ITAM has always been an integral part of most company’s strategic planning and decision making because of two incredibly powerful objectives – managing cost and managing risk and doing so has never been easy, but as new technologies and more complex software licensing models have emerged and even become common place, managing your IT assets has become a lot more confusing and difficult.
One incredibly complex way that ITAM has evolved is how software assets are hosted and how those license types can differ from standard on-premises licenses. Software licenses in cloud environments can be confusing, often leading to poor visibility for companies regarding their expenses. It can be challenging to differentiate between the costs associated with software provided by the cloud vendor and the costs of the cloud infrastructure itself.
Flexera is proud to introduce a new ITAM weapon in Cloud License Management to combat this difficulty, shining a light in the darkness of managing your software licenses in the cloud and giving you visibility where there was none before. Identify cost saving opportunities, manage your bring your own license (BYOL) and multi-cloud positions, and reduce your compliance risk.
Visibility and tracking
Before you can make optimization decisions on your cloud software you first need an overview of what software you have, and where it’s located. With Flexera’s Cloud License Management offering you can gain clear visibility into your software spend across multiple cloud platforms, diving deeper into your spend by product or license model to gain complete visibility over your cloud software assets.
Underutilization and overprovisioning
Once you understand where your software is hosted and how much software you purchased it’s time to look at how much of your software is being utilized. Filter your software spend by product and take a deep dive into usage statistics based on your usage rates with vCPU hours and software utilization hours. Gain an understanding of which instances are costing you the most money and if the software that is allocated to those instances is being utilized – cut down on simply overprovisioning software licenses just in case you need them.
With the ability to have a breakdown of these statistics per instance you are in complete control of optimizing your cloud software spend.
Uncontrolled spending
Let’s face it, software is expensive, and with the ability to quickly spin up cloud instances, software spending can easily spiral out of control if not monitored. Unchecked usage of licenses, duplicated software, and hidden costs can add up rapidly without proper oversight. Having access to detailed, granular data on software spending at a per-instance level allows you to identify areas of waste, optimize usage, and ensure that you’re only paying for the resources you truly need. This visibility empowers better budgeting, informed decision-making, and ultimately leads to more efficient resource management.
License compliance
Ensuring licensing compliance is a crucial Software Asset Management (SAM) responsibility, with non-compliance resulting in hefty fines, and legal penalties that can destroy the budget of any business. Flexera’s Cloud License Management solution can help you maintain proper compliance and avoid unanticipated costs for your software in the cloud during a vendor audit. Get software insights by license model and product to get a firm understanding of your compliance position and seeing if you have a negative entitlement balance suggesting you’ve provisioned licenses and even see if you have opportunities to lower your cost by utilizing BYOL options.
Forecasting and planning
What about future spending? What if you could get ahead of your software renewals by having a clear understanding of historical spend data? Allocate your budgets more efficiently and avoid unexpected financial strain by utilizing Flexera’s Cloud License Management solution for all of your cloud software. Anticipate future software needs, optimize license usage, and prevent overspending by having a clear view of your historical cloud spend and software utilization.
Flexera’s ITAM solutions will save you more
There’s a reason Flexera has been a leader in providing ITAM services for over 30 years – we know what we’re doing. Our ITAM tools can help you optimize your software licenses, avoid penalties and compliance issues, improve your purchasing decisions and enable better budgeting and forecasting decisions. No matter the complexity of your ITAM environment—whether your software is hosted in the cloud, on-premises, through SaaS subscriptions, or if you need help reducing your HAM spend or addressing sustainability goals—Flexera has the right solution for you. We are committed to continuously innovating our offerings to anticipate and meet our customers’ evolving needs.
Want to learn more?
Schedule a demo to see how your business could benefit from Flexera’s Cloud License Management and start saving time and money on cloud software licenses today!
