktop) Per User Subscription Per Guest/Host CAL (datacenter) Named User – MSDN / Subscription (desktop and datacenter) Processor (datacenter) Microsoft SQL Core (datacenter) Microsoft Windows Core + CAL (datacenter) OEM (desktop) Qualified User (desktop) Qualified Device (desktop) Virtual Desktop Access (VDA) Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA) Windows Companion Subscription License (CSL) Use Rights Many of the Microsoft's Use Rights while critical to track are fairly straight forward as well as discussed in the table below. Downgrade Rights Ability to purchase the current version but install a previous version. Typically used for consistency in the environment before a migration project Office, Windows OS, SQL Server & Visio Training Licenses Ability to install 20 copies per software title for use in dedicated training facilities SQL Server Evaluation Licenses 10 copies per software title for a 60-day evaluation BizTalk Secondary Use Rights Ability to install software on a laptop/desktop for the same user or a computer/VDI for the same user Visio Project   So what are the areas that provide the most complexity for our customers? Well below is a summary of some of the topics covered more in detail in our Microsoft Practice Guide that we've found most helpful for customers. Challenging Complexities A challenge that most customers have is the sheer volume of Microsoft products that are deployed in their environment and the associated product terms and conditions. Being able to understand the complexities and establish an accurate baseline is paramount. Challenges around Microsoft Licensing that need to be considered when establishing a license position with FlexNet Manager and good practices include: Microsoft agreements true-up or renew more frequently than other vendors (yearly). This includes Terms & Conditions (T&Cs) and Product Use Rights changes. Customers will typically have multiple contractual agreements and enrollments with Microsoft. Customers often have multiple Microsoft resellers. In conjunction with de-centralized purchasing, accurately tracking entitlements is challenging. Tracking Microsoft entitlements is almost impossible without automation. Microsoft products have hundreds of SKU numbers. For example, a product as simple as Visio has a unique SKU depending on whether it was bought under EA, Select, Open, with or without SA, etc.  Most Microsoft products have hundreds of SKU numbers. Note: Microsoft product SKUs are almost always found as XXX-XXXXX, so if you see a SKU with additional characters such as T9L-00222-NIH3 try removing the trailing characters before processing (T9L-00222). To optimize spend, you need to forecast future usage of Microsoft products to right-size Select agreements. Customers on EA agreements must make sure they have right-sized their EA contract as Select level is based on the EA as well. Microsoft licenses can be expensive. Project and Visio typically range from $300-$500/unit. SQL Server starts at $3,600/unit.   Tracking which products are under SA (maintenance) is also difficult. Microsoft's SA goes beyond most vendors' definitions of "maintenance" to include use rights that extend beyond simple version upgrade rights (license mobility) causing the presence or absence of SA to be a critical factor in determining use rights-driven compliance positions. Tracking which applications are being used is almost impossible because of the volume of usage data that most inventory tools report. This makes finding reclamation candidates a very manual process. As organizations move to Virtual Desktops/Citrix/VMWare/Cloud infrastructure, it is becoming much more difficult to track licensing. Organizations can no longer rely on SCCM to provide a complete view of their environment. Over the last few years, Microsoft has licensed Windows Server in various ways. Determining consumption depends on how Windows Server was purchased and whether it had SA on it when Microsoft changed its licensing metrics: Prior to the release of Window Server 2012, Microsoft Windows server was licensed by Server/CAL. With version 2012, Microsoft began licensing it by Processor/CAL. With version 2016, Microsoft began licensing it by Core/CAL. With the new Core model, there must be a minimum of 8 cores licenses for each physical processor with a minimum of 16 core licenses per server. SQL Server can be purchased under various license models. Manually determining SQL Server licenses required is prohibitive. Prior to the release of SQL Server 2012, Microsoft SQL Server was licensed by Server/CAL or Processor (CPU). In 2012, Microsoft introduced the Microsoft Server Core License model. The Core model is now the only one available for products like SQL Server and BizTalk, although many customers will still have legacy Processor licenses. With the new Core model, you must license at a minimum 4 cores for each physical processor SQL Server 2014 still offers a Server + CAL license model, but only for Standard and Business Intelligence (BI) editions. SQL Server 2016 still offers a Server + CAL license model, but only for Standard. The Business Intelligence edition is no longer being offered. Additional Topics Additional sections of the"Microsoft Practice Guide" that will help you in preparing your Microsoft License Position include: Discovery & Inventory Hardware & Virtualization Inventory Virtualization Data Collection (vCenter/vSphere) Hyper V Application Virtualization: XenApp Desktop Virtualization: XenDesktop/VDI AppV CALs Office 365 SQL Server License Creation & Optimization Microsoft Contracts Proof of License for Microsoft Software Microsoft License Statement (MLS) Establishing the Microsoft Baseline Microsoft Customer Price Sheet (CPS) Purchase Orders Summary Purchase Data vs. Transactional Purchase Data Optimization: SQL Server Core Licensing SQL Server & BizTalk Server 2012 & 2014 by Server Core SQL Server & BizTalk Server 2016 by Server Core Optimizing SQL Server Optimizing Windows Server System Center Core Infrastructure Server Suite (CISS) Microsoft Development Network (MSDN) Virtual Desktops Office 365 Managing Microsoft Licenses in Azure Client Access Licenses (CALs) Optimizing CALs Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA) Be sure to Subscribe to the FlexNet Manager Blogs for news on any new or existing vendor specific practice guides as well as best practices in general for Software Asset Management. ... 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We encourage everyone involved with Microsoft and/or IBM licensing to review the latest updates of the IBM and Microsoft Practice Guides, which are available in the "Flexera Practice Guides" track on the Community Learning Center.   IBM Guide Updates: FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 includes significant changes to sub-capacity license management. Flexera recommends all customers upgrade to this release if they are using FlexNet Manager Suite to calculate IBM PVU license position (rather than ILMT).   All sections of the IBM Practice Guide have been updated to include information relevant to IBM Licensing in FlexNet Manager Suite 2019. The updated IBM Practice guide also includes new sections on new license metric management, regional license reporting requirements, PVU licensing and cloud management etc. The product coverage, project considerations and milestones, bundle assessment and configuration and reporting sections have also been updated.   Microsoft Guide Updates: Additional notes on CAL licensing and Azure have been added to properly represent the ever changing environment for these two licensing challenges. The guide has also been streamlined to be more focused on current Microsoft licensing needs. For example, some of the older out of date Microsoft contract notes have been extracted from the guide and published as reference links in the Learning Center next to the guide.   Authors The guides would not be possible without the effort of our field consultants who provide real world experience for everyone to benefit from. We encourage everyone to submit stories about their "Good Practices" solving specific licensing challenges to the Community forum. Just make sure to tag the new Forum Post with the tag "Good Practice." We're always looking for good suggestions we can promote as best practices for all and would be happy to credit the authors of any solution we use.   The current authors for both guides are listed below. IBM Practice Guide Authors Brad Akers Dawn Hoagland Matt Marnell Nicolas Rousseau Steve Cowherd Steve Mullins Stewart Pierce Toby Ivens Microsoft Practice Guide Authors Amanda Reinhardt Brad Akers Darren Balakrishnan Dawn Hoagland Matt Marnell Natalie Lias Nicolas Rousseau Steve Cowherd Steve Mullins Stewart Pierce ... View more