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Information About IBM Licensing

Posted on by Ben Tight

IBM licensing can easily overwhelm you, with so many different definitions and rules, it’s like learning a more complicated and even nerdier version of Klingon.

Where do you even begin?

At MetrixData 360 , we pride ourselves in diving deep into complicated licensing issues and understanding even the most complex scenarios. We often help our clients successfully navigate these complex terms. So, in this blog post we will go through a quick overview of IBM licensing for beginners because despite how it looks, software contracts don’t have to be a confusing affair.

Types of IBM Users

There are many different types of users in IBM’s books:

Authorized User

An Authorized User is someone who is given access to the Program. The Program in question may be installed on multiple computers or servers and the Authorized User can access multiple instances of the Program at once.
As an Authorized User, you are not limited to a single device or a single instance of the program. If I wanted to open a piece of IBM software that I was an Authorized User to on every desktop in my workspace at the same time, I could.

Each Authorized User must have their own separate entitlements in order to access the Program in any manner directly or indirectly, such as through a multiplexing program, device, or application server. Authorized User entitlements cannot be shared with other people unless permanently transferred.

However, some IBM programs license devices so that they are considered users. In which case, any device that “requests the execution of or receives for execution a set of commands, procedures, or applications from the Program or that is otherwise managed by the Program” must be licensed as if that device were a person.

Takeaway Points:

  • Authorized Users can access the Program from multiple computers and can access multiple instances of the Program at the same time.
  • Authorized Users cannot share their entitlements with another person.
  • In certain programs, devices that interact with the program must be licensed as if they were a person.

Concurrent Users

A Concurrent User is defined as any person who is accessing the Program at any given time. A Concurrent User may access the Program multiple times, they still only count as one Concurrent User.

While the program may be installed on multiple servers, what‘s important is that you license your program based on the maximum number of Concurrent Users that have accessed the program.

So, if you have 1,000 employees — 500 working days and 500 working nights — as long as there’s no way they could overlap, then you only need to license for 500 Concurrent Users.

Just like with Authorized Users, there are programs that are licensed so that devices are considered users. Any device that “requests the execution of or receives for execution a set of commands, procedures, or applications from the Program or that is otherwise managed by the Program” needs to be licensed as if it was a person.

Takeaway Points

  • Concurrent User metric is based on the number of users at any given time
  • A Concurrent User can access the program multiple times and still be considered only one Concurrent User.
  • For some programs, devices that interact with the Program will need to be licensed like a person.

Floating Licences

A floating license is connected to either a hostname/ID or a machine’s address.

A Floating License is for a single software product, which can then be shared between team members, with the number of concurrent users not allowed to exceed the number of floating licenses you have.

To use the floating license, you need to have a floating license key, which then any user of the organization can use to access the product at any given time. The server will then respond to the request of the key and then grants access based on the number of licenses the organization has.

A Floating User is a unique person who can access the program in question from a variety of different points, however, to simultaneously access the program from multiple points will require separate entitlements.

Takeaway Points

  • Floating licenses can be shared between users.
  • If the number of users matches the number of licenses the organization owns, anyone else wishing to use a floating license must wait until one of its current users has logged off.

Resource Value Unit (RVU) and Processor Value Unit (PVU)

Resource Value Unit (RVU) is a unit of measurement with which IBM licenses its Programs. RVU Proofs of Entitlement revolves around the number of units of a specific resource that is used or managed by the program in question. Each program has specific RVU entitlements and in no way can you exchange, interchange, or aggregate RVU entitlements with that of another program.

Processor Value Unit (PVU) on the other hand is a unit of measurement used to determine the cost of licensing IBM middleware products, based on the type of processor that is on the server where the software is held.

The number of PVUs required is unique to the specific server and is based on the processor’s technology and the number of processor cores on a chip in the server. It is used for licensing at Sub-capacity, which brings us into our next topic.

Find Out How Much ILMT-as-a-Service Can Save You

Capacity and Sub-Capacity: ILMT and Me

IBM’s Sub-capacity licensing is an excellent way for businesses to save money. Essentially, using a PVU count will allow you to only partially license a server with an IBM product installed on the server. You will only need to license the individual processors that the product will use, based on the number of chips that each processor carries.

However, in order to make sure that the product doesn’t cross that invisible line and is installed across the whole server, IBM makes it mandatory for those using sub-capacity licensing to have ILMT installed.

ILMT is a tool designed to help companies conduct inventory and maintenance of PVU-based software that is licensed at sub-capacity. ILMT is a delicate dance and failing to play by all the rules when it comes to ILMT will leave you being licensed at full capacity during your next IBM software audit:

  • You need to have ILMT installed within 90 days of the first use of products eligible for sub-capacity licensing.
  • ILMT must be maintained and up to date in order to determine consumption. If ILMT is not maintained, not fully or incorrectly deployed across your products, then you could lose your sub-capacity status.
  • You need to generate and keep quarterly reports from ILMT.
  • ILMT also has its limits on the accuracy of its reporting capabilities.

More information about ILMT and IBM Software Audits.

Common IBM Licensing Mistakes

As confusing as IBM licenses its products, it no wonder that there are a few common slips ups people always fall into, such as:

Messing up Sub-Capacity Licensing

Sub-Capacity Licensing proves to be one of the easiest mistakes for IBM customers to fall into. Sometimes customers do not realize they need to have ILMT installed in order to use sub-capacity licensing or if they have ILMT installed it is easily not accurately deployed or not deployed in all the areas it needs to in order to keep your company safe during an IBM audit.

Underestimating the Complexity

This article only covers the tip of the IBM licensing iceberg, with so many licensing types and metrics, it can easily get overwhelming, which is why it is important that you don’t give the management to these licenses to just a single person, or worse yet, a single person who is already has a full-time role.

To effectively get the job done, you’ll need someone who can fully own the project (or a team depending on the size of your company).

Related: Hire a Software Asset Management Expert or Do it Yourself? The Pros and Cons of Each.

Get Your IBM Licensing Under Control

IBM licensing can be a tricky business but as confusing as it can be, it is important to understand these licensing requirements in order to adhere to them to the best of your company’s ability. Of course, there is no shame in feeling overwhelmed because this isn’t a one-person job.

Software asset management, especially for companies of larger sizes, can easily become the full-time job of a team of people.

At MetrixData 360, we’ve helped our clients out of the toughest software related issues, IBM being only one of our major successes. To learn more and find out how we saved one of our clients nearly 20% of their IBM budget, you can check out our IBM page.

Book a Meeting with Our IBM Licensing Specialist

Best Software Asset Management Solution: Picking the Right SAM Expert

Posted on by Ben Tight

How to Tell if Your Third-Party SAM Provider is Giving You Quality Results

When you consider purchasing a third-party Software Asset Management provider or hiring a SAM Expert, you want to be able to tell you’ve made a good selection, but the industry is quite new and the results are barely more tangible than numbers on a bottom line or an upwards arrow on a graph, which anyone with a basic level of Excel can create. So, what sort of metric can you apply to see if these software fast-talkers and SAM tool makers are up to the task of handling your intricate software environment? At MetrixData 360, we hold ourselves to certain standards that we have noticed not everyone in the industry adheres to. So, today we’ll discuss what good third-party SAM providers look like.

Their Focus is to Get You to the End Result

There are plenty of SAM tool sellers in the market today whose tool will provide you with plenty of fancy charts and very shallow, surface-level answers. Usually, third-party SAM experts will only give you insight into the compliance of a single product, which can easily prove to be a single piece in a very large puzzle. Their main goal is to get you to sign another contract; to get you on as a regular customer, regardless of whether you have the answer that you were looking for or not. A good SAM provider needs to provide you with real, tangible results. At MetrixData 360, our entire SAM process is arranged around how to quickly and effectively get you the results you need by taking a holistic approach to software asset management. We walk you through the entire process, from gathering your data to using that data to find the most cost-effective way to buy the products you need. We provide you with a full look into your software environment, over multiple products to provide you with the answers you’re looking for.

SAM Experts that Understand the Vendors

Your relationship with your software vendor is delicate and it is mission critical that it is maintained. Many companies depend solely on their software vendor for assistance in making spending decisions and changing vendors can be difficult (think pulling-your-own-spine-out-of-your-mouth levels of difficult), if not completely impossible. If your vendor is providing you with software that is critical to your business or so thoroughly deployed throughout your software environment that you simply cannot change vendors, then contract renewals will feel like a shakedown. When you’re caught in a software audit there’s the urge to simply and passively nod your way through it.

However, this type of relationship is hardly beneficial to you, especially since the vendor’s goals are to sell, sell, sell. They have quotas to meet and they do not have the interests of your company and your business needs in mind, not when it runs up against their bottom line. It is important that your SAM experts understand the nature of this relationship and knows how to navigate it regardless of whether you are stuck in the middle of a software audit or you need to maneuver through a contract negotiation. There are many SAM experts in the market whose goal is to just keep the vendor happy, even if that means sacrificing your own interests. At MetrixData 360, we have plenty of experience handling the software vendors. Our CEO, Mike Austin, actually spent 20 years working for Microsoft, until he left and started working to help Microsoft’s customers navigate the tech giant’s impossible-to-understand licensing rules. We know the vendor, but our goals are your objectives. We act as your secret weapon since many software vendors get defensive when they learn you’ve hired a third party. They don’t even know we’re there; we just tell you what to say, give you all the data you need to effectively say it, and then it just looks like your company did it all yourself.

Related: Conduct Software Asset Management Solutions and develop a healthier relationship with your vendor.

 

They Have the Technology and Skills to Back Up Their Claims

There are plenty of SAM tool vendors who, like the software vendors, just want to sell regardless of whether what they’re selling will get you the results you need. The problem is that many people do not understand what software asset management is or how it works. So, when a sweet-talking salesman offers them 60% savings every year for as long as you have their discovery tool installed, it may sound like a tempting offer. However, it’s important to take such a bold claim with a skeptical eye.

The truth is that installing a discovery tool does not create a complete software asset management solution. It is part of the solution, but it won’t take you the whole way. Discovery tools are what they sound like, they show you what is in your software environment in a very high-level sense. Imagine you are standing on top of the Empire State Building, looking over New York City and a man is standing next to you and he says, ‘there are 91,000 people in New York City who are homeless right now,’ and then he walks away. If you want to go and help those homeless people, the man has actually given you very little to work with. You don’t know where they are or why they are homeless, and you now have the entirety of New York to search through in order to find them all.

That’s what a SAM tool does, it gives you an outline of the problems in your software environment. What it doesn’t provide you with is a strategy in going about fixing any of those problems. We have seen many organizations who attempted software asset management simply using a discovery tool and found that they were completely overwhelmed by the data their discovery tool had found for them. They didn’t know what to do with the data and they eventually got too tired and quit. That is why you need someone to manage your SAM solution; someone who can take the data that the man standing on the Empire State Building gives you and say, ‘OK, first we’ll check all the parks for homeless people. Then this bridge in Queens that I know of. There are some homeless shelter workers that we can talk to who will know something. We should also consult the food banks.’

At MetrixData 360, our tools were designed not to sell you more tools, but to make sure you save money at every available opportunity. We also offer our skills in managing your tools, so that we can guide your SAM solution.

Related: We have the tools you need to create a clean software environment.

 

A SAM Experts’ Goal is to Empower you

In the old days, software asset management experts were only called upon during an emergency: a software audit, or an EA renewal, and their work was centered around a specific event. They would do their magic, dress up your software environment for the occasion, and then head out when the event was over, leaving your software environment to fall prey to the poor management processes and the bad inventory habits that caused you to call them in the first place. Then at the next audit, what else can you do except call them again? This type of relationship does not allow you to get a handle on your software environment; what it does mean is that SAM expert has a gig every year. You want a SAM expert that can teach you long-term good habits that can ensure the implementations of strong software asset management. Which is why at MetrixData 360, we pride ourselves in not just being SAM experts but also SAM educators. We have blogs, YouTube channels, and webinars designed to teach you about strong SAM practices and how you can get your software environments under control. During our engagement with our clients we like to explain what we are doing and to make sure there is no mystery with our magic.

Want to Build your SAM Dream Team?

It’s important that you know what you’re signing up for when it comes to hiring your SAM expert, especially if this is your first time looking into hiring a professional. The last thing you want when you are stuck between a rock and a software audit is hiring a lack luster SAM expert with half answers and empty promises. At MetrixData 360, our goal is to be different, to give you the SAM solution you need in order to get your software environment under control. If you’re ready to see real results in your software asset management solution, contact us today!

Hard Savings vs. Soft Savings

Posted on by Ben Tight

Soft Savings vs. Hard Savings in Software Asset Management

 

Savings are what makes the software asset management world go ‘round; it’s what all the SAM tool vendors preach and it’s one of the main reasons people get into software asset management in the first place. Knowing the difference between hard savings vs. soft savings is an important component to getting the most value for your software dollar.

However, what exactly are you signing up for when you sign a deal with a SAM tool vendor, who is promising ‘savings’ in a high theory sense? What does ‘30% annual savings’ (or whatever your SAM tool vendor promises you) actually look like?

What are the types of savings that you actually see when you successfully implement software asset management?

At MetrixData 360, we are all about transparency and working with our customers to achieve strong tangible results. Here, we’ll look at what type of results you can expect from signing a deal with a SAM tool vendor and exactly what you can expect to save after a SAM implementation by diving into both hard and soft savings.

 

Hard and Soft Savings Defined

Hard Savings are easily tangible benefits to your bottom line; increased revenue streams and reduced costs. Soft Savings are indirect savings where the company reduces risk and exposure to compliance and legal costs. Watch our video below to see the best hard and soft savings areas we’ve discovered in our client’s IT environments.

Hard and Soft Savings Defined

See the 12 Best Hards and Soft Savings Areas You Can Target to Save Money In Your Organization.

Download our Hard and Soft Savings PDF for Free:

Hard Savings in Software Asset Management

 

Hard Savings are an inflow of cash that has a direct relationship to the bottom-line profits or losses. These are things like revenue enhancement (increasing the price of your product) or cost reduction (finding cheaper materials for your product or finding a way to manufacture your product faster).

Some examples of hard savings in SAM include:

Streamlining the Efforts of the IT Department

There are elements of software asset management that can help every area of the IT department, including:

  • Asset tracking
  • Effective asset disposal and replacement
  • Risk mitigation
  • Software security

Having an organized software environment means that there is less to manage, less to go searching for, fewer blind spots and less shadow IT that your IT department will constantly be compensating for.

No one is left scrambling to do a year’s job in a matter of months in the event of an audit or true-up. Best of all, IT is given the data they need to advocate for new software or for the replacement of old software.

Related: Want to know how Software Asset Management can create value for the rest of your company? Check out these articles: Partnering CFO and CIO: How to Use Tech to Save Money and How SAM Can Improve Your Cyber Security,

The Real Source of Hard Savings in Software Asset Management

The one area where software asset management can yield real results is in the fact that SAM equips you with the data you need to hand tailor your software contracts to match the specific needs of your software environment.

Without SAM, companies will be forced to guess how many licenses they need to purchase — guessing too high is a waste of money and guessing too low will leave you exposed to the heavy fines of an audit, both scenarios amounting to lost money.

Knowing exactly what you need takes the power out of the software vendor’s hands and levels the playing field, since not having SAM leaves you buying simply what your sales rep has told you to buy. As charming as a sales rep might be, they sit in a position that is adversarial to yours.

They want you to simply buy more while your goals are to buy only what you need to. You need to have your own knowledge to back up your purchases.

Soft Savings in Software Asset Management

Soft Savings are savings found through adding to the bottom-line profits or losses, these are usually intangible and difficult to measure. These are things like improving safety in your workplace to avoid accidents and to conform to new laws as they are passed, since failing to adhere to both can lead to heavy lawsuits.

Increasing employee satisfaction is another type of soft savings since this will lead to fewer people quitting and less time spent hiring and training a constant stream of replacements.

Software Asset Management is rich in soft savings, which is often why it is overlooked by many organizations since soft savings are more difficult to measure. That doesn’t take away from its value, especially when considering the following areas:

Track Arrivals, Movers, and Leavers for Soft Savings

Large organizations are composed of thousands of employees, new hires coming in, long-term employees retiring, or employees getting shuffled around from one department to another.

This constant state of motion must beg the question: what happens to the software of those employees? How can a company hope to keep track and make use of the software licenses that these shuffling employees need without SAM?

It is important to have a process for the purchasing of new software and its retirement, to avoid the repurchasing of licenses and the accumulation of ‘shelfware’ – software that you aren’t using but still paying for.

Software asset management is an excellent way of keeping track of…well, software assets. Although it is important to understand that many Software Asset Management companies with discovery tools to sell will often promise high percentages of saving continuously over several years. They promise this using their discovery tool to find unused licenses and putting them back into your software environment. This can be a way to cut costs if you were already planning on buying more licenses or your contract renewal is approaching, and you plan on cutting those unused licenses out of your contract.

But discovery tools alone will not provide you these types of results, not without software licensing metering (which must already exist in your software environment) to be paired with the discovery tool. You will also need the knowledge to understand the data that the discovery tool will provide you.

However, without the other two elements to this recipe — and paired with the right circumstances — it is unlikely you’ll see such tangible results through the implementation of a single software tool.

A single SAM tool typically only increases visibility into your software environment by 10%, which makes sense when you consider the fact that most SAM tools only give you visibility into a single product or vendor, of which your organization may very easily have dozens.

This is why MetrixData 360 takes the unique approach of creating a holistic view of your data, examining every product throughout your software environment and providing you with our expert’s insights in how to read the data you have been given.

Soft Savings by Avoiding Auditing Penalties

Our clients have come to us in the midst of disaster-level software audits. We’re talking millions of dollars in audit penalties being paid out that they didn’t actually owe. This is because they didn’t have a proper SAM process in place. They didn’t know how to respond to the auditor’s claims because they didn’t have visibility into their software environment.

While having software asset management during an audit in and of itself will not make you money, it could certainly keep you from losing money unnecessarily. Imagine if you could find problems before they incite an audit and you get to avoid the unpleasant process altogether. Going through a software audit successfully is also a great way to demonstrate organization and control to the software vendor, making them less likely to audit you again in the near future (it’s not a magic bullet for software audits but it does help).

Software Asset Management will also cut down on a silent expense of software audits that many companies are not actually aware of until they are in the middle of a software audit: wasted time and resources. Software audits can cut away thousands of working hours from your company so that your employees spend their days chasing down sometimes pointless data requests from the auditor, instead of doing their jobs.

This can prove to be a massive expense that can easily be avoided with the right software asset management strategy on your side.

Related: Handle Software Audits like a pro with our free Software Audit Defense Procedure E-Book

Get Finding Hard and Soft Savings with SAM

Software Asset Management can help identify hard savings vs. soft savings. That statement might be true, but it can also prove a bit simplistic. Before you get on board the SAM bandwagon, you’ll want to know where it’s going. After all, there is no point signing up for something that will be just another software expense to keep track of.

At MetrixData 360, our whole process is built around saving you money, from the tools we design, to the consulting services we offer, our goal remains aligned with your interests.

If you would like to know how you can get started with software asset management today, you can contact us using the button below and we can get started!

How to Move From an EA to CSP

Posted on by Ben Tight

Preparing to Migrate to CSP

You’ve come to the conclusion that Microsoft’s Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program is something that you’re on board with, and now it’s time to get your data packed and ready for the big move from the popular and traditional Enterprise Agreement (EA) to your CSP.Before you get excited about this transition, you’ll need to ensure this next step is a smooth one, or else you might find your software budget blown in unforeseen spending spikes.At MetrixData 360, we have helped many of our clients move effectively to new cloud platforms, and we’ve seen several elements all successful migrations have in common. Don’t forget to check out our CSP Switching course to if you’re looking to take a deeper dive into the nuances of moving your licensing into the CSP.

Preparation

Preparation is always key, especially when it comes to something like moving to your new CSP platform. You wouldn’t start building a house without a blueprint and a plan, and the same premise applies here.

Make sure you have a business plan; something that outlines the resources you’ll need. If you are signing up for Direct CSP, consider the following:

  • How much are you planning to sell and the marketing strategy you’ll be using to sell?
  • Consider if you can meet the requirements to first obtain and maintain your status as a Direct CSP partner. You will need to sell a minimum of 5,000 Microsoft 365 seats per year and will have at least one Microsoft Gold Productivity Competency.
  • Will you be able to provide top quality customer support and maintenance?
  • What sort of automatic billing system will you sign up for? It may be tempting to go with manual billing but you can easily lose control of this billing method as your business grows.

Signs It’s Time

One key element of switching from EA to CSP is timing, and there are some telling signs that you can rely on to indicate when it is a good time to move:

  • Your Size:

    The best time to move is when your organization is still smaller than 500 users, since the EA requires a minimum 500 seats, so even if you have less than 500 employees, you’ll still be stuck paying for those extra seats. Moving to the CSP will ensure you only pay for what you’re going to use.

  • Your Support Calls to Microsoft Are Lacking:

    Support is an important element in ensuring the health of your environment but if Microsoft’s 1-800 tech support number is providing you with little assistance besides the occasional ‘your call is important to us, please hold’, then leaving might be best for your company. In the CSP program, if you decide to become an Indirect CSP Reseller, your CSP Distributor will directly deal with your needs so you won’t be struggling to get Microsoft’s attention.

  • Your Business Sees Fluctuations:

    Does your business have a trackable busy season? Do you hire seasonal workers and is the number of staff shifting up and down to meet the demand of the workload? Then it might be time to consider moving to CSP since the EA doesn’t provide nearly the same level of flexibility to accommodate these changes to your business. With the EA, you would simply be stuck paying for the maximum number of seats all year.

Related: See How CSP Compares to Your Current EA

Indirect CSP or Direct CSP

There are two models of CSP that you can pick from: Direct and Indirect. It’s important you pick between the two models carefully, so that it can best serve your business’s needs.

  • Direct CSP:

    A Direct CSP Partner means that you’ll purchase from Microsoft and sell to your customers. Becoming a Direct CSP Partner means meeting certain requirements. The whole onboarding process will take about 4 months.

  • Indirect CSP:

    Overall a much faster way to purchase CSP, since you aren’t working directly with Microsoft. Instead, you’ll be purchasing your tools and platforms from your provider. This arrangement has many appealing benefits, including giving you access to the support of your Distributor and minimal expectations with major reward potential.

Picking Your Partner

If you’ve decided to work with a Direct CSP partner, your next step will be picking which Direct CSP provider is right for you. While each CSP partner will bring their own personal touch to their platform, here are some general topics of consideration when picking your CSP partner:

  • What is the size of the organization you’re considering?

    Larger companies will often provide you with more options when it comes to the types of products and can prove more stable. They will also be better at getting Microsoft’s attention. However, smaller companies may be able to respond to your requests faster and may be more eager to keep your business.

  • How Future Proof is Your Provider?

    Is the provider equipped to handle the latest and greatest technology or are they able to deal with older versions of certain products that your company and customers may still be running?

  • Is the Partner Willing to Hash Out Pre-sales Details like Design and Pricing?

    Knowing that you can work with your partner to provide the service you or your customers need is a key component to a successful CSP.

  • What Support does the Provider Offer?

    Good support is crucial to maintaining a positive relationship with your distributor and customers. Knowing that there is a working support system in place helps to provide confidence in your product and peace of mind during unforeseen issues and requests.

Your New Home on the Cloud Awaits!

It’s an exciting time, moving to the Cloud where you can shake off the restriction of the EA, but it’s important that you don’t make the move too hastily -- you don’t want to be stuck in a bad business arrangement that will only make you long for the days of your EA.

At MetrixData 360, we know how confusing this time can be. We have helped many of our clients transition to a Cloud Platform safely and at a low and reasonable cost.

Now that you’re prepared for the move, the next step is to find out if an Indirect or Direct CSP partnership with Microsoft is right for you, you can learn more by checking out our article: Direct vs. Indirect CSP: Which Plan is Right for You?

Direct vs. Indirect CSP: Which Plan is Right for You?

Posted on by Ben Tight

With so many businesses partially, if not fully, running on the Cloud, Microsoft’s new Cloud Service Provider (CSP) Program is an enticing offer, even for Microsoft’s most loyal Enterprise Agreement customers. Microsoft offers two CSP options for Microsoft partners who want to get on board, Indirect and Direct. But which of the choices is right for you? Today we’re pitting the two head to head. It’s Direct vs. Indirect CSP.

At MetrixData 360, we want you to transition to your new CSP situation as smoothly as possible and have helped our clients adjust to this new life in the clouds. So today we thought we’d share some of the differences between each of the platforms to help you determine which best fits with your organization.

Direct vs. Indirect CSP

What is Indirect CSP?

With Indirect CSP, the requirements are simple: you will be a reseller of Microsoft products to customers while maintaining a relationship with your indirect provider or distributor. The provider, in turn, will deal with Microsoft.

It is likely to be the far more popular option, as Microsoft expects somewhere between 80% to 90% of its CSP subscribers to become Indirect Partners. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights of being an Indirect CSP Reseller.

Added Services and Support from the Distributor

As a Reseller, your Distributor will provide you with a number of services and support, including:

  • Technical training and assistance.
  • Marketing products and services.
  • Financial and credit terms.
  • Microsoft’s API integration to help place incoming orders for Cloud licenses.
  • Help transitioning into a cloud model or, if you already are cloud-engaged, your distributor will help you grow your value with your customers such as having a pre-sales consultant joining you on complicated deals.

This arrangement will prove most ideal for smaller organizations who will be able to reap the benefits of having their larger distributor’s resources at their disposal.

Profit Margin

As an Indirect CSP, you will buy your SKU from the distributor and you will be allowed to sell your products to your customers with a margin of profit of your choosing. It should also be taken into consideration that Indirect Resellers can expect recurring revenue as Microsoft moves its market exclusively to the Cloud. While Cloud-only products are their inevitable business plan, Microsoft doesn’t have the staff to fully support this kind of infrastructure, which is where this CSP has come from. It will be the foundation of a budding cloud reselling ecosystem and this is your chance to be a part of that.

Quick and Yet Controlled Process

You can get started quickly with the Indirect CSP partner program and once you’re there, you can evolve your business at a controlled pace, allowing you to focus primarily on your investments. The indirect CSP model will allow you to team up with a larger and more experienced provider while at the same time owning the customer relationship and experience. Considering the few qualifications you need to get started, this represents a relatively low investment for a high return.

Status

Through being an Indirect Reseller, you will begin to earn incentives straight from Microsoft. You will also receive the Partner of Record Status (POR), and you’ll also receive revenue recognition to be put towards your Microsoft Partner Status. This status and recognition will be on par with that of the Direct CSP model.

What Is a Direct CSP?

Unlike with Indirect CSP, in this model you will act as a Distributor, who will deal directly with Microsoft while also maintaining a relationship with your Resellers. This model is best suited for larger and more mature companies who have expertise in customer service. Below are some of the things you’ll have to consider if being a Direct CSP seems like a good fit for you.

Margin and Investment

Distributors can create a margin of profit for Microsoft’s product, sometimes as high as 20%. However, becoming a Direct Partner will require some level of investment, ranging anywhere from $50K to over $1M in investments.

Complicated Process

If you are going solo as a Direct CSP partner, the process can be quite rigorous and complicated, often taking as long as four months. In order to qualify for being a Direct CSP partner, you need to meet the following requirements:

  • You need to be an active Microsoft Partner with a Network ID.
  • You will need to be capable of providing your customers with 24-hour service.
  • You’ll need to purchase a Microsoft support plan and you’ll need to be able to pass a credit check before you can purchase the plan.
  • You’ll need to have at least one managed service already, an IP service, or a customer solution application.
  • You need to have a solid customer billing structure in place. Manual billing will not cut it.
  • You’ll need to maintain at least one Microsoft Gold Productivity Competency.
  • As a Direct CSP Distributor, you’ll be expected to manually manage your licenses through the Microsoft Partner Network Center.

Proactive Reductions

Before you begin the long process of applying to Direct CSP, it’s important to note that in most markets Microsoft is actively striving to reduce their number of existing Direct Partners instead of approving more. Although Microsoft recognizes both partner models and provides revenue recognition that is weighted the same, it may be very difficult to become a Direct CSP partner with Microsoft.

Looking for an opportunity to save roughly 20 to30% of your current spend on software licensing? Learn how software asset management can help in our article: Getting Started: Implementing Software Asset Management.

Choose the Right Solution for Your Business

Signing up for Microsoft’s CSP Partner Program can represent a new chapter in the growth of your business. Picking which one is right for you will prevent you from biting off more than you can chew and will allow you to benefit from this new solution.

At MetrixData 360, we have helped our clients through the trickiest of positions in regards to their software licensing when it comes to Microsoft and we can help you transition to this new CSP platform smoothly. If you’d like more information, you can contact us and a Client Success Manager will be in contact with you in under 24 hours.

Licensing a Disaster Recovery Environment in Oracle

Posted on by Ben Tight

Nothing calls for disaster recovery (DR) more than 2020, which makes this the perfect time to consider disaster recovery environments.

However, when it comes to Oracle, it can be tricky to figure out what your contracts allow you to do when it comes to creating a proper DR environment for even the stickiest of situations.

The last thing you want is to run up against compliance issues with Oracle, who is known for their brutal software audits, especially in matters of disaster recovery. At MetrixData 360, we are experts in both managing our client’s compliance issues as they arise and proactively ensuring they never occur again.

Here’s what our Software Asset Management Experts have to say about how to properly license your DR environments.

What is a Disaster Recovery Environment?

Every business has mission-critical information they need to protect and keep accessible at all times. This is why every business should have some form of disaster recovery in place. Disaster recovery is a method of security planning with the goal of protecting that data from any significant negative events.

Common types of disaster scenarios are as follows:

  • Application Failure:

    Commonly seen as a result of hardware or software configuration. DR solutions around this scenario involve application backups or active-to-active failovers.

  • Network Failure:

    When you have a full or partial Cloud environment, losing connection to this environment could be the result of power outages or performance issues. DR solutions for this scenario involve strengthening the connection to the organization’s network or creating multiple access points to the network in order to create sufficient redundancies.

  • Data Center Failure:

    Often seen as a result of mass power outages or natural disasters, which results in the loss of connection to whole data centers or domains. Creating a DR solution for this event involves potentially deploying applications across multiple domains if you have them.

  • Region Fail:

    Most likely the result of the most severe disasters, when whole regions lose either power or connection of their network. To protect against this event, you can deploy your workload over multiple Oracle Cloud infrastructures in a variety of regions.

It is the IT department’s job to ensure that this protected data is constantly updated, maintained, and easy to access, so that the organization can continue to run as normally as possible under the circumstances. Although smaller industries may be hesitant to invest in funding for a situation that has yet to occur, it is usually better to be safe than sorry.

While Disaster Recovery as a whole involves many different working elements including a DR plan, personnel, actions for dealing with financial and legal issues etc., this blog post will only be focusing on how to license the Disaster Recovery environments that organizations have built.

How to License a Disaster Recovery Environment

Since your DR environment is only used when disaster strikes, your organization (hopefully) does not have to use it constantly, in which case it may feel like you don’t have to license the environment. However, to assess whether your DR environment needs to be licensed, consider the following:

  • Check Your License Agreement and the General Terms:

    All the rules that you need to adhere to can be found in your licensing agreement, or your Oracle Master Agreement (OMA) if you have one, and any other documents that the agreement refers to.   There may be versions of basic contracts online, but these might be out of date and may not accommodate for any unique licensing metric you may have. For instance, some companies have a licensing metric based on your company’s annual revenue or the number of employees that you have. If there is any language in the contract that is ambiguous, you should seek out clarification from your Oracle rep.

  • Remote Mirroring:

    With Remote Mirroring, your data is stored in an identical storage unit or shared disk array in a dispersed location through the use of solutions like Veritas Volume Replicator, EMC SRDF, Legato Relator, and EMS StorageEdge. In this instance, both the mirrored database and the unit its replicating will need the same licenses.

  • Standby:

    With Standby, copies of the primary database are maintained on standby servers, which are dispersed geographically and any changes or updates the primary server experiences is replicated in the standby databases. In this situation, both the standby and the primary databases need to be fully licensed using the same metric.

  • Backups:

    Backups refer to a copy of a physical database structure. In the event of the loss of the original data, the backup files will be used to reconstruct the lost information. This copy may include critical elements of the database’s physical structure like control and data files and redo logs and can be stored either on a server, a storage array, a disk drive etc. Oracle will allow you to keep these copies in a storage device without needing to purchase a license but when the disaster occurs, and the data is taken from storage and installed onto the recovery server, you’ll need a license.

  • Your Oracle Licenses Match:

    It’s important to make sure that your DR servers have the same licensing metric (Processor or Named User Plus) as the primary server that it is supporting. DRs and their primary servers must also have matching database options and packs. When it comes to this coordination, you’ll find that Oracle is particularly unyielding and so it is important that any mismatching licensing is addressed before you are confronted with it during an audit.

Related: Worried that your Oracle Contracts aren’t optimized? Learn how to lead a Contract Negotiation like a Pro.

Situations Where Licensing Isn’t Required for Disaster Recovery

While typically Oracle requires you to license any and all environments where their software is present, there are a few exceptions to the rule.

  • Failovers:

    A failover is where a database that is running on a primary server can be moved to a secondary server in the event that the primary fails. Oracle will allow a database to be run on this unlicensed secondary server for 10 days.   This scenario is allowed when both the primary and the secondary servers exist within a single cluster and share a single disk array or storage device. In this scenario only the failover server is free and once the primary server has been repaired, the database is required to switch back to the primary server. It’s also important to note that Oracle does not equate one day to 24 hours scattered over a long period of time. If the failover server is active for an hour one day and two hours another day, that counts for two days. You are only allowed to have one free failover node per cluster for up to ten separate days even if you have multiple nodes configured as failovers. This scenario also does not apply to VMware environments. If you would like to license your failover environments, you’ll need matching licenses to the databases the failovers will be supporting.

  • Testing:

    Oracle’s customers are allowed to use tape and disk backups of databases for the purpose of recreating that database for the use of testing. You can run this duplicated database on an unlicensed server four times per year, with a time restriction of two days for each test, at which time the database must either be removed from the server or will be considered licensable in the eyes of Oracle.

Be Ready for Anything with Properly Licensed Disaster Recovery

It’s always better to be prepared, whether that is getting your software environment ready for a natural disaster or making sure your licenses are orderly in the event of a software audit from Oracle.

It would be a terrible situation to discover that the very thing that was supposed to be there to keep your business afloat could cost you a staggering amount in compliance gap thanks to under licensed servers.

At MetrixData 360, our goal is to ensure you only pay for what you need to and to fight for your best interests when you go up against Oracle. If you’d like to know more about what our services entail when it comes to your Oracle Licensing, you can check out our Contract Negotiation page for more information.

Data Lakes and How They Can Help with SAM

Posted on by Ben Tight

“Where do we store our data?”

It’s a question that comes up constantly in the tech world and serves as a fundamental pillar of the software infrastructure of organizations everywhere. The way that data is stored, the speed with which it can be accessed, and the way with which it is protected are all critical for businesses to function properly. Data lakes are the newest means of storing data, but how does it work? Are they right for you? And, is there a way they can actually help you with software asset management?

At MetrixData 360, we have found that data lakes can be particularly useful in our efforts to wrangle our client’s software environment into order.

What is a Data Lake?

For a long time, data was stored in warehouses, a familiar term for the veterans of the tech industry. While it may be easy to assume that a data lake is just the newer version of the data warehouse, there are a few distinct differences.

A data lake can be thought of similarly to real-life lake water. The data gathered in a data lake might stream in from a variety of sources, accepting and retaining data from all sources, types, and schemas.

This data may not be formatted in any way, with no hierarchy or organization to speak of, instead it is in its rawest form, neither processed or analysed. This allows businesses to apply the scheme and organization model that best fits the nature of the data that data lake houses, often proving both its greatest strength and its biggest drawback.

How a Data Lake Works

The sheer volume of data that companies have can be overwhelming and traditional data management isn’t equipped to handle big data or its analysis. Data warehouses are designed much like their namesake, with rows and columns of organized data. While this provides limitations like lack of flexibility and the requirement to standardize all data that is stored in these warehouses, they do allow for quicker operations.

In contrast, data lakes are commonly built using either Hadoop or through the use of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Both AWS and Azure offer data lake architectures to store and analyze current data.

Data lakes provide their structure through one or two methods:

  • Metadata stores
  • Self-describing data formats

Why is a Data Lake Needed?

If you’re working on a big data project, you’ll need to know what data you’ll need to reach your desired outcome and you’ll also need to get your hands on the right data to analyze and leverage to better achieve those outcomes.

One of the major benefits of data lakes is their ability to provide cheap scalability, allowing you to keep large quantities of data for a good price. Data lakes can allow you to draw from a variety of data, and in turn store any data you wish on the data lake and create unlimited ways to query in search for data, providing you with tremendous flexibility. The use of data lakes can help break down data silos and allow for a unified view of data across your organization.

Data Lakes and Software Asset Management

Data lakes can prove quite useful in assisting efforts surrounding software asset management if executed correctly. Auditors don’t typically look to data lakes when conducting a software audit at the moment. We suspect they will become a target of scrutiny in the future, as their use becomes more sophisticated and wide-spread.

A good example of when these data lakes might be accessed is in regards to hybrid use benefits in Azure, which allows you to bring your own on-prem licenses to Azure at a discounted rate.

Technically speaking, there would be nothing stopping your company from using hybrid benefits to deploy software on Azure while still having it installed on-prem, and Microsoft is currently turning a blind eye to this loophole, trusting that you’ll respect your arrangement.

However, with the rough year 2020 has proven for everyone (except Zoom), Microsoft may be eager to make up losses by conducting audits in new areas. This is why it is also best to understand how the data stored in these data lakes can be used to your advantage.

Data lakes can help you hunt down Shadow IT and they can prove to be an excellent resource in the event of an audit. This is because they can often provide missing data such as VM guest to host relationships, processors, cores, perhaps even unique details about your software environment.

They can also be used as a means of tracking cloud usage and cross-referencing other data sources. In order to use your data lakes to serve your SAM goals, you’ll need to make sure the data is accurate and complete, you can do so by considering the following:

 

  • Cross Reference Data Lake Resources with that of Your Active Directory:

    Your AD is one of the first areas that will be consulted in the event of a software audit. Within a company, the AD is often disorganized and is far from an accurate picture of your whole environment. Which is what our Active Directory Reporting Tool is for, allowing you to create an easy to understand chart of assets within your AD. For more information you can check out our AD reporting tool, here.
    •  

  • Compare with Your Inventory Tools such as ServiceNow CMDB:

    SAM tools often provide the basis of a company’s software asset management solutions and are often used during a software audit, they fail to provide an accurate picture of your data. For this reason, it is important that you verify their accuracy.

Related: What are SAM Tools?

Get Your Data Lakes to Serve Your Goals

Data lakes are an excellent way to keep your resources stored and organized. It’s important to be aware of how data lakes can potentially help your organization remain in compliance with software vendors and keep your software infrastructure organized by assisting in software asset management.

Software Asset Management in and of itself is a great way to allow your organization to discover an estimated 20% to 30% of savings pulled out of their current IT spend through simply cutting out unnecessary licensing and making sure that costly fines and unbudgeted spending are avoided.

If you’d like to learn more about how Software Asset Management can benefit your company, you can check out Software Asset Management for Beginners.

Pros and Cons of Power BI

Posted on by Ben Tight

Microsoft’s budding new thought child is Power BI and although Microsoft is quick to sing its praises, what sort of tangible benefits does it hold for you and your company? There’s no point jumping on this Power BI band wagon if it doesn’t match your business goals and needs. At MetrixData360, we believe in educating our customers and making sure that they are only buying the software licenses that they need, and not what the sales rep says they want. So today, we’ll go over everything you need to know to make sure Power BI is the right investment for your company.

What is Power BI?

Officially released in 2015, Power BI is an umbrella term used to describe a number of data collection apps that is offered by Microsoft for the purpose of analyzing and visualizing raw data. Praised by Gartner for its exceptional analytics and business intelligent platforms, Power BI has come to be known as a business essential tool for customers of all sizes and every industry, from construction to finance to insurance. The apps that comprise the interwoven matrix of Power BI include:

 

  • Power Pivot: Allows you to import data from a variety of sources
  • Power Query: Allows you to transform data
  • Power View: Helps you to visualize the data that has been compiled
  • Power Map: A nice 3D feature that can create a better visualization of the data
  • Power Q&A: An engine for question/answer style interactions with your data

 

Together, with all these interweaving parts, Power BI customers can perform such demanding tasks like examining what-if scenarios, conveying business models in an easy to read format, and forecasting business requirements.

Pros of Power BI

Affordable

You don’t have to worry about breaking the bank when you sign up for Power BI, as Power BI even has free alternatives such as the Power BI Desktop which can be downloaded to create interactive reports. However, these free versions are quite simplistic and limited when compared to Power BI’s true processing potential, that performance capability is saved for the paid versions. Pricier models like Power BI Pro allow users to share data and dashboards and Power BI premium allows for much deeper and meaningful insights, as well as on-prem reporting. If you already have an Office 365 plan, you may have Power BI as an added feature at no additional cost. Want to know how Power BI relates to SQL Server Licensing? Check out our article: SQL Server Licensing Explained for more information.

Customizable

If you have a very specific look you’d like to achieve, then Power BI can make it happen, offering a variety of custom visualizations, available in the Microsoft marketplace in addition to general visualizations used for polishing up reports and dashboards.

Excel-User Friendly

You have the option of uploading and viewing your data in Excel if that’s your thing. Power BI is built using the same interface as Excel, so if you know your way around an Excel spreadsheet, then you’ll find using Power BI to be both easy and familiar. Even if you aren’t exactly an Excel wizard, Microsoft has a wide array of tutorials, blog posts, and other available learning resources to assist you up this learning curve. There’s also a budding community of Power BI experts you can turn to if you need an extra helping hand.

Cons of Power BI

Difficult to Use

Despite the wide array of resources available, Microsoft is known for its hyper complexity when it comes to their software and Power BI is no exception. Since Power BI is merely a collection of apps, that means to properly maintain Power BI and get it to create the reports your looking for, it will require learning what each item in Power BI’s ensemble does and how it relates to the rest of the structure. This also means if Power BI isn’t working, you’ll have to go through the task of figuring out which app is broken and why.

Not Very Versatile

The expression language that Power BI uses is DAX , which is not known for being the easiest language to work with or master, once again adding to the learning curve. When compared to its competitor Tableau, Power BI is often viewed by customers as less flexible due to the fact that at the end of the day it is designed mainly for visualization purposes. Customers need to be careful to account for unique fields that can create inaccurate graphics and tables.

Large Data Sets Cause Lags

There is a cap for the digestible material that Power BI can handle at any given time, especially if you only have the free version at your disposal. If your business is on the smaller side, this limited space may not be an issue, and even such problems may be counteracted with a few space saving techniques such as writing simpler queries or splitting the queries into several different components. If you want to expand your Power BI capacity, you’ll have to upgrade to a pricier model.

Conclusion

Power BI has become an excellent and essential tool for many companies but just because it is the popular option doesn’t mean its necessarily the option that will best suit your business needs. At MetrixData 360, we teach that you should buy based on the data, based on what you know you need and not on what you think you want. Which of course, is where software asset management comes in. SAM is an excellent way of gaining control over your delicate software infrastructure by knowing what you have, what you need to license, and whether you are using your software in accordance to the licenses that you have. If you’d like to know more about what SAM is and how it can save you money, you can check out our article: Software Asset Management: Its Importance, Purpose, and How it Saves Money.

    Getting Ready to Certify Your ULA

    Posted on by Ben Tight

    Oracle’s ULA: Ready to Leave or Willing to Stay?
    Consequences of Both

    When your company is in an Oracle Unlimited License Agreement (ULA), the deal is that you hand over a single up-front payment and you get access to the licenses for a select set of Oracle products. With the volatile market, you may be asking if you should certify your ULA, and what it takes to complete an Oracle ULA Certification?

    Of those select products, you can order an unlimited number of licenses for a set period of time, either three years or five years. The only costs in between renewals are the maintenance fees, which are 25% of the cost of the license. There are many reasons an organization would find this set up appealing:

    • It provides predictability in terms of costs, giving organizations the opportunity to plan for that expense.
    • It’s ideal for heavy users of Oracle products.
    • It puts a wide variety of products on a single payment, making the process of purchasing licenses that much easier.
    • The risks of having your ULA audited are minor.
    • It is sometimes purchased for the preparation of a large, long term project to accommodate potential growth.

    Despite these advantages, the ULA can also be restrictive or even a trap for your company. Organizations might get into a ULA with the best intentions and end up staying in one simply because it’s easier to renew than to leave.

    There may come a point where the maintenance fees no longer make the ULA a suitable option and you think about getting out of the agreement.

    What does this shift look like?

    At MetrixData 360, we have been working through tricky licensing agreements with Oracle for many years and we want you to know what you can expect and how you can prepare.

    Why Certify Your ULA?

    COVID

    Signing up for a three-year business plan is a great strategy for times of stability and predictability. However, COVID-19 mixed with its following recession and the threat of a second or third wave means that flexibility and the ability to roll with the punches will be a critical element to future business plans. This is something that the rigid structure of the ULA doesn’t provide.

    Freedom

    Freedom: Flexibility has become essential as our world is rocked by constant uncertainty but also when it comes to the constant shift of technology. The ULA is rather rigid in the products you can pick from, and if new products are released that would fit your organization better, you wouldn’t be able to simply add it to your ULA. When you are in your ULA, you will also experience pressure from Oracle towards products that don’t fit your needs but suit their agenda. ULA customers often experience pressure to move to Oracle’s Cloud products, for instance. You will also find that trying to negotiate the price and products of your ULA is particularly difficult. Getting out of the ULA, even temporarily, will give you the freedom to explore your alternatives.

    Cut Potential Costs

    Few businesses have gotten out of the pandemic unscathed and many people’s top priority is to pinch pennies for short term cash flow and avoid costs wherever possible. Extending your ULA can often be more costly than simply certifying out, especially when you take into account the fact that support costs can add up over time. This rising expense comes with no added value, Oracle is simply increasing the prices on products you may not even be using because they know you are chained to your chair. If you certify out now, you can also simply sign up for another ULA later when things are more stable.

    Related: Software Assset Management in a Post COVID World

    ULA and Audit Risks

    Staying with the ULA

    Oracle hasn’t been faring very well during 2020, as their Q4 report for 2020 has revealed with its release in mid-June. It doesn’t help that May, which was traditionally Oracle’s most lucrative month, was also the worst month of the pandemic.

    Oracle is currently faced with record low numbers and many customers are worried this will result in more audits. It certainly won’t result in fewer audits.

    While the products within your ULA might be safe, the products that are not a part of your ULA will be targeted. Since you have a ULA, members of your organization could have easily gotten mixed up about which products are covered under the ULA and which are not, meaning that you may be targeted for unlicensed products thinking that they were safe under the ULA.

    Certifying Your ULA

    When it comes to their ULA users, Oracle tends to be rather lenient and leaves you to your own devices (pun intended). You’re left in charge of keeping track of your own licenses and Oracle rarely bothers to check up on you.

    Many organizations, as a result, tend to lose track of their deployments. Employees will install Oracle products after having been granted little or no authorization, resulting in sprawl and shadow IT.

    As a result, when you are certifying out of your ULA and it comes time to declare how many licenses you have, Oracle will suspect that your declared number is little more than a guess. After losing the ensured revenue from your ULA, Oracle will happily make up for the losses by checking the state of your sprawl for potential compliance gaps.

    At the end of the audit, they might even propose you renew your ULA instead of paying for the compliance gap they find. In other words, once you certify out of your ULA, it’s safe to assume an audit will be coming your way in 6 to 18 months.

    What Do You Need To Do Before You Certify Your ULA?

    Before you get excited and drop the news on Oracle that you’re letting them go, you’ll need to make sure you have everything ready for your departure.

    1. Plan Your Exit

    It’s best that you start preparing for your exit well ahead of time, at least 12 months before your ULA is up for renewal. There’s nothing in your contract that says you can’t hand in your certification for your ULA much sooner than the expiration date, and the last thing you want to do is run past the due date and be forced to renew.

    2. Understand How You Certify Out

    The certification process itself is quite simple. You merely need to write a letter signed by a C-level executive of your company, complete with the number of licenses you are certifying, and it needs to be submitted within 30 days of your ULA’s expiration. Finding those numbers, on the other hand, will be easier said than done.

    3. Tell Your Team You Are Certifying Out

    Communication between departments is not always top priority in large organizations. It’s important you convey that you are getting out of Oracle’s ULA to any employees who might install Oracle products with the same carefree attitude they expressed while the ULA was still in place.

    4. Take Inventory and Perform a Self Audit

    This will be the quickest way to decide whether certifying out is the best thing for your business right now. It will keep you from having to guess your usage and exactly how much you’ll save by leaving your ULA.

    A self-audit will also ensure that you are compliant with any contracts you have with Oracle, and that the licenses you will be declaring are accurate. Now is the time to chase after any unknown information in regard to sprawl or shadow IT that may have cropped up under your ULA.

    This is important to do before you certify out in order to maintain control over the certification process.

    Oracle may want to take the lead by offering to certify you and it’s important you don’t let them. This will give them control over a process that they didn’t want to happen in the first place, and they will take as long as they wish.

    Get Control Over Your Software Spend

    There’s no need to keep a toxic relationship going if all your partner does is take and take, and it’s the same with your Oracle ULA.

    Perhaps at one point it served your company well but if the agreement has grown old and stale in your mouth then you should have the freedom to leave and explore your options, lest you be stuck paying for a ULA that is simply a waste of money.

    At MetrixData 360, we have your back throughout every step of this process. We can help you conduct a self-audit to create an accurate depiction of your deployment and usage, we know how to talk to Oracle so that you don’t feel pressured throughout these seemingly one-sided negotiations. We will teach you how to keep your head above water in the event of an Oracle audit.

    If you would like more information on how MetrixData 360 can help you through an Oracle ULA Certification, you can visit our Audit Defense page.

    Tips for Surviving a Microsoft EA True Up

    Posted on by Ben Tight

    Tricks for your Microsoft EA True Up

    If you have an Enterprise Agreement (EA) with Microsoft, then you are probably familiar with the EA’s annual True-Up. It’s a straightforward way of condensing a year’s worth of headaches and frustrations around purchasing software licenses into a short period of only 90 days (although hopefully, you’re preparing earlier than that!).

    Since these true ups amount to such a large investment for enterprises, it is important that you remain in control of the situation and know what you can and can’t do. Often companies can feel trapped or chained to their chairs in these agreements but with MetrixData 360, we have helped many clients truly harness the potential of their EA. We’ve helped our enterprise clients cut down wastage in their EAs (sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars have been removed from EA agreements), and we know how to dance this dance with Microsoft.
    So in this blog post, we will share some tricks from our experts.

    And don’t forget. At any point in reading this article, you would like some further explanation, check out our downloadable EA True Up Guide below:

    Tricks for your Microsoft EA True Up


    Tricks for your Microsoft EA True Up

    If you have an Enterprise Agreement (EA) with Microsoft, then you are probably familiar with the EA’s annual True-Up. It’s a straightforward way of condensing a year’s worth of headaches and frustrations around purchasing software licenses into a short period of only 90 days (although hopefully, you’re preparing earlier than that!).

    Since these true ups amount to such a large investment for enterprises, it is important that you remain in control of the situation and know what you can and can’t do. Often companies can feel trapped or chained to their chairs in these agreements but with MetrixData 360, we have helped many clients truly harness the potential of their EA. We’ve helped our enterprise clients cut down wastage in their EAs (sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars have been removed from EA agreements), and we know how to dance this dance with Microsoft.
    So in this blog post, we will share some tricks from our experts.

    And don’t forget. At any point in reading this article, you would like some further explanation, check out our downloadable EA True Up guide below:

    You Don’t Need to Fill Out Every True-Up Form that Comes Your Way

    If you have a reseller supporting you with your EA, then you may receive True-Up forms quite frequently — some of our clients report that they receive them on a monthly basis. You might feel compelled to fill each one of them out, either because your reseller encourages you to do so, and they know best, or because you’d rather not go up against Microsoft. However, unlike your annual True-Up, which will require a mandatory Update Statement (even if you haven’t added to your counts this year), these monthly True-Up forms are completely optional features that you don’t have to fill out.

    You Can True-Down to your Original Count…Or Zero!

    If this is not your first True-Up, you likely noticed that adding counts to your EA is easy – encouraged even – however, it can be very difficult to true-down or reduce your counts in any way. While it may be difficult, it is not impossible if you are following these steps:

    Know Your Data

    The first step of Truing-Down is to know what you are truing down to.
    There are many ways to check your counts:

    • in your Active Directory;
    • in your SCCM or your SAM Tool (only useful if you’re trying to find your Qualified Device Count); or
    • in your HR Systems and Email Accounts (only useful for finding your Qualified User Counts).

    You can also guess based on your number of employees, but while this is something most companies are forced to resort to, this is not something MetrixData 360 advises.

    Create a Value Gap

    Knowing your data will also allow you to create a Value Gap, and build your argument for truing down based upon cold, hard data. At MetrixData 360, we have built our tools for this task, which can significantly cut down your workload and your guessing.

    Related: Need better data from your SAM Tools?
    Try ours!

    Start Preparing for Your Microsoft EA True Up Early

    You can True-Up pretty much up to the last second, but if you want to True Down, you will have to be prepared well ahead of time and adhere to the deadlines outlined in your agreement. Microsoft will only let you reduce your counts up until 30 days before your True-Up date, so you will have to be ready with your data and your arguments for Truing Down long before then.

    Check Your Original Counts

    When you are trying to reduce your counts in your EA, there are two things that really prove to be determining factors on how low you can go: if the product is an enterprise-wide purchase and if it is a subscription or a perpetual license.

    If you have an enterprise-wide purchase, the only way Microsoft will allow you to reduce your counts is by scaling back online service subscriptions down to their original number that you started with. For example, if your original EA asked for 500 subscriptions and the following year you grew to 1,000, the lowest you can reduce your count to is 500. However, if your purchase is not enterprise-wide, it is possible to reduce the counts, so long as the minimum requirements are maintained.

    Check Additional Products that are Available as Subscription Licenses

    There are a few different products which are included in the EA, such as Enterprise Products, Enterprise Online Services, Additional Products, Additional Products Online Services. Additional Products that have subscriptions can be reduced to a count of zero! We’ve pulled such a move before at MetrixData 360, which resulted in our client saving $800,000!

    Watch Out for Complicated Products

    While Microsoft may have products that are easy to use, there are, of course, the challenging ones that are difficult to wrap your head around, let alone manage. Make sure to pay close attention to your deployment data around these products, ensuring that you have a strong understanding of your contract’s language and deployment data. Some of Microsoft’s more complicated products include:

    At MetrixData 360, we put extensive effort into understanding both products and have a wide collection of material to read and tools to assist you in gaining a strong handle on these two products in your software environment.

    Need Help Getting Ready for Your True-Up?

    With your True-Up approaching, it’s important to have a few tricks up your sleeve. Closing such deals could mean the difference between optimizing your spending and spending copious amounts of money that you don’t need to.

    The Microsoft reps may be nice, but there is only so much that they will be willing to help you save when their job is to make sure you do exactly the opposite. That is why you need someone who can support you and have your back during this engagement.

    MetrixData 360 is here for you. We have many Fortune 500 customers who we have helped to minimize the impact of their EA on their software budget.

    If you would like to learn more about getting ready for your Microsoft True-Up, you can download our free booklet, Preparing for a Microsoft True-Up.

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