Software License Optimization

Practice Guide
FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1
 Legal Information
Document Name: Software License Optimization Practice Guide (for on-premises and cloud implementations)

Part Number: FMS-13.2.0-SLO02

Product Release Date: March 28, 2019

Copyright Notice
Copyright © 2019 Flexera.

This publication contains proprietary and confidential technology, information and creative works owned by Flexera and
its licensors, if any. Any use, copying, publication, distribution, display, modification, or transmission of such publication
in whole or in part in any form or by any means without the prior express written permission of Flexera is strictly
prohibited. Except where expressly provided by Flexera in writing, possession of this publication shall not be construed to
confer any license or rights under any Flexera intellectual property rights, whether by estoppel, implication, or otherwise.

All copies of the technology and related information, if allowed by Flexera, must display this notice of copyright and
ownership in full.

FlexNet Manager Suite incorporates software developed by others and redistributed according to license agreements.
Copyright notices and licenses for this externally-developed software are provided in the link below.

Intellectual Property
For a list of trademarks and patents that are owned by Flexera, see http://www.flexera.com/intellectual-property. All
other brand and product names mentioned in Flexera products, product documentation, and marketing materials are the
trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Restricted Rights Legend

The Software is commercial computer software. If the user or licensee of the Software is an agency, department, or other
entity of the United States Government, the use, duplication, reproduction, release, modification, disclosure, or transfer
of the Software, or any related documentation of any kind, including technical data and manuals, is restricted by a license
agreement or by the terms of this Agreement in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation 12.212 for civilian
purposes and Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement 227.7202 for military purposes. The Software was
developed fully at private expense. All other use is prohibited.
 Contents

Contents
1. Scope........................................................................................................................... 6

2. FlexNet Manager Suite Coverage Summary ..................................................................... 7

3. Overview of a License Reconciliation Project................................................................. 10

4. Overview of Milestones ............................................................................................... 14

Milestone 0 (Planning)............................................................................................................................. 14

Milestone 1 (Initial Insight) ...................................................................................................................... 15

Milestone 2 (Initial Position) .................................................................................................................... 16

Milestone 3 (Refined Position).................................................................................................................. 17

5. Planning & Implementation Workstream ...................................................................... 19

Scoping by Gross Value ............................................................................................................................ 20

Project Plan Considerations..................................................................................................................... 21

SAM Team Considerations........................................................................................................................ 23

Software Lifecycle .................................................................................................................................. 23

Communications..................................................................................................................................... 25

6. Discovery & Inventory Normalization Workstream......................................................... 27

Inventory Data Layers ............................................................................................................................. 28

Unspecified Editions and Unknown Components ..................................................................................................... 29

Overlapping Evidence.................................................................................................................................................. 31

Virtualization Inventory............................................................................................................................................... 31

Unspecified Editions and Unknown Components ....................................................................................... 31

Overlapping Evidence ............................................................................................................................. 33

Virtualization Inventory .......................................................................................................................... 33

Cloud Service Provider Inventory ............................................................................................................. 34

Collection of Supplemental Inventory ...................................................................................................... 34

Data Platform Integration........................................................................................................................ 34

7. License Creation & Optimization Workstream................................................................ 36

Importing and Creating a Baseline............................................................................................................ 37
Processing Purchases.............................................................................................................................. 38

License Optimization............................................................................................................................... 44

Viewing License Properties and Use Rights................................................................................................................ 45

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 3
Contents

Hard Verses Soft Cost Savings..................................................................................................................................... 46

License Re-Harvesting and Shelving........................................................................................................................... 46

User Optimization........................................................................................................................................................ 47

Application Portfolio Rationalization ......................................................................................................................... 47

Maintenance Savings................................................................................................................................................... 48

Virtualization Rules...................................................................................................................................................... 48

Bundle Management ................................................................................................................................................... 49

Limited Use Licenses ................................................................................................................................................... 50

Prerequisites ................................................................................................................................................................ 51

Exemptions................................................................................................................................................................... 51

Restrictions .................................................................................................................................................................. 52
Managing BYOSL .......................................................................................................................................................... 52

Managing SaaS............................................................................................................................................................. 53

Managing Salesforce.................................................................................................................................................... 54

End of Service Life........................................................................................................................................................ 54

Additional Resources................................................................................................................................................... 55

8. Reporting & Governance Workstream ........................................................................... 56

Reports .................................................................................................................................................. 56

Generating an Inbuilt Report ................................................................................................................... 57

Inbuilt Reports ....................................................................................................................................... 57

Working with Custom Reports.................................................................................................................. 60

Custom Reporting Object/Table Joins ....................................................................................................... 62

Management Dashboard.......................................................................................................................... 62

Flexera Analytics..................................................................................................................................... 62
Gap Analysis........................................................................................................................................... 63

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) ........................................................................................................... 64

Custom Report Examples......................................................................................................................... 66

9. Useful Resources ........................................................................................................ 69

10. Acronyms ................................................................................................................. 72

11. Appendix 1: Choosing the Right Inventory Method ....................................................... 74

Inventory Comparison Matrix .................................................................................................................. 77

12. Appendix 2: Managing Upgrade, Subscription and Maintenance Entitlements ................ 80

Managing Subscription Entitlements ........................................................................................................ 80

Managing Maintenance Entitlements........................................................................................................ 81

4 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Contents

Managing Upgrade Entitlements .............................................................................................................. 83

13. Appendix 3: Custom Report Object Tables ................................................................... 84

14. Appendix 4: Logical Data Models Between Object Tables............................................... 86

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 5
Scope

1
Scope
The Software License Optimization Practice Guide is a prescriptive guide to producing and refining your license position
using FlexNet Manager Suite's best practices. It provides recommendations that apply to any software vendor and should
be considered general best practices. It is intended to enhance existing product knowledge and augment other material,
such as our free training courses, and the FlexNet Manager Suite online help. See the Useful Resources chapter for a full
list of these resources including a list of learning paths which we recommend you review before using this practice guide.

Note: There are several use cases for Software License Optimization (SLO) and not all of them are addressed in this
practice guide, such as software asset management (considered here only as a follow up effort that transitions an SLO
project into an operational program) or hardware asset management.

The Software License Optimization Practice Guide follows a milestone approach to software asset management. This
approach is based on achieving an increasing level of maturity by incrementally adding data to continuously improve
compliance and accuracy.

This practice guide is supplemented by specialty practice guides (such as the IBM® Practice Guide, Microsoft® Practice
Guide, Oracle® Practice Guide, SAP® Practice Guide, or the VMWare® Practice Guide) which provide additional vendor
specific or use-case specific context, as well as the more technical Business Adapter Practice Guide.

For concurrent licensing, please see the Concurrent Licensing Practice Guide.

For hardware asset management, please see the Hardware Asset Management Practice Guide.

All guides are found in our Learning Center, accessible via the Customer Community.

Yes, It Can Be This Simple!

6 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 FlexNet Manager Suite Coverage Summary

2
FlexNet Manager Suite Coverage
Summary

The first thing to consider when undertaking a SLO project is how you will collect application attributes. Many attributes
are collected natively by inventory tools; however others require a different approach. When assessing whether your
applications are supported by the available inventory technology, it is critical to start with the license metric (such as
users, devices, cores, and so on) and how the application is deployed and/or accessed. Knowing which attributes to count
will allow you to determine whether that data is collected by inventory, or how else you can collect it.

The table below summarizes the commonalities among products based on the most common deployment
methodologies:

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 7
FlexNet Manager Suite Coverage Summary

Deployment Examples Coverage Summary

On Premises • IBM WebSphere Most applications in this category are quickly recognized as installed,
(Desktop and/or Application Server including their different components (for bundled applications). Key
Data Center) application attributes such as editions, options, and add-ons are
• Microsoft Office often not available in the evidence collected by standard inventory.
• Oracle Database When these attributes are available, it is usually in the form of tag
files.
• Tableau Desktop The FlexNet inventory agent includes custom technology which
• Toad collects important attributes for the highest value applications across
different vendors. Some applications may not be natively supported
and will require additional effort to identify.

Infrastructure as a • Amazon Web Gathering inventory from IaaS environments is similar to on premises
Service (IaaS) Services Elastic environments. Conventional agent-based and agent-less approaches
Cloud Compute should be used, and you can expect similar results (unless otherwise
(AWS EC2) noted), however virtualization and partitioning details will not be
available as underlying hardware is inaccessible to inventory scans in
• Microsoft Azure IaaS environments.

• VMware vCloud Air Bring Your Own Software License (BYOSL) licensing rules often apply.
These rules generally ignore virtualization and partitioning
• IBM SoftLayer requirements, making it easier to calculate consumption. Different
use rights for on premises and IaaS environments will typically
require separate license records. A best practice is to allocate
machines in each environment to their respective licenses, and then
automate the inventory gathering process using a business adapter.
Discovery scanning is not typically possible in these environments.
Also, it may be necessary to integrate with the service provider's
application programming interface (API) to generate inventory
targets. Many service providers position infrastructure outsourcing as
IaaS. However, vendors often list the service providers which qualify
to use BYOSL rules. If a service provider is not on the vendor’s list, the
standard On-Premises licensing rules will typically apply.
Managing the costs and risk of these environments will require
reporting from the IaaS itself (such as access to APIs and other reports
that provide the details of the underlying infrastructure). This data
should be used to import and allocate consumption entitlements to
licenses in FlexNet Manager Suite.

Infrastructure • IBM Managed Infrastructure outsourcing and Private Cloud environments are
outsourcing (Private Services essentially outsourced data centers which follow the same licensing
Cloud) and Service conventions as the On Premises environments outlined above.
Providers • Microsoft SPLA
Be cautious of the same service provider infrastructure challenges as
with IaaS.

8 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 FlexNet Manager Suite Coverage Summary

Deployment Examples Coverage Summary

Platform as a Service • IBM Most PaaS licenses require a similar approach to SaaS (see below),
(PaaS) where the platform itself is priced based on usage.
• Force.com
Like SaaS or IaaS, managing the costs and risk of these environments
• Google App Engine will require reporting from the service itself (such as access to APIs
and reports that provide the details of the underlying infrastructure).
• OpenStack
This data can then be used to import license data into FlexNet
• CA AppLogic Manager Suite and then assign consumption.

• AWS Elastic
Beanstalk

• AWS RDS

Software as a Service • Salesforce.com Most SaaS applications are user or usage based. Consumption
(SaaS) metrics can be obtained through integration with the service
• Microsoft Office
provider's API or other regular reporting mechanism. We recommend
365 using Flexera's SaaS Inventory Framework.
• Box The focus is on cost control, not necessarily on compliance (although
compliance might still be an issue with some providers). It may be
• Google Apps possible to track end user client application installs and usage
• Workday through inventory solutions just like any other on premises
application.
• ServiceNow See Managing SaaS for a brief summary of other management and
• Concur optimization concerns and some current capabilities.

• Atlassian JIRA
Note: Many products are available as On-Premises and cloud
offerings today.

Appliances • Oracle Exadata Appliances can be physical or virtual, and may be located on premises
or in the cloud. Appliances are typically licensed per appliance device,
• Oracle Exalogic
however some appliances may be licensed based on organizational or
• Symantec technical metrics, such as the number of users protected by an email
NetBackup spam filter, or the amount of data stored in a database.

Appliance Appliances typically encounter the same challenges as On Premises

deployments when identifying editions, options, add-ons, and
• Email Gateway measuring license consumption.
Appliances are usually low risk instances and are often excluded from
automated discovery.
Manual data collection of consumption metrics is expected.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 9
Overview of a License Reconciliation Project

3
Overview of a License Reconciliation
Project
One of the most important steps of any license reconciliation project is to start by defining the activities, timeline, and
scope. Most licensing projects can be broken down into the same key phases, and the milestone approach outlined in this
document provides an implementation framework which maximizes time to value by focusing on the fastest delivery of
an initial license position and constantly improving that position by following a standardized framework. The four (or
more) key milestones each share the same, repeatable, four workstreams which in turn creates an easy and standardized
process, improves efficiency, and provides the fastest outcome for our software license optimization solutions.

With limited exception, defining the scope of a license reconciliation project is relatively consistent across vendors. While
there are many methods documented in the industry, the method of Scoping by Gross Value has proven to be particularly
successful for FlexNet Manager Suite implementations of all sizes.

This methodology is successful because it focuses on addressing areas where you have invested the most. As you begin
scoping your projects (or as you are adding more to your already established position), we recommend you only accept
very limited risks in areas that will require extra effort to accomplish. Each new milestone should expand on the first
scope to either add new products or vendors, or to add new inventory or data sources for an enhanced license position.
The emphasis is to show success early while frequently improving and communicating next steps. License positions will
typically need to be scrutinized and refined before reaching an optimized state, so this should be considered a continuous
process, instead of a singular set of tasks.

Following our milestone logic, you will only undertake necessary tasks early in the process, and then improve your
licensing position using an iterative process. A standard set of reports is provided at the end of each milestone for tracking
purposes. The results will ultimately improve future milestone work because issues and gaps will be identified. Standard
reports can be found in the Reporting & Governance Workstream section, alongside some very useful custom reports that
take advantage of the rich data FlexNet Manager Suite offers.

At first, expect your license position to be a rough estimate (likely with well-known gaps) that summarizes the initial
information you have collected or have available. As more data is integrated through later milestones, the quality of the
license position will steadily improve, until you reach an optimized state. Be aware that it is perfectly normal for gaps to
exist even at later milestone stages. These should be well documented and assessed. Over time you will gain alignment
with, and incorporate appropriate data from, all SAM stakeholders.

While the organization is working to establish the initial license position, a range of activities must be undertaken within
the organization to commence an efficient and effective Software Asset Management (SAM) program. A SAM program is a
business practice that involves managing and optimizing the purchase, deployment, maintenance, utilization, and

10 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Overview of a License Reconciliation Project

disposal of software applications within your organization.

These activities will run in parallel with the license reconciliation effort as a part of the project to ensure the established
licensing positions continue to be maintained over time. Over the course of the project, the commencement of the SAM
program can be broken down into these key establishing components:

• Establish a SAM Governance program. This governing body monitors the progress of the SAM program, removes any
obstacles, and serves as the escalation point for the SAM team. A SAM governance team consists of senior leadership
and SAM stakeholders’ leadership.

• Assess the current state of the software lifecycle and determine the future state

• Determine software data management

• Determine ways to measure the effectiveness of the SAM program and processes

• Determine how the SAM program will communicate

Each of these SAM program components will be developed over the course of the license reconciliation project
milestones.

Below is a breakdown of the four recommended milestones:

• Milestone 0 (Planning) — Scoping the project, developing a project plan, and reviewing technical requirements.

• Milestone 1 (Initial Insight) — Using FlexNet Manager Suite to establish baseline data and integrate with existing
inventory and entitlement sources. This produces a first view of your license position that identifies risks and other
areas requiring focus in future milestones.

• Milestone 2 (Initial Position) — Delivering a meaningful representation of the license position, while continuing to
document and close gaps.

• Milestone 3 (Refined Position) — Delivering an optimized position, including remaining open issues, actions and
recommendations. In many instances, 100% accuracy may not be feasible and additional milestones may be required
to further refine your position.

To summarize:

• Plan the project as a series of smaller projects with frequent milestones as checkpoints

• Continue working on the same workstreams every time for consistency and best results

• Prioritize any items that are critical to facilitate the next milestone, or are identified as having uncertainties that must
be addressed to prevent disruption to a later milestone.

The below table shows most important activities at the different stages of your SAM project. More details are provided in
the milestones and recommended workstreams sections. This list assumes you have an operating instance of ready for
use.

Table 1: License Reconciliation Project Milestones

Planning & Discovery & Inventory License Creation & Reporting & Governance
Implementation Normalization Optimization Workstream Workstream
Workstream Workstream

Milestone 0 (Planning)

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 11
Overview of a License Reconciliation Project

Planning & Discovery & Inventory License Creation & Reporting & Governance
Implementation Normalization Optimization Workstream Workstream
Workstream Workstream

1. Set initial scope 1. Identify existing 1. Identify the initial 1. Create a project plan
inventory and baseline, or identify
2. Identify SAM 2. Create an issue
entitlement sources sources required to
stakeholders and set register and gap
create a baseline
expectations 2. Review product analysis document
manually (a recent
requirements and
3. Identify SAM audit report, purchase 3. Create an
prerequisites
stakeholder change orders, contracts) implementation
management 3. Identify whether architecture and
2. Begin baseline
requirements FlexNet Inventory technical
collection (if
deployment is requirements
4. Perform SAM applicable)
required. If yes, document
assessment.
choose method(s) and 3. Review requirements
4. Define requirements
plan for deployment. for assets, users,
for later milestones
purchases and
enterprise groups. 5. Map future-state SAM
process, identify SAM
stakeholders and
construct governance
team.

Milestone 1 (Initial Insight)

1. Start planning for later 1. Import existing Choose from the following: 1. Initial license
milestones inventory position insight
• Import existing baseline
2. Consider additional a. Begin 2. Produce normalized
• Create baseline from
data source deployment of inventory reports
FlexNet entitlement reports
integration(s)
Inventory (if 3. Gap analysis/KPIs
• Import a copy of the
3. Communicate required).
effective license position 4. Define SAM program
progress
(if applicable). KPIs, communicate
4. Engage SAM SAM lifecycle
stakeholders. processes.

Milestone 2 (Initial Position)

12 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Overview of a License Reconciliation Project

Planning & Discovery & Inventory License Creation & Reporting & Governance
Implementation Normalization Optimization Workstream Workstream
Workstream Workstream

1. Consider additional 1. Expand inventory to 1. Obtain initial set of 1. Initial license

data source cover identified gaps contracts, and review position
integration(s) and identify inventory your proof of
2. Gap analysis/KPIs
to ignore entitlement
2. Determine whether
3. New SAM processes
legacy or out-of- 2. Cross reference 2. Create a revised
are implemented.
service licenses discovery sources entitlement position
should be tracked (Active Directory)
3. Start refining use
3. Communicate 3. Import device roles. rights (basic
progress allocations and device
role exemptions).
4. Implement SAM
future-state lifecycle
processes.

Milestone 3 (Refined Position)

1. Further refine data 1. Scan networks for 1. Incorporate manual 1. Optimized license
sources missing devices inventory position

2. Initiate policy and 2. Complete VM 2. Review all contracts 2. Gap analysis/KPIs

process introspection and add renewals
3. Custom reports.
enhancements
3. Import user data 3. Further refine use
3. Automate collection of rights
4. Identify enterprise
KPIs
structures (if 4. Review license
4. Identify enterprise applicable) bundles
group assignment
5. Inventory role set for 5. Input pricing details
needs
active inventory (if
6. Provide consumption
5. Communicate role-based
counts for license
progress. exemptions are
types that require
needed).
manual configuration.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 13
Overview of Milestones

4
Overview of Milestones
The milestone process delivers value fast by allowing you to obtain an initial license position without waiting for your
inventory data to be perfect. In this modular framework, the individual workstreams are interchangeable, and some are
even removable, based on your desired outcomes and your project scope. This level of flexibility is especially useful when
you need to deliver a license position quickly, are dealing with complex scenarios, or are taking a niche approach to your
SAM journey. For example, in complex scenarios, it may be challenging to follow the guidelines rigidly (such as creating
licenses, then assessing entitlement and contracts, and then optimizing your license position) as your license
entitlements and contracts may determine the way licenses need to be created.

The timeframes for delivering milestones will also differ from environment to environment, and from project to project.
For example, if you are deploying inventory agents to a large number of servers, the timeline for Milestone 1 (Initial
Insight) will be longer to allow for specific deployment requirements that need to be considered.

This following sections in this chapter provide an overview of the milestones outlined in the above table.

In addition, each workstream has dedicated chapter where overall best practices are shared, and useful tips and tricks are
given by our team of experts. Please see the Planning & Implementation Workstream, Discovery & Inventory
Normalization Workstream, License Creation & Optimization Workstream and Reporting & Governance Workstream
chapters.

Milestone 0 (Planning)
Milestone 0 (Planning) focuses on planning rather than implementation; however it is included in the overall framework
because careful planning, thought and consideration are essential to ensure your project is executed quickly and is likely
to succeed. By identifying requirements and prerequisites, Milestone 0 (Planning) enables you to start Milestone 1 (Initial
Insight) ready to import the necessary entitlements and match them to your inventory. This creates your first insight into
the license position and enables you to meet the important goal of reporting a license position back to SAM stakeholders
early on in your project lifecycle.

We also recommend implementing an effective SAM program that will support the established license position,
demonstrate value, and avoids unnecessary software licensing and maintenance spend going forward. To achieve an
effective SAM program, SAM teams must create and implement Operational KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that
enable team members to measure, report on, and monitor SAM processes, staffing, work instructions, and tool sets.

During this initial stage, the project team should:

• Review the project scope and objectives with the SAM stakeholders.

14 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Overview of Milestones

• Develop a project plan and set clear expectations.

• Request baseline reports, contracts, and access to required systems.

• Review network architecture to determine the appropriate technical architecture.

• Review product requirements and prerequisites.

• Obtain access to existing inventory systems.

• Determine if deployment of FlexNet inventory agent is required. This is crucial for vendors where traditional inventory
sources, such as Oracle, are not effective.

• Review enterprise groups and reporting requirements. This is crucial to enable enterprise groups and/or territory to
determine a license position.

• Review requirements for assets, users and purchases for vetting in future milestones.

• Identify your initial baseline or the sources needed to create one.

• Hold planning and design sessions which can consist of phone calls, virtual sessions, or on-site workshops.

• Develop a SAM program governance team who will be responsible for supporting SAM process development and
execution; will serve as a program escalation point; determine SAM program KPIs; and support the SAM team.

• Assess and map both current and future state SAM processes. This is crucial to ensure an efficient SAM program.

Milestone 1 (Initial Insight)

Milestone 1 (Initial Insight) focuses on achieving an initial insight into your license position. You will also start to prepare
future milestones, but that should not change the initial focus of getting that first insight. In this milestone, things should
be kept simple, clean and at a minimum. Import inventory, import baseline, get outcome, report gaps. Milestone 2
(Initial Position) and Milestone 3 (Refined Position) will assist you to optimization your license position, but the
Milestone 1 (Initial Insight) foundation is extremely important.

Valuable data is collected throughout this first operational milestone. This data can be utilized through reporting for
different business initiatives related to the asset lifecycle or the overall software supply chain. The value can and should
be shared through the organization to enhance or create various processes. Some corporate roles that might benefit
include procurement, operations, security, vendor management, and finance.

During this milestone you should communicate any process changes or modifications which have occurred as a part of
moving to the future state of the SAM program. Information sharing, engagement, and obtaining the approval from each
of the SAM stakeholders is crucial to ensure the successful deployment of any changes to existing process areas.

During this stage, the project team should:

• Start planning for later milestones.

• Import data from existing data sources (both inventory and entitlements). No additional discovery should be
undertaken during Milestone 1 (Initial Insight).

• Install a beacon/beacons.

• Connect to existing inventory sources.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 15
Overview of Milestones

• The FlexNet Manager Suite Coverage Summary section of this practice guide provides a framework for understanding
inventory requirements for various applications.

◦ Evaluate the key applications in scope.

◦ Document any extra efforts necessary to complete a license position.

• Import existing baseline entitlements obtained from the vendor(s), an audit report, or manually create them.

• Identify KPIs based on inventory and licensing requirements (virtual, asset status, role, location, line of business) to
determine major gaps in your data source.

◦ In addition, the SAM team works with the SAM governance team to determine the appropriate KPIs required to
measure the effectiveness of the SAM processes.

• Engage and obtain buy-in from key SAM stakeholders to support future state SAM processes.

• Communicate the future state SAM program processes that will be implemented.

Note: If additional supplemental data is available, we do not recommend adjusting it at this stage as this will be
addressed from Milestone 2 (Initial Position) onwards.

It will be useful to run the following FlexNet Manager Suite reports at this stage. These reports will provide you a first
glimpse into your inventory estate and applications by vendor. This is crucial for planning next steps, such as
determining which vendors you should focus on first and which can be deferred to a later stage; or determining whether
you have important gaps in inventory that can be covered during later Milestones.

Installed Applications Report

1. Navigate to License Compliance > Installed Applications.

2. Filter the results by entering a [vendor name] in the Publisher column and selecting Commercial from the
Classification column.

All Inventory Report

1. Navigate to Discovery & Inventory > All Inventory.

Milestone 2 (Initial Position)

Milestone 2 (Initial Position) is when you start looking at the wider picture. It is where compliance and optimization start
becoming important and you begin investigating use rights, contracts, proof of entitlement, or additional inventory
sources. It is perfectly normal to have some missing or delayed data at this stage as you will continue to revise your
position, identify issues and close some of those gaps in the future milestones.

To support the initial license position that has been established, we recommend that newly created SAM program, and/
or modified processes are put into place. Once the SAM stakeholders have all agreed to the new and modified processes,
it is time to execute these changes. Without the process changes in place, the license position that the SAM team has
worked diligently put into place will become outdated, irrelevant, and you will not achieve an optimal return on time
investment. As such, it is imperative that you communicate these processes to your SAM Governance program
stakeholders and ensure they are being followed.

During this stage, the project team should:

16 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Overview of Milestones

• Consider additional data sources for future deployments.

• Expand existing inventory to cover some of the previously identified gaps.

• Obtain additional entitlement documents for identified vendors.

• Obtain contracts for identified vendors.

• Leverage existing discovery sources, such as Active Directory.

• It is important to start tracking inventory saturation as one of your KPIs (see the Reporting & Governance Workstream
chapter).

• Import device roles.

• Use allocations and exemptions to make sure machines are assigned to the appropriate licenses. Additional data can
be imported using the CSV import feature, if needed.

• Create additional licenses to cover previously unidentified software in scope (if applicable).

• Allocate inventory devices to specific licenses. For example, you may choose to allocate a machine to a Named User
Plus license when it is in a test or development environment; or choose a Processor license if it is an Oracle
application in a production environment.

• Continue reporting identified gaps and known issues.

• Implement the SAM program processes.

Milestone 3 (Refined Position)

Now is the time to get serious about optimization and cost savings so you can deliver an optimized license position. Here
you will refine use rights, ensure inventory is nearing 100%, import user data, and input manual data as needed.
However, your work is not done with this last milestone — going forward, other products or vendors may need to be
added to the initial scope, which means you may need to repeat some earlier milestone action items.

Also, now that the SAM processes have been deployed and the license position is in place, it's time to implement some
SAM program KPIs. The SAM program KPIs must run on a regular defined cadence and be communicated to the SAM
governance team, SAM stakeholders, and a defined broader organization distribution. These KPIs will have supporting
processes and operating procedures for the SAM team and organization to follow as corrective action when necessary.
The KPIs will provide insight into the effectiveness of the SAM program and processes as well as determine if any gaps in
the processes and operating procedures exist.

During this stage, the project team should:

• Further refine the existing data sources

• Start initiating the first policy and process enhancements

• Start KPI automation processes for a faster and more reliable long-term tracking strategy

• Scan for new and unknown devices — this should be operationalized going forward

• Deploy inventory extensions to automate the collection of additional data (if applicable)

• Include any remaining gaps or future actions in gap analysis and recommendations reports

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 17
Overview of Milestones

• Include further use right adjustments, allocations and exemptions based on the vendor's licensing policy

• Incorporate additional data not gathered by existing inventory sources (for example, licenses based on business
metrics)

• Identify installations that are missing entitlements, these represent a financial risk

• Identify licenses for re-harvesting or shelving (see the License Optimization section)

• Identify role-based exemptions (for example, disaster recovery rules, test/development exemptions)

• Continue reporting identified gaps and known issues. Work will not stop with Milestone 3 (Refined Position).

18 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Planning & Implementation Workstream

5
Planning & Implementation
Workstream
The Planning & Implementation workstream provides guidance; and adjusts the project scope as the project matures,
objectives are defined, and data sources and KPIs are identified.

As previously stated, it is important that the team understands the goals and desired outcomes, and can clearly define the
project deliverables before commencing the project as this helps drive value within the organization and prevents delays
from occurring during the first week of the project. Scoping by gross value and developing the project plan are the first,
and some of the most important, elements of the project because they help determine the initial project goals.

Note: The Software License Optimization Practice Guide does not cover planning industry standards. For more details
on industry best practices, SAM/ITAM integration, or for an introduction to FlexNet Manager Suite, we recommend the
“Getting Started & Plan for Success with FNMS” learning path in Flexera’s Learning Center. See Useful Resources for
more details.

We recommend aligning our best practice methodologies with your existing processes to identify process gaps and create
a tailored solution for your specific requirements. Although there may be dependencies that drive larger value, there are
always immediate benefits driven through the project plan definition. For the milestone approach, the main goal of
planning is to plan just enough to get going on the current tasks, while anticipating hurdles and addressing risks in a
timely fashion.

In addition, it would be beneficial to the overall SAM program, as well as the success of the license reconciliation project,
to have a governance framework in place. SAM Governance is a way to encourage desirable behavior in the use of the
organizations software investments.

The primary purpose of governance is to align the value creation efforts of the SAM program with the strategic objectives
of your organization by developing the components of the program (such as policy, processes, integrations,
communications) in a way that produces valuable information about, and to further, those objectives. A governance
framework works by providing an outline of how the organization makes decisions, reviews results, identifies risks, and
holds people accountable for progress.

Governance is a continuous process which commences at the start of the program and is executed at regular intervals,
and at every major decision. Governance refers to the way the program components are developed, and the way they are
then continuously measured and reinforced. In order to achieve success, governance must also define a clear set of
responsibilities and who is accountable for each.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 19
Planning & Implementation Workstream

Governance should answer some key questions, such as how to the program is functioning overall, what key metrics
management needs, and what return the program is giving back.

Scoping by Gross Value

The gross value method focuses the project on addressing the areas where enterprises have invested the most in
software assets and equally where product features and functionality are strongest. The basic steps are:
1. Review all current entitlements

2. Match the entitlements with pricing information

3. Group the entitlement summary into product families

4. Calculate and rank each product family

5. Adjust the project priorities.

1. Review all current entitlements

It is important to compile a comprehensive list of entitlements, including entitlements acquired through recent
agreements, to create a baseline summary of current entitlements. You may need to coordinate with application
specialists in the enterprise. It is also possible to assemble a draft baseline summary using a detailed list of individual
purchase records; however, this will be more time consuming. If you only have individual purchase line information
available, then you may want to skip normalizing them into a baseline and move on to the next step which normalizes
entitlements by product family.

2. Match the entitlements with pricing information

Unit cost information is key to defining the value associated with each group of entitlements. To obtain unit cost
information, search the cost or price value and then multiply this number by the entitlement quantity of each line item.
If it is not feasible to use real pricing, available price lists can be used. The end goal of this step is to define the relative
monetary value associated with each product family, and not to define the total actual money spent on each product
family. After the relative value of each product family is calculated, it is much easier for SAM stakeholders to discuss
which products are critical for the initial license position, and which can be deferred to a later phase.

Once you have identified a price to use for each entitlement, you can then calculate the total value of those entitlements
by multiplying the unit cost by the number of units. After sorting the entitlements into product families, this sum will
now contribute to the overall value associated with that product family. The different product families can then be
ranked against each other to determine their importance.

3. Group the entitlement summary into product families

The focus of this step is to group line items into high level product families which clearly show where your enterprise has
made the greatest investments in software assets. Although there is no single number that will fit all cases; most projects
will need approximately 10-15 different product families.

Commence this step at a very high level. For example, with Oracle, product families such as Database, Technology,
Middleware, Applications, and E-Business Suite are a good choice. Within those families, identify sub-groups where a
significant amount of value has been invested in a product range. An enterprise whose investment in Oracle Applications
is composed of large separate investments in Siebel and PeopleSoft should probably have a separate product family for
Applications - Siebel, a separate product family for Applications - PeopleSoft, and combine the remaining Oracle

20 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Planning & Implementation Workstream

products in the general Applications - Other group.

Because different levels of inventory coverage will result in different levels of risk, investment, and value; it is useful to
have an understanding of the inventory available and how that inventory will support a license position for the different
groups of products. See the FlexNet Manager Suite Coverage Summary chapter in this practice guide and in the vendor-
specific practice guides for more information.

4. Calculate and rank each product family

Now that the individual entitlement line items have been converted to an overall value and mapped to a higher-level
product family, this data can be quickly summarized.

If you have been using Microsoft Excel to keep track so far, you can do this by inserting a Pivot Chart as follows:

1. Select your data and create a pie chart in a new worksheet.

2. When that worksheet opens with the pivot chart settings, select the product family mapping field as a row in the
table and the sum of your Total Value Calculation field as the value. This displays a table with your product family
mappings on the left, and the overall sum of the value for each product family on the right.

3. Right-click on the values on the right and select Show values as… and select % of Grand Total to convert these
raw numbers to percentages that are appropriate to share and discuss.

5. Adjust the project priorities

At this point, the key product families should clearly stand out. Initial license reconciliation projects should focus on the
products that compose the bulk of the value (our recommendation is approximately 80%). This is often a much smaller
list of products than you might imagine, and it typically aligns well with the technology available for automating
inventory and license calculations.

Although an important objective measurement of the key products, this process may not provide you with a complete
picture of your license position. For example, if there is an upcoming contract renewal for a certain set of products, it
may be beneficial to include that set of products in the project scope instead of others. When making these decisions it is
helpful to consider the effort required to complete a license position for any product included in the scope, keeping in
mind that anything not directly addressed by technology will require some manual effort to complete. Some products
require significantly more manual effort than others, so take care to ensure the overall effort required does not exceed
the project timeline and resourcing allowances.

Throughout your project, it is common for issues and goals to arise that were not part of the initial scope. Prioritize each
new item against the other deliverables and assess whether it is more important than existing items. If so, you may
choose to add the new item to the project and remove another item of equivalent effort to keep the scope balanced. If
however the change is significant, or modifies the language found in contracts governing the project, it may require a
change order. Balancing these changes is one of the most important indicators of a successful project.

Project Plan Considerations

Now that your assets have now been ranked and the scope of the SAM project has been defined, it's time to start the
operational side of the project. Key items to consider for your project plan include:

• Publishers and products in scope

• Overall solution requirements

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 21
Planning & Implementation Workstream

• Requirements of a license position

• Impacts and changes on systems, functions and processes

• Confirm high level design discussions with SAM stakeholders.

There are important items that can shape and change the project plan midway through the project, and that’s expected.
Considering the below questions will improve data accuracy, keep the project focused on delivering value, and ensure
you are prepared for the next step. Use your answers to adjust your project plan and discuss any with your SAM
stakeholders.

• What will be the cadence of updating purchases and entitlements?

• Are there existing data sources?

• Will licensing information come from a reseller or directly from the vendor?

• Do you need to request a reseller report in a specific format?

• Do current entitlements have SKUs or part numbers?

• Do existing data sources have pricing information? (For example, a Microsoft MLS does not include pricing.)

• How will pricing be updated and managed?

• Does the existing inventory have usage data or metering enabled?

• Are there any security or network requirements?

• Does existing inventory capture user information? If not, what will be the source of user information?

• Does existing inventory capture data required for vendors or application specific: cores, sockets, processors? If not,
what is the best source of that data?

• Is managing complex licensing metrics required?

◦ Complex licensing metrics may be defined by named user or by site/location. Understanding where this data will
come from is important. For example, is MSDN currently managed in the Microsoft Volume Licensing Center? Will
sites or location information come from Active Directory or PeopleSoft?

• Do locations need to be managed for licensing purposes, or hardware by locations?

◦ This requires an understanding of your enterprise structures.

• What is the source for contract management data?

• What existing processes could impact the software lifecycle?

• What changes are required to support the needs of the SAM program?

• Which SAM stakeholders will be impacted by process changes?

• What measurements (KPIs) must be deployed to ensure changes to the SAM process changes are operating correctly?

Giving due consideration to the above items will improve data accuracy, keep the project focused on delivering value,
and ensure the SAM program is adequately prepared for the next steps. Any changes that arise from these considerations
should be added as adjustments to the project plan and discussed with the stakeholders.

22 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Planning & Implementation Workstream

SAM Team Considerations

The size of a SAM “run team” will vary according to a multitude of external factors. Consider the following when deciding
the size of your team:

• The number of devices for the software to be managed

• The number of contracts and products to be managed

• The license complexity and level of automation of your inventory and entitlements

• The overall robustness of your SAM processes.

• The expertise level of your team members

If the deciding factor is devices per Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) then, based on industry experience, we recommend:

• Organizations in early stages of their SAM maturity (those with very limited processes, who may perform tool set-up
themselves, and have very limited knowledge transfer) can achieve approximately 8,000 devices per FTE

• A somewhat mature organization (which has moderate processes, and a standard investment in tool set-up and
reconciliation/SAM services) can achieve approximately 10,000-15,000 devices per FTE

• A more mature organization (which has robust processes, invests in expert services set-up, and performs full
knowledge transfer to team members) can achieve approximately up to 30,000-40,000 devices per FTE.

Note: In this scenario, “run team” excludes incremental labor effort necessary to provide initial data cleansing or data
entry to populate the SAM optimization toolset.

Software Lifecycle
The SAM lifecycle starts when the software license entitlement or installation is initially requested and ends when the
software reaches it's end-of-life which occur when the software is uninstalled, or when the application reaches it's end-
of-support.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 23
Planning & Implementation Workstream

Figure 1: SAM lifecycle

There are multiple process areas, toolsets, and individuals who impact the software management lifecycle. Each must
work cohesively to effectively maintain the established license positions. Although the SAM team is not necessarily the
owner of each of these processes and toolsets, they must ensure all process areas have clearly defined operating
procedures with identified SAM stakeholders. In turn, SAM stakeholders must have a clear understanding of their role
within the SAM program.

Each organization must clearly define their software lifecycle based on current business processes. These processes will
impact software and how it is the licensing position is maintained. Governance will work to support the SAM team to
ensure that the lifecycle meets the organizations goals for the SAM program. The existing processes that support the
organization’s SAM lifecycle will need to be documented and assessed based on the organization’s strategic direction.
Future state SAM lifecycle processes will need to also be documented. Modifications to existing and the need for new
processes will need to be documented and included in the project plan. Once the future state processes have been
documented, it will be crucial to have the SAM stakeholders review the processes for agreement to implement. Without
this agreement, the SAM program will not be successful.

Tip: Maximize the success of your SAM program by engaging SAM stakeholders. Invite then to attend process review
meetings and future state definition meetings. This way SAM stakeholders understand the impact to their process area,
operating procedures, and toolsets and can communicate these changes early in the project.

24 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Planning & Implementation Workstream

Communications
Quality communication establishes an effective working relationship between your SAM team, your organization, and
SAM stakeholders. It provides timely and relevant information to invested parties, proactively engages those who are
disconnected from SAM governance, and can facilitate organizational change.

Various communication components are used to enable the SAM team to communicate updates and metrics, and share
the progress and development of the SAM program. Key foundational communication components are the:

• Communication Plan

• Program updates and reporting

• Enterprise Communications Campaign, and the

• Communications Value Roadmap (CVR).

Communication Plan
Your communications plan determines how, and to whom, the SAM Program will communicate. Along with KPIs, the
communications plan, which is part of Milestone 2 (Initial Position), is one of the foundational components of your SAM
program. The communication plan is a governance-driven approach to providing SAM stakeholders with information
about the program. It formally defines who should be given specific information, when that information should be
delivered and what communication vehicles will be used to deliver the information. The communication plan
determines who has the authority to communicate confidential or sensitive information (risk from license compliance).
It also defines what communication channels SAM stakeholders should use to provide feedback. The communication
plan determines how communication documentation will be archived as part of the program records.

Program updates and reporting

Reporting and updates is where governance, processes, data management, metrics and communications come together.
It may provide updates during enterprise communications campaign, organization-wide education initiatives, SAM
stakeholder status reviews, quarterly program meetings, advisory council meetings, software compliance meetings, and
so on.

Enterprise Communications Campaign

A SAM program impacts multiple organizations and needs enterprise support to be successful. The information managed
by a SAM program serves IT and the enterprise (finance, security, planning, risk). The Enterprise communications
campaign promotes governance of SAM policies and processes and educates the organization on policy, key controls,
processes and roles and responsibilities. The enterprise communications campaign creates awareness of enterprise
impacts and requirements by using targeted communications such as blogs, internal websites, corporate training,
annual attestations, and so on to disseminate information. The campaign should focus on:

• Corporate Policy

• Enterprise responsibilities and impact, and

• Soliciting feedback.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 25
Planning & Implementation Workstream

Communications Value Roadmap (CVR)

An industry best practice for any major business initiative is to leverage a phased value roadmap. Provide an executive
one page summary that shows how you will create and capture value over time. Include key capabilities and metrics,
demonstrate return-on-investment, and highlight areas for continued optimization. The CVR must provide a summary of
everything important with the initiative aligned with the detailed implementation plan and maturity model. The CVR
identifies the competencies needed to realize value creation and must be updated over the entire lifecycle of the
initiative.

The CVR aligns the implementation of a SAM program, SAM program maturity levels, capabilities and metrics, with
business strategy.

The CVR will streamline cross-functional communications with a focus on:

• Business Strategy

• Business Initiative

• Benefits

• Phased Implementation of Strategic Framework and Solution Components

• Capabilities, and

• Value Scorecard.

26 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Discovery & Inventory Normalization Workstream

6
Discovery & Inventory Normalization
Workstream
The Discovery & Inventory Normalization workstream, as defined in the milestone framework, provides useful best
practices and suggestions to maximize your existing inventory capabilities.

Overview of Discovery and Inventory

Discovery

Discovery is often incorrectly confused with inventory. Discovery is the process of identifying target devices, users, and
other objects in an environment that must be incorporated into the license position. Discovery specifically finds devices
and users but it may not be able to identify any details pertaining to the device or user (for example, discover may not be
able to determine whether a device is an IP address or a host name).

Inventory

Inventory is the collection of attributes that describe the physical or virtual characteristics of a device, such as processors,
RAM, and the software installed.

Four key inventory data layers are important for license reconciliations:

• Hardware and software inventory, including partitioning information on all non-Windows systems

• Virtualization inventory, partitioning information, host to guest relationships

• Application editions, options, and features installed, and whether they are in use

• Other application attributes related to licensing, such as application users, revenue, number of records, and other
organizational metrics.

The license model requirements are the best guide to determine which attributes are necessary to collect. Each metric
will have special requirements and Flexera’s discovery and inventory capabilities supports a wide variety of these
natively. For more information about integration with third-party discovery solutions, refer to tFlexNet Manager Suite 2019
R1 Inventory Adapters and Connectors Reference PDF, available through the title page of online help.

If there is uncertainty about the license model requirements for a specific metric, review the metric definition, as well as
vendor documentation and vendor official websites.

When considering inventory for hardware and software details, you must choose whether to leverage existing data

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 27
Discovery & Inventory Normalization Workstream

sources or deploy a new one. To maximize your time to value, carefully evaluate inventory sources and use the best one.
Keep in mind that most inventory solutions don't collect all the data required. For example, since the primary function of
Oracle systems is not for license management, Oracle typically requires a specific feature set. While basic inventory might
be enough to start with, ensure a plan exists to transition to a more thorough inventory in later milestones.

As previously mentioned, all inventory tools have shortcomings for license management because many application
attributes are difficult to measure automatically. Because there is no single tool that can do it all, it is best practice to
choose a combination of inventory sources that take maximum advantage of what is already deployed and ready to use.
Combine these sources with FlexNet inventory agent and other custom solutions to fill in important gaps. Remember,
your objective is to deliver an initial license position fast, while establishing a roadmap for future success. Connecting to
various inventory sources may not be a Milestone 1 (Initial Insight) objective, but it will be one further along the way.

FlexNet Manager Suite currently supports four mechanisms:

• FlexNet inventory agentis deployed automatically from beacons or installed manually on devices

• Remote inventory is executed by the beacons remotely against a targeted set of devices

• Deployment of the core inventory collection executable locally scheduled on each device

• Inventory spreadsheet or .csv import (either a one-time import using FlexNet Manager Suite or configured as an
inventory source via a beacon).

The FlexNet inventory agent is a highly effective agent as it collects key hardware and software data by reading common
installer repositories, scanning files, and other techniques for specific vendors where detection is harder.

Note: Non-hardware metrics such as employees, revenue, student counts and so on, will always need to be collected
using manual methods.

For more information on which inventory solution to leverage, please see Appendix 1: Choosing the Right Inventory
Method.

Additional Resources
For more details on managing inventory devices, hardware, virtual devices or discovered devices with FlexNet Manager
Suite, see the “Inventory Normalization” learning path in Flexera’s Learning Center. See Useful Resources for more details.

We recommend reviewing these materials prior to implementing the best practices outlined in this document.

Inventory Data Layers

Four key inventory data layers are important for license reconciliations:
1. Hardware and software inventory, including partitioning information on all non-Windows systems

2. Virtualization inventory, partitioning information, host to guest relationships

3. Application editions, options and features installed and whether they are in use

4. Other application attributes related to licensing, such as application users, revenue, number of records, and other
organizational metrics.

Always let the license model requirements be the guide to what attributes are necessary to collect. Each metric will have
special requirements and Flexera’s discovery and inventory capabilities supports a wide variety of these natively. For

28 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Discovery & Inventory Normalization Workstream

more information about integration with third-party discovery solutions, refer to the FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1
Inventory Adapters and Connectors Reference PDF, available through the title page of online help.

If there is uncertainty about the license model requirements for a specific metric, review the metric definition, as well as
vendor documentation and vendor official websites.

When considering inventory for hardware and software details, you will need to decide whether to leverage existing data
sources or deploy a new one. To maximize your time to value, carefully evaluate inventory sources and use the best one.
Keep in mind that most inventory solutions don't collect all the data required. For example, since the primary function of
Oracle systems is not for license management, Oracle typically requires a specific feature set. While basic inventory
might be enough to start with, make sure to put a plan in place that transitions to a more thorough inventory in later
milestones.

As previously mentioned, all inventory tools have shortcomings for license management because many application
attributes are difficult to measure automatically. Because there is no single tool that can do it all, it is best practice is to
choose the best combination of inventory sources that make the most of what is already deployed and ready to use.
Always combine those with Flexera’s Inventory and other custom solutions to fill in important gaps. Remember, the
objective is to deliver an initial license position fast, while establishing a roadmap for future success. Connecting to
various inventory sources might not be a Milestone 1 (Initial Insight) objective, but it will be one further along the way.

FlexNet Manager Suite currently supports four mechanisms:

• FlexNet inventory agent is deployed automatically from beacons or installed manually on devices

• Remote inventory is executed by the beacons remotely against a targeted set of devices

• Deployment of the core inventory collection executable locally scheduled on each device

• Inventory spreadsheet or .csv import (either a one-time import using FlexNet Manager Suite or configured as an
inventory source via a beacon).

The FlexNet inventory agent collects key hardware and software data by reading common installer repositories,
scanning files, and other techniques for specific vendors where detection is harder. This makes our inventory solutions
one of the best out there.

Note: Non-hardware metrics such as employees, revenue, student counts and so on, will always need to be collected
using manual methods.

For more information on which inventory solution to leverage, see Appendix 1: Choosing the Right Inventory Method.

Unspecified Editions and Unknown Components

When reviewing inventory results from certain applications, you are likely to encounter several types of records
reflecting different issues with the underlying inventory in the Application Recognition Library, such as:

• Installs with version and edition (for example, "Oracle Database 11g R2 Enterprise") — These are fully recognized
applications, including advanced inventory edition recognition from WMI evidence or Flexera Oracle Inventory.

• Installs with "unspecified" version or edition (for example, "Oracle Database 10g R2 UNSPECIFIED") — These
installations indicate an install of the application, but inventory is not returning all required data for full recognition.
For example, Flexera Oracle Inventory may be missing. Some free components may leave traces of ambiguous
evidence. Add these to the list of installations for inventory troubleshooting.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 29
Discovery & Inventory Normalization Workstream

• Installs with "unknown component" (for example, from installer evidence like "Oracle 11g") — These installations
are ambiguous and cannot be determined as a database or not. They are often repackaged installers and may or
may not indicate a risk. They should be added to an issue register document.

• Other components (for example, "Oracle Starter Database 9i R1") — These should all be low or no risk items. The ARL
clearly identifies all known components to reduce the number of "unknown components" and yield better overall
results.

Troubleshooting unknown component issues in FlexNet Manager Suite:

Issue Description Likely Cause Resolution

"Unspecified" edition installations An issue with the collection of the Generate the appropriate inventory
are appearing on known systems that specific inventory data that provides for the affected systems.
should have high quality results, such the edition recognition, such as WMI
as Oracle Database, SQL Server, or evidence for SQL Server, Flexera
WebSphere MQ. Oracle Inventory for Oracle Database,
and queue managers for WebSphere
MQ.

The fully recognized installation is The ARL is still recognizing some Submit a case to Flexera Support for
found on a system side-by-side with lower quality evidence in addition to review. A precedence rule may need
an "unknown component" record for the higher quality, fully recognized to be added or updated to hide the
the same product. application. lower quality installation.

Some free, limited use components The evidence left behind by the Exempt these systems from
are installed on this system and not installer does not specify those consuming against production
the full, licensable application. components clearly, or otherwise licenses and submit a case to support
leaves ambiguous evidence that the for review along with evidence from
full product may be installed. This is the affected system. It may be
common with many data center possible to improve the recognition
applications, such as the Oracle of the specific components.
Database Client (free) or the SQL
Server Management Studio.

Some entirely different product is Some infrastructure app, such as a Exempt these systems from
installed on this system, not the database, has been installed on that consuming against production
"unknown component" reported in system as part of a bundle and it may licenses. Submit a case to Flexera
inventory. not need a production license. For Support for review. This may require
example, Tuxedo is often packaged enhanced support for bundles.
with PeopleSoft.

There is no known reason for this The link between the evidence Review the raw evidence to
"unknown component" to be found collected and the reported determine why this "unknown
on this system. installations may not be clear, or the component" was identified. After
ARL may be incorrectly interpreting reviewing the evidence, if you need
the evidence. These may be further support, or updates made,
legitimate unknown systems that submit a case to Flexera Support.
were not expected in the inventory.

30 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Discovery & Inventory Normalization Workstream

Overlapping Evidence
Sometimes, a local evidence (typical one which has been created manually) can overlap with the same evidence from
the latest ARL which may contain additional details. A best practice is to monitor the Evidence > Discovered Evidence
page and filter the list to find any items with an "Overlapping Evidence" alert. You can then open the properties of the
evidence and navigate to the Applications tab to see the duplicate software titles that this evidence is linked to. More
than likely, one of the applications will have a source of Flexera and the other title(s) will have a source of Local or
Flexera (Extended). Edit the software title that does not show Flexera as the source and unlink the evidence to
remove the duplicate assignment. For full details see the "Resolving the Alerts about Overlapping Applications" topic in
online help.

To be further proactive, you can navigate to the All Evidence page and look for overlapping evidence. This allows you
to see all the overlapping evidences, and whether is installed or not. See the "Resolving the Application's Overlapping
Evidence Alerts" topic in online help for full details.

Virtualization Inventory
Virtualization and partitioning details are essential for accurate license consumption calculations. For example, on non-
Windows systems, the FlexNet inventory agent automatically collects partitioning information. When the data for these
systems is processed, host, processor pool, and guest host-to-guest relationships are automatically built. Host devices
for AIX, Solaris, and similar hard partitioned environments are created using the collected data. Here are some practical
recommendations:

• If Oracle Virtual Machine (OVM) or VMware is implemented, Flexera Inventory must be run against the OVM, vCenter,
or Elastic Sky X (ESX) API, to collect cluster, host, and guest relationships. In most environments, Flexera
virtualization inventory is configured using one or more defined inventory rules. For more details, see the FlexNet
Manager Suite 2019 R1 System Reference PDF, available through the title page of online help.

• In cases where it is not feasible to create a connection to a vCenter or ESX environment, the stand-alone VMware
Inventory tool (ESXQuery) is used. Download this utility and documentation from the "Flexera Product and License
Center".

• Solaris Zones with Hyperthreading and Solaris Logical Domains (LDOMS) are supported.

• If vCenters are behind firewalls, use the standalone ESXQuery tool to gather this inventory.

For detailed custom reports on your virtualized estate, see the section.

Unspecified Editions and Unknown

Components
When reviewing inventory results from certain applications, you are likely to encounter several types of records
reflecting different issues with the underlying inventory in the Application Recognition Library, such as:

• Installs with version and edition (for example, "Oracle Database 11g R2 Enterprise") — These are fully recognized
applications, including advanced inventory edition recognition from WMI evidence or Flexera Oracle Inventory.

• Installs with "unspecified" version or edition (for example, "Oracle Database 10g R2 UNSPECIFIED") — These

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 31
Discovery & Inventory Normalization Workstream

installations indicate an install of the application, but inventory is not returning all required data for full recognition.
For example, Flexera Oracle Inventory may be missing. Some free components may leave traces of ambiguous
evidence. Add these to the list of installations for inventory troubleshooting.

• Installs with "unknown component" (for example, from installer evidence like "Oracle 11g") — These installations are
ambiguous and cannot be determined as a database or not. They are often repackaged installers and may or may not
indicate a risk. They should be added to an issue register document.

• Other components (for example, "Oracle Starter Database 9i R1") — These should all be low or no risk items. The ARL
clearly identifies all known components to reduce the number of "unknown components" and yield better overall
results.

Troubleshooting unknown component issues in FlexNet Manager Suite:

Issue Description Likely Cause Resolution

"Unspecified" edition installations are An issue with the collection of the Generate the appropriate inventory
appearing on known systems that specific inventory data that provides for the affected systems.
should have high quality results, such the edition recognition, such as WMI
as Oracle Database, SQL Server, or evidence for SQL Server, Flexera
WebSphere MQ. Oracle Inventory for Oracle Database,
and queue managers for WebSphere
MQ.

The fully recognized installation is The ARL is still recognizing some Submit a case to Flexera Support for
found on a system side-by-side with lower quality evidence in addition to review. A precedence rule may need
an "unknown component" record for the higher quality, fully recognized to be added or updated to hide the
the same product. application. lower quality installation.

Some free, limited use components The evidence left behind by the Exempt these systems from
are installed on this system and not installer does not specify those consuming against production
the full, licensable application. components clearly, or otherwise licenses and submit a case to support
leaves ambiguous evidence that the for review along with evidence from
full product may be installed. This is the affected system. It may be
common with many data center possible to improve the recognition of
applications, such as the Oracle the specific components.
Database Client (free) or the SQL
Server Management Studio.

Some entirely different product is Some infrastructure app, such as a Exempt these systems from
installed on this system, not the database, has been installed on that consuming against production
"unknown component" reported in system as part of a bundle and it may licenses. Submit a case to Flexera
inventory. not need a production license. For Support for review. This may require
example, Tuxedo is often packaged enhanced support for bundles.
with PeopleSoft.

32 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Discovery & Inventory Normalization Workstream

Issue Description Likely Cause Resolution

There is no known reason for this The link between the evidence Review the raw evidence to
"unknown component" to be found collected and the reported determine why this "unknown
on this system. installations may not be clear, or the component" was identified. After
ARL may be incorrectly interpreting reviewing the evidence, if you need
the evidence. These may be further support, or updates made,
legitimate unknown systems that submit a case to Flexera Support.
were not expected in the inventory.

Overlapping Evidence
Sometimes, a local evidence (typical one which has been created manually) can overlap with the same evidence from
the latest ARL which may contain additional details. A best practice is to monitor the Evidence > Discovered Evidence
page and filter the list to find any items with an "Overlapping Evidence" alert. You can then open the properties of the
evidence and navigate to the Applications tab to see the duplicate software titles that this evidence is linked to. More
than likely, one of the applications will have a source of Flexera and the other title(s) will have a source of Local or
Flexera (Extended). Edit the software title that does not show Flexera as the source and unlink the evidence to remove
the duplicate assignment. For full details see the "Resolving the Alerts about Overlapping Applications" topic in online
help.

To be further proactive, you can navigate to the All Evidence page and look for overlapping evidence. This allows you to
see all the overlapping evidences, and whether is installed or not. See the "Resolving the Application's Overlapping
Evidence Alerts" topic in online help for full details.

Virtualization Inventory
Virtualization and partitioning details are essential for accurate license consumption calculations. For example, on non-
Windows systems, the FlexNet inventory agent automatically collects partitioning information. When the data for these
systems is processed, host, processor pool, and guest host-to-guest relationships are automatically built. Host devices
for AIX, Solaris, and similar hard partitioned environments are created using the collected data. Here are some practical
recommendations:

• If Oracle Virtual Machine (OVM) or VMware is implemented, Flexera Inventory must be run against the OVM, vCenter, or
Elastic Sky X (ESX) API, to collect cluster, host, and guest relationships. In most environments, Flexera virtualization
inventory is configured using one or more defined inventory rules. For more details, see the FlexNet Manager Suite
2019 R1 System Reference PDF, available through the title page of online help.

• In cases where it is not feasible to create a connection to a vCenter or ESX environment, the stand-alone VMware
Inventory tool (ESXQuery) is used. Download this utility and documentation from the "Flexera Product and License
Center".

• Solaris Zones with Hyperthreading and Solaris Logical Domains (LDOMS) are supported.

• If vCenters are behind firewalls, use the standalone ESXQuery tool to gather this inventory.

For detailed custom reports on your virtualized estate, see the section.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 33
Discovery & Inventory Normalization Workstream

Cloud Service Provider Inventory

You can view a list of inventory devices revealed in inventory gathered from AWS EC2 by navigating to Discovery &
Inventory > Cloud Service Provider Inventory page in FlexNet Manager Suite. Detailed inventory can also be collected
in other ways, such as by including the FlexNet inventory agent in the image used to initiate virtual machines in AWS.

See the online help topic "Managing AWS EC2 Connections" topic for full details.

Collection of Supplemental Inventory

The most common gaps in inventory occur when editions, options, and add-ons are not accessible to an inventory tool.
These attributes are often not in the evidence found in the file system or package repositories. Instead, system
commands and other proprietary application commands must be run to detail the configuration of each instance.

Application and Device Roles

In addition to collecting hardware and software inventory, many licenses have use rights that allow (or penalize) certain
device roles (cold and warm standby servers). Sometimes this information comes from standard inventory, but often it’s
found in asset data contained in a configuration management database (CMDB) or another business data source. If
available, import this data into FlexNet Manager Suite.

Note: Integration with these data sources should be pre-planned during Milestone 1 (Initial Insight).

Using the CSV Import Feature

For an overview of how to manually import inventory, refer to the Importing Inventory Spreadsheets and CSV Files
chapter of the FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 System Reference PDF, available through the title page of online help. Data
sociability may be an issue with some inventory sources when using the .csv import feature therefore it should only be
used when there are no other options are available.

Data Platform Integration

Having normalized inventory is a crucial step in helping organizations better understand, manage and evolve their
enterprise ecosystems. Leveraging Flexera’s Data Platform for application recognition and license management in
FlexNet Manager Suite enriches the data available, resulting in better quality license positions and data usability across
different organizational areas.

Utilizing a connector that imports normalized data from Normalize v5 into FlexNet Manager Suite makes the first step of
this integration possible:
1. Normalized software data is imported into FlexNet Manager Suite as evidence (“Flexera ID” type)

2. The evidence is matched against the ARL

3. When a match is found, the installed application record is created as part of the import process

4. Inventory devices records (both physical servers and VMs) and installation records are also imported from
Normalize v5 and linked to recognized applications.

34 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Discovery & Inventory Normalization Workstream

Note: When an application is found in Technopedia but it is not in the ARL, then it is not yet recognized as an
application in FlexNet Manager Suite and will be listed as Unrecognized Evidence. It is a best practice to start with the
unrecognized evidence records to re-create your local application record within FlexNet Manager Suite.

Inventory gathered only from Normalize v5 could also be insufficient for complex license requirements such as Oracle
license calculations, IBM server license calculations or licenses that rely on VM details (where the core, processor count,
host, pools and clusters are important elements). The best practice here is to always install the FlexNet inventory agent
on these target devices. The FlexNet inventory agent is optimized to collect license-related inventory. FlexNet Manager
Suite then reconciles over multiple overlapping inventory sources to create unified records as appropriate, so there is
not risk in combining the two approaches.

Note: There are some prerequisites to consider, as the data integration is not enabled by default with the FlexNet
Manager Suite product upgrade. For more information, visit our Product and License Center.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 35
License Creation & Optimization Workstream

7
License Creation & Optimization
Workstream
The License Creation & Optimization workstream, as defined in the milestone framework, and provides best practices and
advice on creating and configuring licenses, and optimizing your license position. To gain an initial insight into your
license position, as defined in Milestone 1 (Initial Insight), you must obtain your initial inventory and entitlement
positions.

An initial insight into your license position can be achieved by importing an existing baseline, creating a baseline from
existing baseline reports, or creating a baseline from existing transactions.

Additional considerations for obtaining an initial entitlement position include:

• Choose one of the following recommended data sources:

◦ Publisher Licensing Statements (such as Microsoft License Statement, VMware Installed Base Report, Adobe License
Intelligence Report)

◦ Publisher online licensing portal (if applicable)

◦ List of entitlements purchased from the reseller (if applicable)

◦ Publisher contract records that contain entitlement numbers (such as the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement)

◦ Volume purchase data that is not covered by the above (such as those purchases made for a subsidiary not covered
by global agreements)

◦ Retail (Full Packaged Product) or Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) purchases, including their proof of license
documents (such as End User License Agreements, retail boxes, Certificate of Authenticity stickers, paid invoices,
and so on)

◦ Any other data sources.

• Create a spreadsheet summary of these entitlements and prepare it for import.

• Import the spreadsheet summary into FlexNet Manager Suite as a set of purchases (See Purchase Order Upload for full
details), observing the following requirements:

◦ Do not set automated processing of purchases on import

36 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 License Creation & Optimization Workstream

◦ Select all unprocessed purchases with recognized stock keeping units (SKUs) and click to process automatically

◦ Manually process all other baseline purchases using the processing wizard to select the appropriate application and
license model for each entitlement.

• Define a set of processes to follow when processing imported purchases to optimize a license position including:

◦ Additional purchases of existing entitlements

◦ Purchases of new entitlements

◦ Maintenance subscription renewals

◦ Upgrade purchases

◦ Splitting entitlements.

Note: Contracts are not required for an initial license position, but they offer significant benefits, such as ease of
management and further proof of entitlement. It is a best practice to manage contracts and associate them with license
records.

It is always easier to determine a moment in time from where the license position is calculated, instead of going too far
back and including agreements that might not be relevant anymore. A best practice is to find the most recent event where
a license position was agreed upon with your software vendor. Such event could be an annual True-Up, an audit, or a
renegotiation of licenses.

Importing and Creating a Baseline

In a best-case scenario, baseline purchases are easily imported as one-off uploads, however it is important to review the
licenses and agreements prior to importing this information. In the case of the Microsoft MLS, Microsoft may have added
a company that is not related. When reviewing licenses, ensure you remove duplicates to avoid over-inflated license
counts. For example, VMware's IBR or Oracle’s Inventory Report shows all purchases, even those used to upgrade to a
different version or True-Ups. In these cases, the newest license should be processed as an upgrade and attached to the
base license. If a vendor's licensing statement is not available, consider using the results from the most recent audit as
the initial baseline. Some publishers do not provide any summarized baseline reports; for these publishers, relevant
transactions should be summarized in a single spreadsheet (.xlsx or .csv).

Current license position

To gain an insight into your current license position, see the Purchase Order Upload page of the online help for
instructions on importing your purchase data.

For baselines that require configuration before importing, FlexNet Manager Suite template supports the following data
fields:

• PO Number — if no Purchase Order (PO) number is available, then use "<Publisher> Baseline"

• PO Line Number — unique identifier for each row on a Purchase Order

• Publisher

• Vendor — may be different from Publisher if the data provided by a reseller

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 37
License Creation & Optimization Workstream

• Description — entitlement description, including product, version, edition, metric, and purchase program

• Date — If no purchase date is available, use the deemed date of the baseline

• Qty — The quantity of the same item purchased at this time)

• SKU — The stock-keeping unit (SKU) or Manufacturer Part Number. For example, 79P-05550

◦ Reseller SKUs can help if manufacturer SKUs are not available, but they are not in the SKU library — they can only
serve as a foundation of FlexNet Manager Suite learning

• Whether the entitlement is software (with or without Maintenance), an upgrade (with or without maintenance), or
standalone maintenance

• Maintenance details — present or absent, start date, end date.

See the Purchase Order Upload page of the online help for the complete list of supported data fields.

Note: It is not advisable to set automated processing of purchases on import, as it could result in an incorrect license
creation.

Processing Purchases
License Naming Convention
A standard license naming convention should be established for all licenses. This is our recommendation:

<Publisher> <Product> <Edition> <Version> <Identifying details>

If the license is under maintenance, clear the Copy Version and Edition from the most recent application check box on
the Identification tab of the license so that you can set the license name to the appropriate value of "Current" (licenses
with upgrade rights do not cover a fixed application). For more information on this setting, see the Copy Version and
Edition from the Most Recent Application page of the online help.

Examples of names following this best practice:

• Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud Named User Subscription

• Adobe Acrobat Pro XI CLP

• Microsoft Office Professional Plus Current L&SA EA

• Microsoft Windows Server Data Center 2012 1 Proc (volume).

Processing Baseline Purchases into Licenses

See the Unprocessed Purchases page of the online help for detail of how to process your imported purchases into
licenses. Best practices for completing this process are outlined below.

Note: This step is not required for Microsoft MLS baselines, which are automatically converted into licenses (with some
exceptions).

38 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 License Creation & Optimization Workstream

Processing Purchases with Recognized SKUs (including for Baselines)

Select one purchase for a license with a recognized SKU and click Process to process automatically. A recognized SKU is
highlighted in the data grid (sort, not group, by Part no./SKU to see which SKUs are recognized).

Note: It can be difficult to recognize which purchases are for licenses, upgrades, and maintenance. Be sure to inspect
the SKUs to ensure licenses are processed first, then upgrades, and maintenance last.

Important: Do not multi-select and process multiple rows that share the same SKU and no license recommendation.

1. Click Recalculate after processing each purchase during this stage to prevent the creation of incorrect licenses.

2. Begin by only processing purchases with No recommendation calculated displayed in the Recommended
licenses column during the first pass.

3. After processing each purchase (remember, you will be processing one and only one purchase with a given SKU), be
sure to click Recalculate to ensure no purchase with a valid recommended license is processed.

4. Before processing the purchase, carefully review all SKU and purchase characteristics including:

• License type/metric

• Purchase program

• Maintenance/support

• Maintenance/support end date

• License end date (if subscription, Cloud, or temporary)

• Others (may vary by vendor).

5. Once a license has been created for this purchase, navigate back to the Procurement > Unprocessed Purchases
page and process purchases for each recognized SKU without a recommended license. There could be more than
one different SKU that are all recommended to link to the exact same license, but only process one of these SKUs.

6. After one purchase has been processed into one unique license for each purchase uploaded, navigate back to the
Procurement > Unprocessed Purchases page and click Recalculate.

7. When all purchases with recognized SKUs have a recommended license, filter the Recommended licenses column
to only show purchases with a recommendation. Once all purchases without a valid recommendation have been
eliminated, select the check box in the column header to select all remaining purchases (or only the purchases
where the recommended license should be accepted) and click Accept.

Note: Software suppliers are increasingly re-using SKU numbers for multiple versions of an application. Typically, the
SKU does not define the application version and SKU are, by default, linked to the newest version of the application.
One way to address this issue is to use the Purchase Order date together with the application release date as the SKU
value; however, Flexera does not provide release date information for all applications and the release date information
may also depend on the EOSL data pack availability. We recommend that you always validate the applications linked
to a license are assigned the correct version of the application. This should not be an issue for active maintenance
software where you have the right to use the most recent version.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 39
License Creation & Optimization Workstream

Recommended License Changes

See the Recommended License Changes section of the online help for full details.

Processing Baseline Purchases with Unrecognized or Blank SKUs

How to process purchases without SKUs begins similarly as those with recognized SKUs.

Note: Only one purchase order should be processed at a time.

1. Navigate to Procurement > Unprocessed Purchases (in the Purchases group).

2. Locate and select a purchase order which does not have a SKU value in the Part no./SKU column, and displays No
recommendation calculated in the Recommended licenses column.

3. Click Process.

4. Select the appropriate application and license model for each entitlement.

5. Select the highest version of the application the license covers, which may be higher than any version currently
deployed in the environment. By doing this, the license will not require reconfiguration if a different, upgraded
version of the application is deployed.
Examining which related products have installations is helpful to understand which of a set of closely related
products is the right one to license.

If the license is a bundle (a primary application with additional applications that support it), select the primary
bundle application first.

a. If the application does not exist in the ARL, manually configure the Purchase type, Maintenance, License
type, and License name fields (following the naming conventions above), then click Create. You should
return to this license during Milestone 2 (Initial Position) to configure the appropriate license consumption
data.

b. If the application exists in the ARL, overwrite the license name in the Purchase overview section with a name
following the naming convention. In many cases, one or more license models are recommended (see example
above). If no license model or only inappropriate license models are shown, try clearing the Show only
recommended license models check box and selecting the Show all bundles check box to allow more
flexibility in selecting a correct license model. To filter this grid, use the grid controls, not the purchase
overview controls.

6. Once the application is selected, the license name corrected and either selected the correct license model
(preferred) or used the Purchase Overview to manually set the license characteristics, click Create. The system
will navigate into License Properties so that the product use rights and other license attributes can be reviewed
and edited (for non-standard terms and conditions that might apply).

7. Validate if the license was created correctly:

• If processing purchases for a product is not yet completed, you should ignore alerts pertaining to “incomplete
maintenance”, as this may be resolved after the maintenance purchases are processed.

• The most common remediation for expired maintenance is to select the Planned Non-Renewal check box to
indicate that maintenance on that license is not intended to be current.

• Ensure that the version and edition of the license are correct. In the case of a product under maintenance,
ensure you clear the Copy version and edition check box to change the version to current to represent the

40 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 License Creation & Optimization Workstream

upgrade rights.

• Confirm that all covered applications are linked under Applications.

• Confirm that every setting on the Use rights and rules tab is accurate, especially if the license is for a bundle,
where non-standard terms and conditions might apply or if selecting the desired license model from the
Purchase Processing wizard was not completed.

During Milestone 1 (Initial Insight), you only need to ensure that the license type, maintenance settings and dates are
correct. You can then continue with the process, leaving a more thorough review of the license use rights until later
milestones.

For processing “Unlimited” licenses (for example, Oracle's ULA), a best practice is to have “UNLIMITED” in the license
name for tracking purposes, set the license count as "1" and ensure the Subject to true-up check box is selected. An
alternative approach would be to set the license count as 999,999 to prevent the license from consuming. Enterprise
licenses can also be used when there is no need to track consumption for later renewals.

Processing Upgrades and Maintenance

The best practice is to process purchases of upgraded licenses first, and then process purchases of maintenance
licenses.

There will be some upgrades or maintenance that have no appropriate base license. Exclude these from the license
position unless a business decision is made to assume the risk of treating an upgrade or maintenance purchase as a
stand-alone entitlement. If not, these should not be used as part of the license position. After processing all purchases,
review all licenses for alerts indicating a need to re-mediate maintenance issues.

If all the upgrades or maintenance for a given license do not have the same maintenance end date, do not process them
at the same time using multi-select, instead process the ones that belong together. For more information, see Appendix
2 - Management of Upgrade, Subscription and Maintenance Entitlements.

If you need to create a baseline with only maintenance POs, you can either remove the SKUs, change the Purchase type
to Software and then process it. Alternatively, you can import or manually create licenses and then process the
maintenance licenses.

Setting Ongoing Processes for Purchase Processing (Steady State)

A set of processes needs to be defined after Milestone 3 (Refined Position) for processing imported purchases to
maintain an optimized license position. These processes should include the following:

• Additional Purchases of existing entitlements

• Purchases of new entitlements

• Maintenance/subscription renewals

• Upgrade purchases

• Splitting entitlements.

Managing Blanket Purchase Orders

A blanket or call-off order is a PO that allows multiple delivery dates and has typically been negotiated with a supplier to
take advantage of predetermined pricing. New items can be added to a blanket PO over time and you will be given a new

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 41
License Creation & Optimization Workstream

version number each time a revision made. A best practice is to include the version number or the update date in the
Purchase order no. field to enable FlexNet Manager Suite to identify each item as a separate purchase order. For
example, you could enter “4500023 (updated 2017-09-12)” or “4500023 (rev 2)” and change the appended [revision
number] or [Revision date] whenever a new line is added. In FlexNet Manager Suite, the Purchase order no. field is used
to identity a purchase order, so you should include all relevant details in here that uniquely identify a fixed date, vendor
and set of purchase order lines.

Managing Unlimited Licenses

For cases where vendors permit unlimited quantities of their software, FlexNet Manager Suite provides a way to define a
rule that characterizes the entitlement limits defined by the license agreement, and affects how the license is flagged if
consumption exceeds the entitlement limits. To do so, go to the Entitlements and consumption section in the
Compliance tab of license properties and set the Entitlement limits.

Choose a rule that appropriately reflects the entitlement limits defined by the license agreement. The rule affects how
the license is flagged if consumption exceeds the entitlement limits. Choose one of the following radio buttons:

• As purchased — Terms of the license set the number of entitlements purchased as the cap for consumption. The
license is flagged as At risk when consumption exceeds purchased entitlements.

• Subject to true-up — Terms of the license allow consumption to exceed purchased entitlements as long as additional
licenses are purchased at the end of the true-up period (as defined in the relevant purchasing agreement). The license
remains Compliant when consumption exceeds purchased entitlements.

• Unlimited — Terms of the license allow for unlimited entitlements. Consumption can exceed purchased entitlements.
Unlike Subject to true-up licenses, with Unlimited licenses you do not need to purchase additional
entitlements to rectify overages because the license allows for unlimited entitlements. The license remains
Compliant when consumption exceeds purchased entitlements. As there is no relationship between the purchased
entitlements and the consumption, Shortfall/Availability is not reported for these licenses.

Note: For the majority of licenses and for most vendors, Entitlement limits is set to As purchased.

Distributed Software License Management Responsibilities

This section covers the scenario when the responsibility for managing different licenses for the same application used
within an organization is shared between multiple parties.

Responsibility for (a) providing, and (b) managing compliance with different licenses for the same application is
commonly spread across different companies (or even different groups within a single company). This is particularly
common within organizations making use of outsourced IT service providers, and Platform as a service (PaaS) services.

• Example 1: Acme Corp engages ABC as an IT service provider. Under the contract, ABC provides a service to Acme
Corp. Under the service, ABC provides and manages a range of hardware and software running within Acme Corp’s
network. ABC is responsible for procuring and managing compliance with licenses for IBM DB2 running on the servers
used as part of their service. Acme Corp has no direct entitlement to access or otherwise make use of the DB2
software. Acme Corp retains responsibility for providing and managing DB2 licenses for the rest of the organization.

• Example 2: Acme Corp engages ABC as an IT service provider. Under the contract, ABC provides servers where they
are responsible for procuring and managing licenses for the OS and database. Acme Corp is responsible for procuring
and managing licenses for software that sits higher in the stack on these servers.

42 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 License Creation & Optimization Workstream

• Example 3: Acme Corp subscribes to Azure SQL Database or SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines. Acme Corp does
not need to worry about tracking licenses for the OS and SQL Server installations (including core details and so on)
provided under this service, as they are included. However, Acme Corp does need to provide and manage licenses for
other software that is installed on an Azure virtual machine.

• Example 4: Various product groups are limited to the licenses they are responsible for. As of 2017 R3, the views into
licenses can be scoped by enterprise groups.

Techniques that can be applied in FlexNet Manager Suite to manage these sorts of scenarios include:

• Create multiple license records to represent different domains of responsibility, using an appropriate naming
convention.

• Use explicit allocations and/or group scoping to control which license records cover which software use.

• Fabricate purchase records representing entitlements to use software which are derived from actual POs. For
example, I have a PO for an Azure SQL Database subscription and may choose to fabricate purchase records to
represent the separate Windows and SQL Server entitlements derived from this subscription.

• Use license exemptions.

• The SAM processes and practices must consider this scenario and provide ways to initially identify who is responsible
for managing licenses, so it can be modeled in FlexNet Manager Suite. Responsibility for some license types cannot
easily be partitioned if the software is running on shared infrastructure. For example, if Oracle Database was running
in a VMware cluster, then the licensing needs to be managed at the cluster level as it is impractical to have different
parties responsible for licensing on different servers or VMs within the cluster.

SKU Overview
Product barcodes include a SKU (stock keeping unit) which are used by producers to track inventory stock. Reseller can
also use SKUs to keep track of their purchases. For more details, see the definition of SKU.

SKUs for Software

As with any product purchase that uses SKUs, when you purchase software you can buy one copy, or multiple copies.
Some software can be purchased with a software license that allows it to be used on a specific number of machines,
while other times you would purchase the same software licensed for a specific number of users. Each of these is a
unique instance that needs to be tracked separately. It’s because of the uniformity and broad use of SKUs that it is
imperative that any Software Asset Management Tool include capabilities to track software by SKUs.

Most vendors reference their software using a SKU. This SKU is usually attached to every purchase order line to clearly
identify which software or package is purchased by a customer. Even if there are very small differences between two
software titles sold by a vendor reseller, such as, the vendor program or in the maintenance, they usually carry two
different SKUs.

For instance, below are two SKUs.

• SKU: 810-03324;

• Publisher= Microsoft, Product = Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition Win-64Bit 1 Processor German 2 Years
Software Assurance OPEN C

• SKU: 810-03537;

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 43
License Creation & Optimization Workstream

• Publisher= Microsoft, Product = Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition Win-64Bit 1 Processor German 2 Years
Software Assurance OPEN NL

When you import PO information into a software asset management solution, one of the biggest challenges is to
normalize the PO data and understand which applications they are related to. Often purchasing departments will
manually enter their own short description when issuing a purchase order which is unlikely to be the same across two
identical POs. They also attach the exact SKU related to the purchase.

Using the SKU data helps a SAM solution to automatically:

• Normalize and translate incoming PO data

• Identify the applications, license metrics, and basic maintenance terms of the purchase

• Generate new licenses or attach new PO lines to existing licenses

• Identify how the software was purchased and any additional use rights associated with the license.

Using SKUs in the Context of SAM

SKUs are used within the context of software asset management during a post PO import process. POs are imported into
FlexNet Manager Suite using either a financial importer or they are manually created. If a new license is created from the
PO using the SKU:

• The license type should be suggested/used accordingly to SKU definition.

• The SKU normalized data (such as description, publisher, version, and so on) with be used by FlexNet Manager Suite.

• PO should be linked to the software license and licensing info (quantity) reported in the license.

• Attached application(s) from the application recognition library to the software license. The next inventory import
should then use this software license and link computers/users to it.

• Apply additional use rights (such as the right to upgrade or downgrade) to the license.

• Existing candidate licenses for POs containing SKU are the same license with the same SKU in the database. The
benefit is to avoid redundant data entry by the end user. If a SKU is unknown or the link cannot be found
automatically, the first time the SKU appears, the end user will manually select the existing license. Once the system
has “learned” about this SKU, the second time the same SKU is used in a PO, the link will be suggested by FlexNet
Manager Suite.

Additional Resources
More information on managing purchases, creating contracts or creating initial license positions with FlexNet Manager
Suite can be found under the “Establish a License Position in FNMS” learning path in Flexera’s Learning Center. See
Useful Resources for more details.

License Optimization
SAM optimization is vital to reduce risks and achieve cost savings (which can range from 5% to 25% of annual software
spend) which significantly boost the return on investment of your SAM program. The right optimization strategy enables
you to understand software usage in a dynamic environment; deploy the most cost-effective solutions; and implement

44 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 License Creation & Optimization Workstream

strategic planning by simulating future use scenarios based on each vendor’s specific licensing rules.

This section summarizes the primary focus areas for optimization, compliance risk, and provides recommendations on
how you can tweak licenses (such as allocations, exemptions, bundles, license priorities) to refine your license position.

Note: An initial license position must be achieved by completing Milestone 1 (Initial Insight) prior to optimization,
however most optimization exercises should wait until Milestone 2 (Initial Position) or even Milestone 3 (Refined
Position).

Viewing License Properties and Use Rights

The first step in license optimization is to review the license properties and use rights.

To review license properties:

1. Navigate to License Compliance > All Licenses (in the Licenses group).

2. Select a license and click Open.

The License Properties page displays. Here you can further configure the license to optimize consumption of
devices, users, processor points or other, depending on the license type. This section includes these tab:

• Compliance — high-level information about license consumption. Consumption is calculated based on the
number of raw installations less Product User Rights (PUR) savings (D–E=F). PUR savings include the use rights
benefits that are included with the license.

• Identification — displays and enables editing of high-level information about the consumption of the licenses,
such as the license type, duration, edition, version or status.

• Use rights & rules — enables greater control of how license entitlements are consumed. Use rights and rules
are often defined by the method of procurement and will vary between vendor. Understanding the software
vendor agreement types and product use rights is important to ensure accurate configurations of use rights.
Pre-defined product use rights are set automatically from the PURL. Here you can assign or change:

◦ Upgrade rights — an upgrade right provides entitlements to one or more future versions of the same
product, at no extra cost.

◦ Downgrade rights — a downgrade right provides entitlements to one or more previous versions of the same
product, at no extra cost. This permits the continued use of a previous version (or edition) of the product.

◦ License consumption rules — a good place to further tweak how consumption of entitlements is calculated.

◦ Right of second use and Right of multiple use — the right of second use permits the use of the same
software on a second device, without additional license costs, subject to restrictions. The right of multiple
use allows the user to install the software on several different devices.

◦ Rights on virtual machines and hosts — used to configure how license entitlements are consumed in
virtualized environments.

◦ License mobility rights — the right to move a licensed installation from one device to another. For virtual
machines to migrate from one physical host to another within a specific time frame. For third-party service
providers to deploy licensed software to a public or private cloud.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 45
License Creation & Optimization Workstream

◦ Exemptions — used in specific circumstances in which an installation may be used without consuming a
license.

◦ Notes — offers licensing information and resources.

Note: See the All Licenses page of the online help for full details.

Hard Verses Soft Cost Savings

Cost savings are commonly classified as either “hard” or “soft” by accounting and budgeting practices. A simple
definition of these terms is:

• Hard cost savings — immediately reduce forecasted or budgeted expense and are the savings most executives think
of when cost savings are mentioned. Examples include maintenance renewals, anticipated license payments, and
headcount.

• Soft cost savings (also known as cost avoidance) — represent software cost savings that are not immediately
realized in the budget. Examples include identifying significant overspend, previously unknown license liabilities,
and contract restructuring (except where the contract costs were budgeted in the current year).

Companies are most interested in hard cost savings, but soft savings have a significant positive impact. For a third-
party perspective on the interpretation of these concepts, read this external article: Hard and Soft Savings: What Counts
Can Be Counted.

License Re-Harvesting and Shelving

Recovery of unused license rights for reuse helps you avoid unnecessary purchasing of new license which in turn
reduces spend on license, support, and maintenance. Finding unused, underused or misused software requires
metering. It applies to users that have software installed but have never used it, or only need a view-only license.
Unused software always represents a tool for negotiations, such as requesting a migration of unused products to cloud
products for future business needs.

In some circumstances, depending on the vendor's policy, you have the right to shelve the operational use of the
software until support is reinstated. This avoids terminating the unused licenses, keeping them available for future
business needs. It is important to mention that, in most cases, to regain the previous use rights, a reinstatement of
support may result in incremental fees for lost support time and upgrades. The advantage is the Licensee maintains
flexibility and control over installation and use. See the Devices Tab page in the Applications section of the online help
for full details.

To view unused applications:

1. Navigate to License Compliance > Installed Applications (in the Applications group)

2. Filter results by Name, Publisher and (most importantly) the Classification of Freeware and Commercial.

A list of your unused applications displays.

3. Select an application and click Open to view the application properties.

4. Select the Devices tab.

46 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 License Creation & Optimization Workstream

A list of the related devices displays with details of the Assigned user and the Discovery date.

User Optimization
Technology, middleware and application products often have user-based metrics defined in the contract. There are
many ways to define users such as Oracle’s NUP or Application User, IBM’s User Value Unit (UVU) or Concurrent User.
Some user metrics are instance agnostic, meaning one user can have access to multiple software instances regardless
of the underlying technology. Others measure the user peak at any given point in time, or specific corporate roles such
as employees, partners, customers, trainees, and so on. If applicable, minimums defined by the vendor are also
something to consider when counting users. Also, if multiplexing is involved, you will usually have to license users at
the multiplexing front end. With so many licensing rules to look after, managing users can be cumbersome, but it can
provide great cost savings if done properly.

Best Practices
• Free up licenses for new employees by actively monitoring usage and removing individuals that change roles or have
not used a license in a long time.

• Identify duplicate users. For example, in case of SAP’s Named User, each user requires one license, regardless of how
many SAP systems they are accessing. Be aware that users can have different user names on different systems, so it
is important to actively monitor and validate against consolidated user account data.

• License production environments by cores/processor and only test or development by users. This limits your
multiplexing exposure and can generate a surplus of licenses because of the low number of individuals connecting.

Optimizing Users
How to optimize licenses by exempting, deallocating or edit users allocations.

1. Navigate to License Compliance > All Licenses (in the Licenses group).

2. Select and open a license.

3. Select the Consumption tab to view a list of all users or devices consuming an entitlement.

4. Exempt, deallocate or edit users on the User Properties tab, according to your user management strategy.

Application Portfolio Rationalization

If your organization has accumulated an unmanaged collection of applications through shifting business strategies,
mergers or acquisitions, you should plan for an application portfolio rationalization exercise. This clean-up can include
replacing legacy systems, retiring non-valued applications, eliminating functional redundancy or re-platforming
applications, all cost saving exercises. For a rationalization strategy to take place, vital data such as: maintenance and
infrastructure allocations, functionality, usage, and cost is required. Based on this information, you can create an
internal decommissioning process.

Using the categories in the ARL, look for all related products and other major vendors. For example, if you are analyzing
Oracle Databases, also look for IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, and other similar databases in your environment. If you
are analyzing Oracle WebLogic, start looking for IBM WebSphere Application Server, Microsoft IIS / Application Server,
and other similar application servers. Often, you will find there is a significant amount of overlap. Make rationalization a
priority if you find you have multiple unlimited license agreements for the same categories of products from different

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 47
License Creation & Optimization Workstream

vendors or even from the same vendor.

Consolidating on fewer technologies will bring significant hard and soft cost savings from eliminating contract
payments, deeper pricing discounts, fewer contracts, and less technical support.

Maintenance Savings
Publishers continue to rely on recurring maintenance revenues. Typical software maintenance fees are around 20% to
22% of the license fees. Removing maintenance costs can have a big impact on optimization and you should make sure
you are only paying support for products that meet business needs and generate value through version upgrades and
patches.

Identifying maintenance cost savings can be challenging due to the structure of contracts and purchasing documents.
Many enterprises continue to pay for maintenance renewals long after they have migrated away from the product. If
contracts can be cancelled, these maintenance issues provide valuable hard cost savings.

Software that is retired with an active maintenance agreement, that is unused, underused, or no longer supported by
the vendor (end-of-life) is a prime candidate to do with support and realize savings.

To identify opportunities for maintenance savings, generate a quick report in the Reports section by combining the
“Contract” and “Licenses” values and filtering on “Contract Type” = Software maintenance and support, and license
“Status” = Retired.

To identify opportunities where active software is unused or underused, review the active licenses with high numbers
of available entitlements and partial or no usage. These are prime candidates for support cancellation or license re-
harvesting. When qualifying these opportunities, make sure to filter only the ones with maintenance.

Many organizations have difficulty upgrading legacy applications due to extensive integrations. Over time,
organizations end up with software in use that is no longer supported by the vendor. End-of-life (EOL) is a term that
indicates the vendor has stopped patching, supporting and selling the product. When this happens, an expensive
custom maintenance contract must be negotiated with the vendor, or you will not get the maintenance for which you
are paying.

Often, upgrade and downgrade rights are granted for as long as maintenance is kept current (for example, Software
Assurance for Microsoft). These are important when newer or older versions of a software are used by providing
coverage under the same license, reducing the need to purchase additional licenses.

Virtualization Rules
Virtualization technologies offer high availability and mobility, but vendor specific rules for using software in these
environments is often restrictive, loosely defined and confusing. It is easy to inadvertently deploy products in
partitioned environments that require more licenses than expected. Most vendors still license software based on
physical capacity, such as Central Processing Unit (CPU) or cores that are dynamic in a virtualized environment.
Publishers have different policies regarding this topic. For example, a single VM in a vCenter cluster can cause all the
hosts in that cluster to be licensed. In some cases, for newer versions of VMware ESXi, it may even require all vCenters
to be licensed. These configurations often require many more licenses than are being used by the products themselves.

Often, it is best to completely reconfigure these environments from a "soft partitioned" to a "hard partitioned" one, so
that remaining hosts and clusters can be better utilized. For example, avoid putting Oracle Databases into newer
version VMware clusters, unless those clusters are highly saturated with Oracle Database instances (in which case they
may be a very attractive option). If not, consider using a capped LPAR configuration or Solaris Zones. Note that even if

48 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 License Creation & Optimization Workstream

you reconfigure the environment, the configuration still needs to be reviewed by the vendor to determine if it falls
under their hard-partitioned list and standards.

The rights on virtual machines and hosts are used in FlexNet Manager Suite to configure how license entitlements are
consumed in virtualized environments. Correct configuration of virtualization use rights based on the vendor’s policy is
paramount for correct consumptions, compliance and optimization. Modify the default use rights so that any special
requirements are configured and adapted. This can be performed on the License Properties page, on the Use rights &
rules tab.

Bundle Management
Bundle management is a good way to save costs by merging one or more applications together under one consumption
count and it is best practice to do so whenever possible. It also helps reduce the number of unprocessed evidences
organizations usually struggle with. The term bundle is typically used to describe two or more distinct applications or
components that are packaged and sold together as a single product. Many complex products leave behind installer
records for the various components. This can make analyzing the software inventory difficult, but it does not
necessarily qualify as a bundle.

A bundle, as defined by Flexera, is a multi-product license that contains a primary product, and one or more
supplementary products. A single primary must be present to consume a bundle license. The supplementary products
may be on the same device or installed on a separate server. The rule to remember is that one license covers all
products, both primary and supplementary. Having “primary” and “secondary” is an unusual convention, as most
vendors supply bundles where all products are equal. The most frequent specification of “primary” and “secondary”
are in IBM and Oracle bundles, where the secondary applications/components/features are tasked with supporting
and/or enhancing the primary’s functionality. Often, the secondary products are the ones that give the product edition
(Oracle WebLogic).

The difficulty this adds to the license position is determined entirely by the entitlements available and inventory
quality. For example, if a single entitlement can match each bundle, all the installations will be associated with that
entitlement. If multiple entitlements are available (some for WebLogic Server Enterprise and some for SOA Suite), it
may be difficult to separate installations for one from the other. It may also be impossible to differentiate the two based
on installed components alone. If the installed components are not readily distinguishable, it is often due to ambiguous
installer evidence.

The two most commonly used tools to handle bundles are license exemptions and suites. When adjusting license
configurations, it is important to remember one thing: only link applications to a license that you want to trigger license
consumption. Any application added to a license will contribute directly to consumption calculations. Thus, only
commercial components of a product should be added to a license.

An example of a multi-product license is IBM’s WebSphere Application Server (WAS). WAS has a number of supporting
products that are exempted from consuming a license under the use rights stipulated in the License Information
Document (IBM WebSphere Application Server License Information Document).

Manage products covered by multi-product licenses on the Applications tab of the License Properties. When there is
more than one application present, the appearance of the Use rights & rules tab changes so that the following can be
done:

• Configure the upgrade and downgrade rights for each product in the bundle individually

• Determine which products are primary and which are supplementary

• If supplementary products must be counted for license compliance, set the permitted ratio of supplementary

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 49
License Creation & Optimization Workstream

product installations for each instance of the primary product (beyond this count, the supplementary products will
consume licenses in their own right).

When calculating license consumption, FlexNet Manager Suite assesses the individual product installations on a device.
If any grouping of products matches the primary product(s) on an existing multi-product license, consumption occurs
against the multi-product license rather than against several single-product licenses. Once the grouping of primary
products is satisfied, the same license may also cover supplementary products where these have been identified on the
same device. Allocations to cover permitted installations of a supplementary product on a separate server can be
configured by adding the device(s) on the Consumption tab.

Items of note include:

• Displays whether the associated application is a primary or supplementary product

• Identifies the associated product name, edition and version

• Identifies the use rights that have been configured or the associated product(s).

For many bundles, alternative entitlement options are probably available. We recommend these alternatives to reduce
risk or cost in the license optimization report.

The Flexera Research Team creates multiple bundles that can be selected when creating a license. Note that gaps could
exist due to lack of ARL evidences for supplemental components or incomplete vendor documentation. New bundles
are constantly configured and added to the ARL.

See the License Compliance Calculations page in online help, for a detailed explanation of the bundle license
compliance process.

Bundle Verses Suite

A significant number of SKUs created by vendors relate to a single purchase that contains multiple disparate licenses.
This type of SKU is called a "Bundle" as it represents two or more applications or components that may otherwise be
licensed separately. The distinction between a suite and a bundle is that a suite has been represented by the vendor as
a single offering and sold as a single license that is then represented in the ARL as a single application (a one-to-one
relationship), whereas a bundle may require that all, some, or none of the applications it covers are installed on one
computer.

Limited Use Licenses

A limited use license represents a second product that is included for "free" with a primary product.

One common provision is that the secondary product must be used only in support of the primary product.
Dependency mapping is required to accurately determine which systems are dependent upon other systems in this
manner. Databases and application servers are two common types bundled like this. For example, Oracle EBS comes
with a limited use license for Oracle Database.

However, there are strict use limitations that most customers are not able to meet, such as not extending the database
schema beyond the default. Violating these use limitations invalidates the bundled entitlement and may be a
compliance risk. Any such risks should be noted in the license compliance report and further investigated. Exceptions
or follow up actions associated with bundles should be noted in the issue tracking document. Note that FlexNet
Manager Suite will not automatically determine the scope of usage for the secondary bundled applications therefore it
is your responsibility to investigate whether the limited-use restrictions are enforced. This can usually be done by
reviewing the explanatory notes provided with most individual applications and PURL templates.

50 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 License Creation & Optimization Workstream

Prerequisites
Some vendors define a set of prerequisites for licensing rules which require a prerequisite application to have a full-use
license before you can use the desired application. This typically happens when the functionality is linked with one
application requiring the other to act as a platform or to support certain tasks.

If this licensing condition is not met, the prerequisite is in breach and a license fee is due. Review the vendor’s licensing
documentation or master agreements to identify any prerequisite licensing requirements.

Please note that most bundles will have such requirements. For help with these scenarios read the explanatory notes in
the PURL templates. Notes are constantly updated and reviewed by the Flexera Research team.

Exemptions
Exemption rules are often misunderstood because vendors have different disaster recovery, test, and development
rules. This makes it easy to confuse licensable scenarios with those that don’t require a license.

There are many different disaster recovery (DR) techniques. Some are “cold” and usually exempted from a license
requirement. Others are “warm” and require a license because of high availability, such as standby or remote mirroring
configurations. There can be other limitations as well. A vendor might require the DR server to be in different location
from the Production server or prohibit DR and Production clustering.

Some vendors offer generous rights to use a wide range of otherwise expensive products for development use only.
Sometimes these licenses are free, such as with Oracle Technology Network. However certain restrictions apply. These
products may only be used for development, testing, prototyping, and demonstrating. Restrictions are often modeled
using device roles. However, some restrictions are not as easy to detect, including limitations on numbers of users,
customizations, database schema changes or even direct database access.

Understanding the vendor’s policy is the first step in maintaining compliance and optimizing your estate. By exempting
certain machines from consuming a license, you further reduce licensing costs. Modeling limitations are part of a
second phase project, with process-based restriction compliance activities following soon after.

FlexNet Manager Suite automatically takes license types that support role exemptions into account when calculating
license consumption.

The Device role is not updated by automatic inventory imports and therefore must be specified on the General tab of
the Inventory Device properties page. Each inventory device may have only one role, chosen from:

• Backup / Archive

• Cold Standby / Disaster Recovery

• Development

• Hot Standby / Active Failover

• Production

• Test

• Training

• Warm Standby / Passive Failover.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 51
License Creation & Optimization Workstream

See the General Tab page within the Discovery and Inventory section of the online help for full details.

Configure the license to record which exemptions are granted under the license agreement. When both steps have been
set up, the effects are visible after the next reconciliation.

There is no automated method to determine which systems are which type of disaster recovery environment. In cases
where large numbers of allocations need to be made it is generally most efficient to use a business adapter to allocate a
large list of servers to licenses all at once. As a side note, deploying licenses in a virtualized environment often
eliminates the need for maintaining a DR site.

Flexera’s PURL has pre-configured DR rules based on our licensing research for major vendors. Choosing the correct
license type when configuring your baseline will help enforce the correct rules early on.

Restrictions
Often, licenses are restricted to user groups, subsidiaries or locations (territory). These restrictions cause compliance
risks if not properly isolated. By leveraging Global Enterprise Agreements that allow worldwide consumption and
avoiding duplicate spending by independently operating business units, you can generate considerable savings. If
restrictions apply, use the Restrictions tab to restrict consumption of licenses to an enterprise group or groups.
Restrictions prevent consumption by unauthorized groups.

Open the license that needs restricting, select the Restrictions tab and Search to define the group(s). Then, select the
appropriate enterprise groups and click Add groups. For the changes to be reflected execute a Reconcile. It is a best
practice to name the license entitlement to reflect restrictions so that others know who the license is for.

Managing BYOSL
The Bring Your Own Software License (BYOSL) model is a key transition area for most customers that are considering
hybrid environments or want to gradually move to a SaaS-only model. From a licensing perspective, vendors are
creating new rules to protect their IP in the public cloud and they may only consider certain cloud providers as
“authorized” (such as Oracle for AWS and Azure). This means new licensing rules (which typically involve moving away
from the physical core calculation to a vCPU one) will only apply to software being run on those defined platforms. The
rules can also be different from one cloud service provider to another. For example, IBM rules can be different for AWS,
Google, Azure and IBM Cloud Managed Services or Bluemix. As a rule, modeling the correct rules to calculate vCPUs
instead on physical ones saves licensing costs.

The first step is to identify the software running in the public cloud and properly manage the licenses using the correct
rules and conditions. FlexNet Manager Suite has capabilities to manage license requirements in the public cloud. Well-
known cloud service providers are included by default in FlexNet Manager Suite, with the option to manually configure
others if required. Users can identify and assign the devices that are coming from Cloud providers:

• In the System Settings page, there is a Cloud Service Providers tab, where additional cloud service providers may
be specified.

• In the License Properties, under the Use rights & rules tab, there is a License Consumption Rules section for
Cloud service providers that enables you to limit where devices must be hosted before they can consume from the
license.

• In Points Rule Set Properties, look for additional settings in the Points Rules tab that ensure the correct points rule
is used for consumption calculation. You may also define your own points rules. Each point rule may be linked to
one or more cloud service providers, where the vendor specifies differences; or a single points rule may apply to any

52 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 License Creation & Optimization Workstream

cloud service provider. FlexNet Manager Suite includes by default points rule for IBM PVU licenses that applies to the
default set of cloud service providers.

• A virtual machine can be linked to the cloud service provider where it is hosted.

Note: The Located in the Cloud and Service Provider properties need to be managed by the end user for the
inventory devices. Setting these properties via a Business Adapter is recommended.

Managing SaaS
SaaS agreements are simpler than On-Premises ones, and often subscription-based. This simplicity can generate a false
sense of security, but these licenses and contracts must be optimized.

Usage tracking is provided mainly by the vendor’s desire to support platform adoption and not necessarily cost control
and optimization. With SaaS license models, compliance is often less of a concern, but minor compliance risks need to
be managed (credential sharing). In some cases, SaaS vendors do not restrict how many licenses are used (see Box or
Workday), so tracking the number of licenses used becomes important. But if compliance is not a worry, only focus
your efforts on implementing cost control and optimization that provide the usage data needed to quantify costs.

Measuring SaaS is like any other application or service in the data center:

• Import access and usage data using a custom business/inventory adapter or using our SaaS Inventory Framework

• Track client application installs and usage through inventory solutions

• Monitor website access using a web tracking solution (for example, access to post-login landing page)

• Sometimes a combination of all the above is needed.

In most cases, the only way to get complete information about license consumption is only via integration with
vendor’s portals. Access tracking will provide basic usage discovery, but it is unlikely to provide a complete and
accurate picture of your overall compliance.

Another important aspect is related to product fees. Fees are based on what has been purchased, not what is used. It is
best practice to negotiate contract renewals with real usage data, so that you properly identify who is using which
features and negotiate a discount that correlates to value derived.

Before requesting a new login, always check for users that are not using the application to re-harvest unused licenses.
Also, always look for duplicate user accounts that inflate license counts (Office 365, Salesforce). Optimize your product
mix and look for lower-cost alternatives. To achieve a lower average cost per unit, migrate and/or hybridize. Always
take advantage of billing and financial cycles by renewing contracts at times when vendor sales representatives are
trying to make quota (usually the end of financial periods). Place new orders at the start of the month because monthly
prorated amounts are usually billed at full months.

SaaS Inventory Framework

With Flexera’s SaaS Inventory Framework, you can use a common platform to created integrations with any SaaS
application that supports APIs for usage and compliance management. The Framework is designed to allow anyone
with programming knowledge to create a SaaS vendor connection and map incoming data into FlexNet Manager Suite.
The integration will execute based on a customer-defined schedule from FlexNet Manager Suite. The Framework
leverages PowerShell scripting language and created integrations with network management, SSO, financial
management and other solutions that can discover and provide SaaS usage insights. This feature is delivered with

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 53
License Creation & Optimization Workstream

FlexNet Manager Suite.

Managing Salesforce
For Salesforce management, FlexNet Manager Suite provides an inventory adapter that enables you to import
Salesforce license allocations and usage data.

FlexNet Manager Suite imports Salesforce license information and creates one SaaS User license for each instance of
Salesforce that is connected, showing consumption information for each user in your organization that is accessing
Salesforce.

The result of this import are available in the SaaS Usage Summary report which displays accessing and non-accessing
users for each instance. This report is very powerful for user management and cost reduction.

Note: Email ID’s are normalized using corporate directory.

To determine unused subscriptions, you can specify a certain number of days in a SaaS Usage Summary report and
then drill through to the users to view which ones have not accessed Salesforce over that period.

Note: You must be connected to Salesforce for FlexNet Manager Suite to provide Salesforce information.

Use this feature to manage Salesforce licensing and consumption costs, identify unused subscriptions and reduce your
renewal costs.

End of Service Life

Service Life represents the total release cycle of a software or hardware product and is represented by key dates you
need to know. End of Service Life (EOSL) is a term used to indicate that the product is in the end of its useful life (from
the vendor’s point of view). The lack of updates, upgrades, improvements, bug and security fixes cause serious
compliance and security risks. Compatibility, migration and overall support problems rise, with even simple upgrades
become a major challenge. For example, Microsoft marked Windows 98 for end-of-life on June 30, 2006. Software
produced after that date may not work for it, such as Microsoft's product Office 2007 (released November 30, 2006).

Understanding the End of Life dates for applications is a critical part of SAM processes. You need to know when the
vendor stops marketing, selling, or sustaining the product. Unsupported applications pose a security risk since they are
no longer being patched. Obsolete software is a primary target for hackers. End of Life applications can be costly, as
organizations may be paying maintenance for software that is no longer being upgraded or supported by the vendor.

Some of the main challenges include:

• The number of applications in your enterprise. (Remember to include the minor versions and service packs.)

• Service Life details are often difficult to find

• Publishers have a variety of service life policies (some have none)

• Service Life dates are sometimes not published

• There might not be any standardized support policies to follow

• Many vendors offer “standard support” and “extended support” however the support provided with each can vary
greatly.

54 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 License Creation & Optimization Workstream

Key terminology:

• Start of life — The date on which this software application was first available for use, possibly as an alpha or beta
release

• Release date — The date when the application was Generally Available (GA) for customers to download and use

• End of sales — The vendor stops selling the product, but it might still be supported

• End of support — The vendor stops providing support and updates, but often still provides security fixes and critical
support

• End of extended support — The vendor stops providing any support or fixes

• End of life — The product can no longer be bought or supported in any way.

Flexera's Service Life Data Pack helps eliminate wasteful maintenance, avoid security risks and improve the overall
operational efficiency. More information in our Data Sheet.

Additional Resources
For more details on a license reconciliation overview, advanced license considerations, bundles, allocations or
exemptions, see the “License Analysis & Optimization with FNMS” learning path in Flexera’s Learning Center, and the
Useful Resources chapter.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 55
Reporting & Governance Workstream

8
Reporting & Governance Workstream
FlexNet Manager Suite offers rich reporting capabilities by providing:

• Over 60 inbuilt web reports

• The ability to create custom reports using all exposed objects

• Flexera Analytics.

Reports
The Reports Index page of FlexNet Manager Suite is accessed by clicking the Reports button located above the top
modal menu. The Reports Index enables you to view, create, and manage reports. FlexNet Manager Suite offers the
following types of reports:

• Inbuilt reports: FlexNet Manager Suite comes with a set of inbuilt reports that assist with decision making based on
current data. For example, you can generate a report to view the installations of a selected application.

Tip: If the report your require doesn't exist, you might consider adding columns and applying filters on the
appropriate management view. For more information, see the topics under Using Filters to Limit Data Size.

• Custom reports: Design and save your own reports by adding objects (such as applications, licenses or purchases)
and choosing which related information to include. For example, you can create a report to view non-compliant
Microsoft licenses in a particular enterprise group. A custom report is accessible only to the user who creates it unless
the Public access permission is set on the report. For more information, see Working with Custom Reports.

Access rights required for reports

Access to the Reports Index page is governed by the following access rights which can be configured in the
Management views and reports section of the Roles tab on the Accounts page (see Roles):

• List reports — Enables you to view the publicly-accessible reports

• Create, modify or delete a report — Enables you to create, modify, or delete custom reports.

56 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Reporting & Governance Workstream

Generating an Inbuilt Report

How to generate an inbuilt report.

1. Click the Reports button located above the top modal menu.

The Reports Index page displays.

2. To select and open a report:

• Navigate to a group of reports using the navigation tree on the left and click a report to open it.

• Use the top modal menu to locate and open a report. For example, select the Oracle Server Worksheet for
Oracle Database report from the License Compliance menu.

3. Set one or more report criteria or report filters as desired.

The Run report button enables for reports that require criteria to be selected.

Tip: Some reports may output a large number of rows. It is a recommended practice to set the appropriate filters
before you run a report. Once you have made your selection in the search window (that appears when you click
any search icon), you may need to click the close (x) button on the search box to continue.

4. Click Run report.

The result displays.

Note: You can use filters to restrict the number of results. You can click the small arrow on the top of the report
grid to view the applied filter conditions. For more information on using filters, see Using Filters to Limit Data Size.

Inbuilt Reports
The following reports (categorized by menu section) are available in FlexNet Manager Suite. See the Report section in
online help for full details.

License Compliance reports

Optimization:
• License Overlap — lists one or more licenses which have been allocated more than once to the same application.

• Retired Licenses with Active Payment Schedules — lists licenses that are marked as retired, but which still have
active payment schedules. Generate this report on a regular basis to optimize your license position by identifying
licenses which your enterprise may be paying for unnecessarily.

• Savings Through Product Use Rights — displays possible savings to be made by setting the correct product use
rights, such as right of second use, on licenses.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 57
Reporting & Governance Workstream

Compliance:
• Compliance Trend — displays the compliance position, purchased count, and consumed count for each selected
license at the start and the end of the chosen period. Use this report to chart license compliance and see how their
compliance position has changed over time. This report is available as both a visual report and in the grid view.

• Entitlement Position History for a License — displays changes to the entitlement position of selected licenses with
a running entitlement position total.

• ILMT and FlexNet Manager License Positions — compares ILMT and FNMS sub-capacity licenses (Only if ILMT data
imported).

• Oracle Server Worksheet — provides details of your Oracle deployment. Each record in the report represents one
Oracle database instance. The report provides you with the information that you must provide to Oracle during a
license true-up or whenever you are audited. You can export this report and use the information to populate the
Server information, Database information, and Hardware information sections of the Oracle Server Worksheet.

Licenses:
• Device License Details — displays the license consumption details for a specific license. This report is designed to
help represent consumption by Access Mode for virtual access to applications.

• IBM PVU License Consumption — displays a list of software covered by Processor Value Unit (PVU) licenses and the
license entitlements consumed against those licenses. Meet your contractual obligations to IBM by generating this
report every three months to provide them with a valid audit report of your IBM PVU license consumption. Consider
grouping the results by License name for ease of viewing. You may choose to generate the IBM Out-of-Date and IBM
Overrides reports before running this report to ensure your data is correct.

• CAL License Summary — lists the total number of users and devices which have accessed applications licensed with
CALs, as well as access inventory for SaaS license types. This report assists software asset managers to identify users/
devices using CALs across business unit, geographic location, and/or cost center, and then use this information to
accurately chargeback licensing costs to the correct groups within the enterprise.

• License Allocation History — lists all devices that have been allocated to, or deallocated from, any licenses within a
specified period before today.

• Licenses with Upcoming Payments — lists licenses with upcoming payments. Software asset managers, purchasing
officers and contract managers may choose to generate this report monthly or quarterly basis. Understanding the
value of license payments which are due in the next period assists with budgeting and planning for these payments
and knowing if any additional spend is available in the budget.

• Licenses by Group Assignment — lists the details of any licenses which match the compliance status and enterprise
group filters applied to this report. License practitioners may wish to generate this report on a weekly or monthly
basis as part of a review process to gain insight into the way licenses are being consumed in different enterprise
groups.

• Licenses Consumed and Allocated by Enterprise Groups — lists the total license consumption and allocation figures
for each enterprise group.

• User License Details — lists the details of one or all user licenses and helps you represent consumption by Access
Mode for virtual access to applications.

58 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Reporting & Governance Workstream

• SaaS Usage Summary — lists user access (within a selected period) to applications that have a SaaS User license.

Applications:
• Application and License Installations — lists all installations of applications, and the license each installation is
consuming. Software asset managers and license practitioners may use this report to identify any non-licensed
installations at a device level.

• Application Installation Details — lists application installations along with details of the inventory device they were
discovered on, and the details of any linked asset.

• Device Installation Details — lists installations of applications for a specific device.

• Installed Applications for License True-Up — lists software licenses with payment schedules of the type "license
true-up" that have payment due.

• Related Installations — lists all installations of applications related to other applications and the license each is
consuming.

• Suite Members — lists licensable application suites alongside the applications (suite members) that can belong to
that suite. Each record displays the number of installations of the suite member within the application suite. For
applications that may also be licensed separately, any stand-alone installations are not included in this report..

• Unauthorized Installations — lists all current unauthorized installations of software and the number of installation
counts.

Hardware Assets reports

• Asset Assigned User Changes — lists all changes to the assigned user of an asset within a selected period.

• Asset Location Changes — lists changes made within a selected period to the location to which an asset is assigned.
Operators with a focus on hardware asset management may wish to generate this report weekly or monthly as part of
a regular review process.

• Assets not in Inventory — lists inventory devices that have been removed from inventory, but are still being
managed as assets. Because the underlying inventory device has been retired or disposed of, the assets listed in this
report are therefore likely candidates for retirement or disposal.

• Assets with Duplicate Asset Tags — lists the details of assets that have duplicate asset tags.

• Retired or Disposed Assets with Active Payment Schedules — lists licenses that are marked as retired, but which
still have active payment schedules. Generate this report on a regular basis to optimize your license position by
identifying licenses which your enterprise may be paying for unnecessarily.

Discovery & Inventory reports

• Inventory Errors on All Discovered Devices — lists all inventory failures of discovered devices within a selected
period.

• IBM PVU Out-Of-Date Inventory — lists devices, with installations previously consuming IBM PVU licenses, have not
reported inventory for greater than the selected period.

• IBM PVU Overridden Inventory — lists devices consuming an IBM PVU license where the inventory values have been

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 59
Reporting & Governance Workstream

manually overridden. Generate this report to determine whether any inventory device values have been manually
overridden. If there are matching results, provide this report to your Infrastructure department so they can determine
whether the values should be reset before generating the IBM PVU License Consumption report.

• CAL Usage Inventory — lists users and devices that are using applications which require a Client Access License (CAL)
or a SaaS license.

Procurement reports

Purchases:
• Purchase Orders by Vendor — lists the total number and total value of purchase orders assigned to one or more
vendors within a date range. A summary of the total number and value of unassigned purchase orders may also be
generated. This report is available as both a visual chart and as a list.

• Count of Purchase Orders by Enterprise Group — lists the total number of purchase orders, and their total
expenditure for each enterprise group.

Contracts:
• Contract Hierarchy — lists details of contracts and master contracts.

• Microsoft Enterprise Agreement — lists all Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (EA) contracts and the computers which
are linked to these contracts.

• Payment History — lists the payment history for payments made against the payment schedule of a contract.

• Payment Schedule Details by Month — lists the total budgeted, estimated and actual amounts for payment
schedules in a chosen month.

Vendors:
• Vendor Roll-up — lists the amount spent with each vendor across all purchases within a selected period.

Working with Custom Reports

Your organization may use a suitable strategy to create a set of custom reports. The following are some example
strategies that could be used to create a set of custom reports.

Demand-based reporting
You can create a set of reports to meet the demands of one or more users such as a software asset manager. The
following list provides a set of example questions that you can ask yourself before building a set of reports:

• What type of reports are required to provide data on current license position?

• Which reports should be good to better prepare for software audits or true-ups?

• Which reports should be helpful in accessing CALs usage?

60 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Reporting & Governance Workstream

Software asset management maturity level-based reporting

Reports can be used to measure software compliance against a specific Software Asset Management (SAM) maturity
level (SAML). For each additional level of compliance, you may need to produce additional reports. For example,

• For the first level, you may need some reports reflecting software installations on various inventory devices within
your organization.

• The second level may require additional reports on license compliance and unlicensed application installations.

• The third level may require some advanced reports like unrecognized evidence or scheduled payments.

Task-based reporting
You can also create reports based on the software license optimization tasks that are performed on a regular basis. For
example:

• A Monthly Tasks folder might have the following set of reports:

◦ Devices in storage for over three months

◦ Multiple assets assigned to a user

• A Weekly Tasks folder might have the following set of reports:

◦ Assets assigned to terminated employees

◦ License compliance changes for a publisher

Reports folders
To separate the custom reports from the inbuilt reports, it is recommended that you create a new folder hierarchy to
save your custom reports. You can use the Create a folder, Rename folder, and Delete folder icons (on the Reports
Index page) to manage folders. To create a subfolder, select the parent folder from the index and click Create a folder
icon.

• To create a custom folder structure, you need to highlight the folder where you will create your structure (the top level
to start), click the Create Folder icon, and provide a folder name.

• To avoid confusing your custom reports with the inbuilt reports, it is a best practice to create your own folder
structure for all your custom reports. Private reports should ideally only be created in your own personal use folders,
and public reports created in general/team folders.

• To rename a folder, first select the Report folder, then click the rename folder icon, rename the folder and click the
check to save or the discard icon to discard the changes.

Note: You cannot delete or rename pre-existing folders.

Caution: Deleting a folder will also delete the reports within that folder, including the private reports created by other
operators which you will not be able to see.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 61
Reporting & Governance Workstream

Custom Reporting Object/Table Joins

Below are a few examples of Custom Reporting Object/Table joins that are commonly used for reporting purposes. You
will need to select and add any relevant fields to these reports.

Application installation information with device (including VM & Host) and User information

Starting with the Installation object/table, add the Inventory Device object/table, then add the Virtual
Machine object/table, and finally add the Host Computer object/table.

Oracle Options, Oracle Instances and Inventory device information

Starting with the Oracle Options object/table, add the Oracle Instances object/table, then add the Inventory
Device object/table.

Note: Adding the Oracle Options field Requires License allows reporting of Options that are reported Used
and are therefore requiring a license.

Application Suites, Installations and Inventory Device Info

Starting with the Suite Members object/table, add the Suites object/table, then add the Installations object/
table, and finally add the Inventory Device object/table.

Virtual Machine, Host, Cluster Relationship Info

Starting with the Inventory Device object/table, add the Virtual Machine object/table, then add the Host
Computer object/table and finally add the Clusters object/table.

Management Dashboard
The FlexNet Manager Suite Management Dashboard provides a useful overview of the vendors at risk total number,
under purchased total value, unlicensed installations, device and payment reports. The cards are interactive, allowing
users to dive deeper into specific interest areas.

The License Compliance tab also contains other useful insights on licenses at risk, vendor, product or license
summaries.

Flexera Analytics
FlexNet Manager Suite provides powerful data analysis functionality, through an update to Flexera Analytics.
Dashboards for software and hardware asset management provide a display of near real-time data about applications,
licenses, assets, and inventory, enabling business-critical reporting and decision making. A simple and efficient interface
delivers an “at a glance” view of your managed environment, with the ability to explore the data to identify any issues
quickly.

The following pages can be accessed from the Flexera Analytics page when Report mode is selected:

• Software Asset Management

• Hardware Asset Management

62 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Reporting & Governance Workstream

• My Analytics home.

My Analytics home is a personal dashboard enabling the creation of a customized dashboard, populated using a variety
of supplied widgets, for each operator’s specific needs. Each widget has dynamic filtering functionality which
dynamically updates the data displayed across all widgets on the page. For example, the Software Asset Management
dashboard can be filtered by Publisher. In addition, clicking on the data within a widget displays more detailed
information. When viewing data for a product, it is possible to drill-down to see that data by application version and
edition. Flexera Analytics also includes support for contract and purchase related data which enables you to build
dashboards and reports pertaining to your procurement data. Search for “Procurement” under the existing Widget
Library to showcase some of the possible ways the models can be used to build procurement related widgets.

Note: For more information, refer to the FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 System Reference PDF available through the
title page of online help.

Figure 2: My Analytics in FlexNet Manager Suite

Gap Analysis
It is a best practice to keep track of gaps in a document that will be used later to identify problems in management
reports. For example, a 50% inventory coverage of devices, should be considered a gap. Only when the percentage of
inventory imported exceeds a pre-defined limit, it should be considered complete. As such, gap reports must have
thresholds which measure the accuracy of the underlying data. Every organization will have different outcomes to track
and measure. Flexera does not have recommendations on target numbers. These will all depend on your internal
process, goals, expectations and maturity level.

We recommend running the following Gap Analysis reports on a regular basis to check inventory health include:

• Percentage of inventoried devices: Navigate to Discovery & Inventory > All Inventory and filter by the Active

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 63
Reporting & Governance Workstream

column.

• Number of inventoried devices whose inventory date is older than 60 days: Navigate to Discovery & Inventory >
Out of Date Inventory and choose a time limit of 30, 60 or 90 days.

• Number of inventoried devices with no serial number: Navigate to Discovery & Inventory > Inventory Issues.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are used to demonstrate how effectively you achieve key business objectives, allow
you to provide feedback to your organization on the progress and achievements of the SAM program, and support
executive and SAM stakeholder buy-in.

Organizational metrics allows tangible numbers to allow comparison of results with peers in similar organizations.
Together, KPIs and metrics highlight challenges and opportunities for improvement such as justifying the need for
additional resources, therefore choosing the right KPIs and defining your organization metrics will depend on your
vendors and your goals. Both the SAM team and the governance team must establish a list of metrics that are important
to the organization from a program data, business participation, and strategic direction perspective:

• Measurement of program data is important to ensure data completeness and accuracy in the source systems

• Measurement of business participation is necessary to ensure compliance to policy and key controls are in place

• Measurement of strategic direction is vital to measure progress against milestones on the organization’s
implementation roadmap and publisher license positions.

The SAM and governance teams must work together to establish the finalized list of metrics and KPIs along with the
cadence for generation. These measurements will be communicated to not only the governance and leadership teams
but SAM stakeholders as well.

Note: Each company will use different KPI types to measure success based on their specific business goals. See some
common examples below.

Tracking Inventory Saturation

Navigate to Discovery & Inventory > All Inventory.

• Filter on Active status and add any additional criteria (such as Assigned/Calculated User, Processors, Cores, Host,
Location, Operating System, Role, VM Name, and so on) to the report and then download the report

Considerations include:

• How many devices (including servers and laptops/workstations) are you expecting? If you want to see quantity for
only one type, filter the report by Inventory device type, otherwise, download the entire report to Excel and then
apply your filters

• If there are less devices than expected, there is a gap that needs to be identified.

• If there are more devices than expected, are there duplicates? Are there old devices that have never been ignored?

• This report can be used to verify whether hardware inventory is coming into FlexNet Manager Suite with
characteristics such as Processors, Cores, Roles, and so on.

64 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Reporting & Governance Workstream

Unlicensed Commercial Applications

1. Navigate to License Compliance > Unlicensed Installations.

2. Filter by Publisher and set the Classification to Commercial, and add any additional criteria to report prior to
downloaded (for example, version, edition, and so on.)

3. Download as a .csv, .pdf, .rtf, or .xlsx.

Note: Use the Related Licenses column to view the number of existing licenses which you can use to license these
installations.

Considerations include:

• Are there additional licenses available that need to be linked to these applications?

◦ If not, can you optimize the current license?

• If there are no licenses that can be linked to the installed application, this is a financial risk. It is good practice to
create a license with a zero (0) quantity that can be used to identify the shortfall in the All Licenses page.

Hardware Inventory Health

• List of Inventory Sources

◦ For a complete list of inventory sources, navigate to Settings > Data Inputs > Inventory Data.

◦ For more information on inventory imports (for example, completed or failed status, dates of completion, number
of devices imported, and so on), navigate to Settings > System Health > System Tasks.

• Key attributes

◦ Missing cores, processors (see the Tracking Inventory Saturation section above).

• Virtualization and Partitioning

◦ To view clustered servers — navigate to Discovery & Inventory > Virtual Devices and Clusters.

◦ To drill down into each cluster to see hosts and guests — click the Plus sign to the left of the cluster's name.

◦ To view unclustered hosts and VMs — click the Plus sign to the left of an option.

◦ Hosts with VMs are identified with a Plus sign to the left of the Host name. To drill down into the host's guest VMs —
click the Plus sign. Note that Hosts without VMs and VMs without hosts do not have a Plus sign.

◦ To view the number of VMs without a host or other devices with an alert — click the blue alert located under the
box labeled Create a Cluster and then hover over the box with the number of alerts to see a breakdown.

• Duplicate inventory

◦ Measure the number of devices with a bad serial number (blank, duplicate, or blacklisted). Navigate to Discovery &
Inventory > Inventory Issues. The number of devices with bad serial numbers is provided in the blue alerts box.

Software Inventory Health

To view the health of your software inventory:

1. Navigate to License Compliance > Installed Applications (located in the Applications group).

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 65
Reporting & Governance Workstream

2. Filter results by the Publisher column.

3. Click the Choose the columns to display icon and display the Classification and Usage columns.

4. Filter the Classification column by Commercial.

5. Note the installed vs. used numbers which display in the Usage column.

Custom Report Examples

You can also create your own SQL reports to expose, customize and enhance the rich data which FlexNet Manager Suite
natively captures. You will find the following custom reports, which have been all developed and tested by our
experienced field consultants, are very useful.

Note: The reports listed below are only available for On-premise customers. While these custom reports are simple
SQL queries used to extract and expose already existing data, we recommend caution when implementing the code
and/or changing any configuration element. Flexera does not take responsibility for any data loss or errors that might
occur.

Virtualization Discovery and Inventory Report

Understanding the gaps in inventory is a never-ending activity for the SAM Manager, particularly for virtualized
environments which change frequently, are complex to track, and are a high risk for compliance. Virtualized
environments deserve strong attention and adequate reporting. This custom report offers:

• A first "Virtualization Discovery Details (NR)" custom view that provides detailed information on Hypervisors
(vCenters, HyperV, Oracle VMs hosts, ESX servers) that have been discovered online by the beacons

• A second “Virtualization Overview incl. vCenters (NR)” view provides a deep level of detailed information on the
vCenter. It lists the vCenters, Clusters, Hosts and Virtual Machines, including the virtual machines not inventoried.

These two views bring the following value:

• If you compare the list of active vCenters of the first view with the list of inventoried vCenters in the second, you know
where you should focus your vCenter inventory effort

• The second view gives the list of vCenters and their links to Clusters, hosts and VMs. This can be useful for Oracle
(where Oracle Database are supposed to be licensed at vCenter level for versions of vCenter greater than 5.0)

• Identifies VMs that are managed by inventoried vCenters but not inventoried by FlexNet Inventory Manager or other
inventory tools (and that have no record in the All Inventory page). These VMs are flagged as “Not Inventoried”.

Note: To generate these reports, see Knowledge Base article #26485.

SAM Objects Historical Changes Report

FlexNet Manager Suite provides advanced change tracking capabilities that can be accessed in the History tab in the
properties pages for inventory devices, licenses, contract, and purchases.

The view below shows a central overview of all changes that have been applied to the licenses, purchase orders and
contracts.

66 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Reporting & Governance Workstream

Note: To generate this report, see Knowledge Base #26486.

Entity by Entity Compliance Detailed Report

In complex situations where licenses can cover overlapping application versions, the three views below give a very
useful overview of purchases and consumption.

This custom view provides:

• Local purchases, consumptions, and balance (including balance cost using the license override cost or last purchase
order line per right cost)

• Rolled up purchases, consumptions and balances (as displayed in the Group Assignment tab of license properties)

• Build a detailed pivot table to analyze large quantities of information. Use columns such as:

◦ Entities hierarchies

◦ Main product covered by the license or list of products

◦ Main product with edition

◦ Entity: level 1, 2, 3, 4

◦ Entity full path

◦ Sorting column (License Name/Entity path) to re-establish the hierarchy

◦ List of installations covered by the license.

These views apply user access restrictions the same way as the "Group Assignment" does in a license detail. The view
can be exported to Excel and a Pivot table can be created to provide enhanced analysis and filtering capabilities.

Note: To generate this report, see Knowledge Base article #23753.

Device Evidences Custom View

Management of application recognition is an advanced area that requires sometimes analysis and tracing back to
objects that are not always visible in FlexNet Manager Suite for performance reasons, such as:

• File evidences

• Installer (add remove programs typically)

• And WMI evidences (used to identify applications that have no reliable file or installer evidences (SQL Server (for
Editions), Windows).

The present view can be imported in FlexNet Manager Suite custom views using Microsoft SQL Server Management
Studio with a Power User on the FlexNet Manager Platform Database (that can create stored procedures and views
records).

Note: To generate this report, see Knowledge Base article #23948.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 67
Reporting & Governance Workstream

Allocation Automation for FlexNet Manager SaaS Devices

The goal of this solution is to automate the allocation of unallocated devices according to IP address, domain name or
computer name. To allow advanced scripting you can use local SQL Express Staging Database on a connected FlexNet
Beacon to run the scripts before uploading the data back to the SaaS instance using a classical beacon integration.

Note: FlexNet Manager Suite you does not allow direct connection to the SaaS (and multitenant) database, therefore
the following custom reports are only available for On-Premise installations of FlexNet Manager Suite .

The approach is the following:

• A first importer (importIPToCorpUnitMapping.xmll), imports the reference data. This report runs manually whenever
the allocations rules changes and will need to be uploaded in the reference table.

• A second importer (AutomationForDevicesWithNoCorpUnitUpdate.xml) is scheduled by the Windows task scheduler

launching the /XXX/YYY/ZZZ.bat file every day. This reads in the SaaS Database and uploads the results “Servers with
No Corporate Units” view, loads the data into a local SQL Database and uses the allocation rules reference data
imported with another importer to allocate corporate units based on the IP Address, then the server domain, then the
name.

• Finally, a Business Importer scheduled from the beacon.

There are prerequisites to make this automation possible, such as enabling the web service API on the FlexNet Manager
SaaS instance, creating a Web Service account, installing a staging database or making it Business Adapter Studio
compatible.

Note: To generate this report, see Knowledge Base article #26487.

68 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Useful Resources

9
Useful Resources
FlexNet Manager Suite Online Help
It is a best practice to consult the FlexNet Manager Suite online help which can be accessed by clicking the Help icon
located in the top right-hand corner of FlexNet Manager Suite. Online Help contains complete product information
including license creation; configuring your web browser for an optimal experience; and working with management
views, discovery and inventory, evidences, applications, licenses, procurement, users and assets.

Flexera HelpNet
Flexera HelpNet is an online library of Flexera product documentation including user guides, installation guides and
release notes.

Customer Community Resources

Flexera’s Customer Community page offers resources such as:

• Knowledge Base — find answers to common questions such as product access, product FAQs, error documentation,
and problem resolution

• Forums — discuss and receive expert advice on all things related to Flexera products

You can login to the Community to submit support cases, propose product enhancements, access our Knowledge Base
and more.

Note: It is a best practice to always check Flexera’s Customer Community for new materials and product updates. The
practice guides will not dive deep into product enhancements, FlexNet Manager Suite versioning and other
configuration topics.

Flexera’s Learning Center

Flexera’s Learning Center is the place to go for product enablement and training materials, including the latest practice
guides. You can access the Learning Center via our Customer Community which is available to all customers free of
charge.

We recommend you review the following courses before using this practice guide:

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 69
Useful Resources

Table 2: Learning Path: Getting Started & Plan for Success with FlexNet Manager Suite

Course Role

Intro to FlexNet Manager Suite Solution Everyone

Plan for SAM Success with FNMS Project Manager

Align with SAM Industry Best Practices Software Asset Manager

SAM/ITAM Integration, Data Flow and Analysis Project Manager

Plan to Implement FNMS (Technical Planning) Project Manager

Introduction to FlexNet Manager Suite UI Everyone

Table 3: Learning Path: Inventory Normalization with FlexNet Manager Suite

Course Role

Managing the Organizational Structure in FNMS Hardware Asset Manager

Managing Users in FNMS Hardware Asset Manager

Introduction to Managing Hardware in FNMS Hardware Asset Manager

Managing Inventory Devices in FNMS Hardware Asset Manager

Managing Virtual & Remote Device Inventory in FNMS Hardware Asset Manager

Managing Hardware Assets in FNMS Hardware Asset Manager

Managing Discovered Devices in FNMS Hardware Asset Manager

Managing Applications to Improve your License Position in FNMS Hardware Asset Manager

Application Recognition in FNMS Hardware Asset Manager

Table 4: Learning Path: Establish a License Position in FlexNet Manager Suite

Course Role

License Entitlement Basics with FNMS Software Asset Manager

Create and Manage Purchases in FlexNet Manager Suite Software Asset Manager

Create an Initial License Position Software Asset Manager

Configure License Entitlements in FlexNet Manager Suite Software Asset Manager

Advanced License Properties in FNMS Software Asset Manager

Managing Contracts in FNMS Software Asset Manager

Subscriptions, Upgrades & Maintenance with FNMS Software Asset Manager

70 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Useful Resources

Table 5: Learning Path: License Analysis & Optimization with FlexNet Manager Suite

Course Role

FNMS License Reconciliation Overview Software Asset Manager

Licensing Virtual & Cloud Technologies in FNMS Software Asset Manager

Choosing the Right License Type in FNMS Software Asset Manager

Advanced License Configuration in FNMS Software Asset Manager

Configuring Product Use Rights in FNMS Software Asset Manager

License Usage & Analysis Optimization in FNMS Software Asset Manager

Bundle Licenses in FNMS Software Asset Manager

Bulk Allocations and Exemption in FNMS Software Asset Manager

Table 6: Learning Path: Publisher Specific Licensing with FlexNet Manager Suite

Course Role

Microsoft Licensing in FNMS Software Asset Manager

Office 365 in FNMS Software Asset Manager

Microsoft CALs in FNMS Software Asset Manager

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 71
Acronyms

10
Acronyms
Below is a list of useful acronyms:

Acronym Term in full

API Application Programming Interface

APR Application Portfolio Rationalization

ARL Application Recognition Library

BYOSL Bring Your Own Software License

CAL Client Access License

CMDB Configuration Management Database

COA Certificate of Authenticity

CPU Central Processing Unit

DR Disaster Recovery

EOL End of life

EOSL End of Service Life

ESX Elastic Sky X

FNMP FlexNet Manager Platform

FNMS FlexNet Manager Suite

FPP Full Packaged Product

IaaS Infrastructure as a Service

IBR Installed Base Report

KPI Key Performance Indicator

LDOMS Logical Domains

LIR License Intelligence Report

72 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Acronyms

Acronym Term in full

MLS Microsoft License Statement

NUP Named User Plus

OEM Original Equipment Manufacturer

OOTB Out of the Box

OVM Oracle Virtual Machine

PaaS Platform as a Service

POL Proof of License

PO Purchase Order

PURL Product Use Rights Library

SA Software Assurance

SaaS Software as a Service

SAM Software Asset Management

SKU Stock Keeping Unit

SLO Software License Optimization

SQL Structured Query Language

UI User Interface

UVU User Value Unit

WAS WebSphere Application Server

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 73
Appendix 1: Choosing the Right Inventory Method

11
Appendix 1: Choosing the Right
Inventory Method
Once you have made the decision to use our inventory capabilities, the next decision will be which method to use to
collect inventory using the FlexNet inventory agent.

The four primary methods of inventory collection used by FlexNet Manager Suite directly are:

1. Command Line (Remote and Local Command) Inventory

2. Full Agent Based Inventory

3. Network Scan

4. Manual One-Off Spreadsheet Inventory Import.

1. Command Line (Remote and Local Command) Inventory

Command line inventory, (sometimes referred to as “zero touch”) requires no agent to be installed but instead runs a
command line utility (ndtrack.exe or flexerainventoryscanner.exe) from a remote location such as a network share, or
from a local copy of the executable.

• Command Line inventory from a login script or existing batch file mechanism

• Launched from any existing remote execution tool

• Manually from the command prompt of the local system

• Use an existing deployment tool to copy NDTRACK files locally and create a local schedule task to run an inventory
regularly.

Command line inventory uses the same executable from the full inventory agent but is called from a direct command line
instead of a schedule on the fully installed agent. This inventory agent will collect a complete hardware and software
inventory and does not collect software usage details.

There are two executables which can be used for command line inventory: ndtrack.exe and the
FlexeraInventoryScanner.exe. There are versions for Windows and a shell script (ndtrack.sh) for non-windows systems.

Note: The agent and all associated dll’s are also combined into one self-executable Inventory Scanner for ease of use

74 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Appendix 1: Choosing the Right Inventory Method

“FlexeraInventoryScanner.exe”. This makes it much easier to distribute and use as it requires maintaining only one file
which will contain all needed components for a full inventory.

A common configuration is to upload collected inventory to an inventory beacon where it will automatically be forwarded
to the central server for FlexNet Manager Suite. It can conveniently be called from another tool, allowing powerful and
configurable inventory collection without the overhead of deploying another agent. Command line options can be
configured to expand and configure the behavior of the inventory agent including options such as including CAL usage
collection, turning on or off hardware or software inventory, designating a location to upload the inventory to and many
more options.

For a complete list of options available for the inventory agent please refer to the "FlexNetInventoryAgentAndMDs.pdf"
available for download from the Product & Licensing Center.

Common scenarios when the Command line method should be used of inventory collection:

• high frequency scanning for sub-capacity licensing is not required

• If you only require targeted data collection as supplemental inventory (for example, SQL Server editions)

• Environments restrictions prohibit usage of another agent

• VDI templates that are provisioned in XenDesktop for reference inventory

• If fine grain control of execution using command line parameters is required.

Limitations of the command line inventory collection method:

• Requires InventorySettings.XML for Oracle introspection

• Cannot be used in IBM sub-capacity licensing scenarios

• Cannot track usage of applications using standalone binaries.

2. Full Agent Based Inventory

Agent-based inventory requires the Managed Device agent installed on the system being inventoried. This provides more
dynamic control of the agent, allowing the agent to be self-sufficient and auto-updating, as well as automatically
scheduling inventory collection and uploads.

• Manually deploy agent

• Deploy agent with existing 3rd Party Deployment Tool

• Use FlexNet Remote Adoption to Deploy Agent.

The full FlexNet inventory agent can be deployed from UI using rules/actions and targets or deployed using third party
tools.

File evidence collection and scan paths are configured in the UI and passed on to the agent through the settings. During
agent installation, it downloads the settings, policy and schedules from the beacon. Once the schedules are in place, the
agent will collect and return inventory at the scheduled time. The same command line options available for the command
line are also configurable for the agent-based inventory tool. Please refer to the "FlexNetInventoryAgentAndMDs.pdf"
document. If usage tracking is enabled, it will track processes that are launched and upload the usage data periodically.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 75
Appendix 1: Choosing the Right Inventory Method

3. Network Scan
Network scanning is used when specialized technology inventories such as Oracle and VMware inventories use different
executables and are often run as remote command line from the FlexNet Beacon.

• Uses the FlexNet Beacon to remotely scan a network for discovery

• Uses the FlexNet Beacon to remotely execute commands to collect inventory

• Good when local execution or local install of agents is not allowed

• Requires credentials be set on the inventory beacon for each inventory type

• Requires security hurdles be overcome to allow remote execution on systems.

FlexNet Manager Suite uses network connections to scan for specific inventories. This includes scanning to discover
what’s out there, as well as remote network execution of commands to collect detailed inventory from certain sources.
While many of these inventory sources can also be scanned with a local agent, some can only be collected via the network
scanning method.

Here is a short table of the inventory types that use remote network scanning:

Inventory Source Remote Network Scan Local FlexNet Manager

Agent

General Hardware/Software Inventory, incl. desktop/ Yes Yes

server applications, IBM, Oracle, and so on.

Oracle Database and Options Yes Yes

Virtual Desktops (Citrix) Yes

Virtual Applications (Citrix, App-V) No Yes

SQL Server Editions Yes Yes

Virtual Servers (VMWare vCenter & Clusters, Oracle VM) Yes No

IBM sub-capacity Inventory No Yes

Application Usage No Yes

Note: IBM Inventory technically could be collected using Network Remote Execution, but because of the requirements
for frequent inventory every 30 minutes, and because of the unreliability of remote execution to adhere to these
requirements, it is not recommended to use remote execution for inventory collection on systems with IBM license
requirements, especially when replacing ILMT for sub-capacity licensing.

4. Manual One-Off Spreadsheet Inventory Import.

• Uses inventory import templates

• Good for one-off imports from systems where no inventory agent is available

• Can be used to import from a 3rd party system for which no default inventory adapter is available.

Note: A fully installed agent-based solution is required to collect software usage statistics.

76 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Appendix 1: Choosing the Right Inventory Method

Among many supported methods of importing software and hardware inventory details, FlexNet Manager Suite supports
the import of inventory information in either comma-separated value (.csv) files, or Microsoft Excel spreadsheets (.xlsx
files).

There are several reasons you might choose to use the one-off inventory import method, including:

• One-off inventory imports are used for systems that are not allowed to have an inventory agent installed

• To represent systems that are not on the current network but represent systems that need to be managed from an
inventory stand point.

Inventory spreadsheets can be imported in one of two ways:

• A 'one-off' import through the web interface of FlexNet Manager Suite

• A repeatable, scheduled import through an inventory beacon.

The formats of these imported files are fixed and defined by downloadable templates. The documentation of each of
these templates, and the mapping of all the spreadsheet columns to the compliance database, is included in the
"Inventory Spreadsheet Templates" chapter of the companion volume, FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 Schema Reference
PDF available through the title page of online help.

Inventory Comparison Matrix

Inventory Supported OOTB Tier 2 Desktop MAC WinTel Linux Oracle IBM Additional
Source Versions (Services Server UNIX PVU Comments
Supported)

FlexNet 8.5–9.2, Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Multiple

inventory 2014–2019 connection types
agent R1 (Agent and
Agentless) are
available. If IBM is
to be collected, a
full agent must be
used.

BMC 9.0, Yes Yes Yes

Discovery 10.0–10.2,
(ADDM) 11.0–11.3

Casper JAMF Yes Yes Adapter requires

customization at
each
implementation
to validate it
works with the
Casper and
FlexNet Manager
Suite version.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 77
Appendix 1: Choosing the Right Inventory Method

Inventory Supported OOTB Tier 2 Desktop MAC WinTel Linux Oracle IBM Additional
Source Versions (Services Server UNIX PVU Comments
Supported)

HP 9.30 Yes Yes Yes Yes DDMI has been

Discovery known to cause
and duplicate devices
Dependency due to how
Mapping Serial, Domain,
(DDMI) and Hostname
are collected.

HPE 10.10, Yes Yes Yes Yes

Universal 10.11,
Discovery 10.33, 11.1
(HP-UD)

IBM BigFix 9.0, 9.1 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Only used for IBM
Inventory software. The
primary use case
is for IBM PVU
licenses.

IBM BigFix 9.2.5–9.2.14 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Only used for IBM
Inventory on software. The
IBM DB2 primary use case
is for IBM PVU
licenses.

IBM BigFix 8.2–9.5.11 Yes Yes Yes Yes

Platform
(previously
Tivoli
Endpoint
Manager) on
Microsoft
SQL Server

IBM ILMT on 9.0, 9.1, Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Only used for IBM
IBM DB2 9.2.5–9.2.14 software. The
primary use case
is for IBM PVU
licenses.

IBM ILMT on 9.2.3–9.2.14 Yes Yes Yes Yes Only used for IBM
Microsoft software. The
SQL Server primary use case
is for IBM PVU
licenses.

78 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Appendix 1: Choosing the Right Inventory Method

Inventory Supported OOTB Tier 2 Desktop MAC WinTel Linux Oracle IBM Additional
Source Versions (Services Server UNIX PVU Comments
Supported)

Microsoft 2007, 2012, Yes Yes Yes While SCCM

SCCM 2012 R2, supports WinTEL
(previously 1511–1810 servers, it is not
SMS) recommended
for them as it is
unable to collect
SQL Edition.

ServiceNow • Geneva Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes It is important to

note that
• Helsinki
ServiceNow does
• Istanbul not collect file
evidence and
• Jakarta therefore is not a
recommended
• Kingston
source.
• London.

Symantec IT 6.5, 7.1, 7.5 Yes Yes

Management
Suite
(Altiris)

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 79
Appendix 2: Managing Upgrade, Subscription and Maintenance Entitlements

12
Appendix 2: Managing Upgrade,
Subscription and Maintenance
Entitlements
This appendix explains the meaning of maintenance, subscription and upgrade licenses and provides best practices for
managing these licenses in FlexNet Manager Suite. The below chart outlines the similarities and differences between
these license types.

License Type Perpetual Non-Perpetual Base license Upgrade rights to Must remove all
(never expires) (has expiry required new versions versions when
dates) releases license expires

Maintenance Yes Yes Yes

Subscriptions Yes Yes Yes

Upgrades Yes Yes

Managing Subscription Entitlements

Subscriptions differ from perpetual licenses in that they can only be used for a specific period (while you are paying for
the subscription). Once the subscription expires, you are no longer allowed to use the software. However, there may be
exceptions to this rule (some software installed while having an active Microsoft MSDN subscription can continue to be
used after the subscription expires). Subscriptions are similar to perpetual software with maintenance. Both enable the
user to install and use the latest version of the software. The difference is when the subscription expires the user is no
longer able to use the software. When maintenance expires, the user is still able to use the software at the version level
that was available when the maintenance expired.

Processing a Software Subscription Purchase

To easily manage subscription licenses, a purchase type of “software subscription” is available within FlexNet Manager
Suite. This purchase type allows to easily capture both effective and expiry dates when entering a new purchase.

80 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Appendix 2: Managing Upgrade, Subscription and Maintenance Entitlements

Process for Expiring or Expired Subscription Entitlements

Renew all or partial entitlements of the Software Subscription. If renewing the subscription, create a new purchase (with
new effective and expiry dates and purchase type of “software subscription”) and link it to the existing expired license.

Choose Not to Renew a Software Subscription

If you do not renew, you should verify the following:

• The quantity applied to the license will automatically change to zero (0) after the expiration date.

• The Planned non-renewal check box must be selected on the Compliance tab of the license.

• The License Status on the Identification tab should be manually updated to "retired". While this is not required for
compliance, it is considered a best practice.

Managing Maintenance Entitlements

In addition to selling perpetual software, vendors sell software maintenance entitlements. One primary advantage of
purchasing maintenance entitlements is the ability to upgrade the software to newer versions. In addition to getting
upgrade rights, the vendor may offer other use rights, such as Microsoft’s maintenance program named Software
Assurance (SA) which includes a host of additional benefits. For more details, visit https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/
licensing/licensing-programs/software-assurance-default.aspx.

There are three possible options to manage maintenance entitlements:

• Create one license and then create different contracts matching each of the maintenance’s expiry dates. Then manage
the maintenance entitlements using the contracts.

• Create one license and navigate to the License and Maintenance Expiry page to manage the different expiry dates.

Note: This feature is only available in FlexNet Manager Suite 2016 R1 and later.

• Create as many licenses as there are maintenance expiry months. This is not recommended as reporting and
managing licenses becomes very difficult.

To create a maintenance purchase with a base entitlement it is recommended to use the Create a Purchase wizard on
the Procurement tab, using the vendor’s SKU. This method allows the correct purchase type of Software to appear
and automatically selects the Maintenance check box.

Publishers’ SKUs should always be used if possible when creating a purchase. The FlexNet Manager Suite SKU library
knows whether the entitlement includes maintenance, and how the software is measured for compliance (device,
named user, processor, and core). The SKU can then be used to choose the proper license model from the PURL which
defines the use rights.

To process a maintenance/upgrade purchase, a base entitlement must already exist. If the base entitlement does exist,
the maintenance/upgrade purchase can be linked to it. A base entitlement is a traditional perpetual license that is
required for an upgrade (either version or edition) or maintenance license to be applied. If a base entitlement doesn’t
exist, you have the following options:

• Assume the company has purchased the base license. Create a base license representing the current position. No
further attempt is made to find the base license.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 81
Appendix 2: Managing Upgrade, Subscription and Maintenance Entitlements

• The same as above, except the base license is later replaced with the actual license.

• Maintenance/Upgrade purchase cannot be processed so the purchase will need to be deferred. Locate the base
license and process it in FlexNet Manager Suite. Once complete, the maintenance/upgrade purchase can be
processed and linked to the base license.

Process for Expiring or Expired Software Maintenance

When maintenance is about to expire, or has expired, you have a few options available: renew the maintenance (in full or
partially) or do not renew the maintenance.

If the decision is made not to renew all the maintenance for a license, all use rights that required active maintenance will
no longer be granted. Therefore, the name of the license will need to be updated. The Expired license name should be
edited (the word “Maintenance" or “SA” should be removed and the word “Current” replaced with the latest qualified
version of the software).

If the decision is made to renew the maintenance, a new maintenance only purchase (with new effective & expiry dates
and purchase type of “Software Maintenance”) should be entered in FlexNet Manager Suite. The SKU library knows the
SKU is a maintenance only purchase and doesn’t apply any new license entitlements. In addition, the maintenance
check box will be automatically selected.

If the maintenance was only renewed for a partial number of licenses, the following should occur:

• Once the partial maintenance only purchase is processed and attached to the appropriate license, there will be a gap
in the number of licenses with maintenance from those without maintenance

• The license maintenance should reflect the furthest most date that any maintenance expires

• The licenses without maintenance will need to be moved to a new or existing license that doesn’t provide use rights
that are associated with maintenance (for example, upgrade rights). Please use the process from the Split License
Entitlements section below.

Alerts for Gap in Maintenance

FlexNet Manager Suite will alert you when the quantity of licenses does not match the quantity of maintenance attached
to the license. This is considered a “Gap in Maintenance”. This gap can result from maintenance expiring on a license and
that maintenance is not being renewed or only partially renewed.

If you know that you do not plan on renewing the maintenance on a particular license, you can manually select the
Planned Non-renewal check box on the Compliance tab of the license. This prevents you from receiving maintenance
expiry alerts on this license.

Split License Entitlements

If a license has entitlements with current maintenance as well as entitlements with expired maintenance, then this
license will generate an alert representing the gap in maintenance coverage. Therefore, these two entitlements can no
longer be managed under one license and must be split apart (one with maintenance and one without). A "Move
Maintenance" wizard was created for this specific function.

82 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Appendix 2: Managing Upgrade, Subscription and Maintenance Entitlements

Managing Upgrade Entitlements

Upgrade purchases are unique because they require a base license where the upgrade can be applied. Upgrade
purchases can either allow the user to upgrade to a newer version or a different edition. For example, Acrobat 6
Standard is the base license required to upgrade the version to Acrobat 9 Standard.

Upgrade purchases may appear to be similar to maintenance because both need a base license before they can be
processed, however upgrade purchases are often applied to perpetual licenses and do not need to be renewed, whereas
maintenance entitlements are purchased in a similar way to subscriptions with effective and expiry dates.

The quantity of base entitlements for the version you want to upgrade from must be verified. If they match the number
of upgrade licenses purchased, the purchase can be processed and applied to the existing base license. If there are fewer
upgrade licenses than base entitlements, the entitlements will need to be split. The quantity of base entitlements
without an upgrade will stay as is. The quantity of base entitlements with the upgrade will be moved to create a new
license.

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 83
Appendix 3: Custom Report Object Tables

13
Appendix 3: Custom Report Object
Tables
• Allocation

• Application

• Category

• Cluster

• Contract

• Contract document

• Contract history

• Contract note

• Corporate structure

• Cost center

• Document note

• Hardware asset

• Installation

• Inventory device

• License

• Location

• Oracle instance

• Oracle option

• Payment

• Payment schedule

84 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Appendix 3: Custom Report Object Tables

• Purchase

• Purchase order

• Responsibility

• Suite

• Suite members

• Term/Condition

• User

• Vendor

• Vendor contact

• Virtual machine

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 85
Appendix 4: Logical Data Models Between Object Tables

14
Appendix 4: Logical Data Models
Between Object Tables
The following diagrams display the logical data models between object tables:

Figure 4: Logical Data Model - Simplified High Level View

86 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Appendix 4: Logical Data Models Between Object Tables

Figure 5: Logical Data Model Overview - Asset

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 87
Appendix 4: Logical Data Models Between Object Tables

Figure 6: Logical Data Model Overview - Inventory Device

88 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Appendix 4: Logical Data Models Between Object Tables

Figure 7: Logical Data Model Overview - Software Title

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 89
Appendix 4: Logical Data Models Between Object Tables

Figure 8: Logical Data Model Overview - License

90 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Appendix 4: Logical Data Models Between Object Tables

Figure 9: Logical Data Model Overview - Purchase Order

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 91
Appendix 4: Logical Data Models Between Object Tables

Figure 10: Logical Data Model Overview - Contract

92 Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential
 Appendix 4: Logical Data Models Between Object Tables

Figure 11: Logical Data Model Overview - User

Software License Optimization Practice Guide FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 | Company Confidential 93