Enterprise Vendor Audits and the Growth of SAM.
A recent report by ‘Research and Markets’ predicts the size of the global software asset management (SAM) market to reach ‘… $5,370.4 Million by 2027, rising at a market growth of 17.3% CAGR during the forecast period.’ (Research and Markets, March 2022).
The research suggests, that as business’s IT infrastructures are becoming more sophisticated, IT professionals are looking for better ways to manage and optimise their software assets. Additionally, as more and more services are cloud-based (because of the overall cost-benefit and the shift to remote working due to the pandemic) the demand for ongoing cloud cost optimisation becomes increasingly essential.
The practice of software asset and cost management is not exclusively limited to software giants such as Oracle and Microsoft — with such a massive range of software vendors pervasive within businesses, ongoing SAM methodologies are necessary for all vendors to reduce cost and the risk of an audit, and improve vendor relationships.
I have highlighted the top four software vendors where we see an increase in vendor audit activity in the market in 2022 and where the greatest cost optimisation opportunities might exist.
IBM
An IBM license review request is a certainty. If you have an IBM Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) you will need to make a self-declaration or ‘soft audit’ before you renew, generally after three years.
Getting ready for this phase in your contract will lessen the disruption of an audit on daily operations and the burden on your IT resources. Our blog entitled ‘Seven Considerations for Planning for an IBM Software License Review’ highlights some key steps to consider when planning for your IBM Software License Review.
Microfocus
Microfocus (acquired by OpenText 31st January ’23) are known in the industry to audit their customers on a frequent basis and employ external audit partners to conduct a Microfocus license verification.
The most complex audits can be attributed to acquisition sourced legacy software where dated pre-cloud policies are open to interpretation. Having plans in place for such an eventuality would be beneficial, particularly if your estate contains legacy software or your ongoing SAM management has been less than perfect in the past.
Veritas
Veritas (much like any enterprise vendor) is perfectly within their rights to audit their customers however, an unexpected audit request can still create extra work and stress for any organisation, particularly if you do not have a thorough SAM process in place.
The disposal from Symantec in 2015 left NetBackup as a key product in the Veritas company collection. Unfortunately, and anecdotally, not all the entitlement paperwork made it across with the disposal, so, for those customers with a long history of product usage, it is more important than ever to ensure you have all your entitlement paperwork to hand in the event of an audit to defend against potentially erroneous false positive ELP conclusions.
Red Hat
Red Hat provides a ‘support subscription’ licensing metric as opposed to buying a license — a distinction that can often confuse clients, creating additional risk and/or cost. This support subscription licensing could potentially impact how you choose to manage your subscriptions and can complicate matters further when deploying Red Hat in the cloud.
Purchasing Red Hat subscriptions is also easy and relatively inexpensive compared to other software licenses. Consequently, this can lead to inefficient subscriptions, non-compliance, and poor subscription management.
There are a number of subscription management pitfalls that clients can encounter — understanding how to sidestep these and choose the most efficient licensing method for your environment and workload is key to managing Red Hat cost and risk.
Summary
The well-known quote by Benjamin Franklin “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!” in this scenario it is true — having a ‘break glass’ vendor audit plan in place will save valuable time and effort and significantly reduce the number of sleepless nights!
Regardless of the vendor, whether it’s any of the above mentioned, Microsoft or Oracle, having a plan in place will give you control over what can be a stressful situation and reduce the risk and potential unbudgeted cost that can occur as a result of an ‘out of the blue’ audit request.
As experts in SAM, cloud cost optimisation and vendor audit defence, our license experts can help to design and implement a vendor audit strategy ready to deploy when a request is received. Or, if you are in the process of being audited and need help, we can provide vendor audit support where our client-side approach aims to achieve the best possible outcomes for your business.
Our license experts have created the whitepaper ‘Key Considerations and Preparation Strategies for a Vendor Audit’ where we share specific examples of vendor audit planning, how to reduce the probability of a vendor audit and the overall benefits of a SAM program.
Alternatively, go to our website or contact us with any questions.
About the Author:
Jason Pepper is the Head of SAM Practice here at Version 1.
