Vorbereitungen für Cloud-basierte und SaaS-Lizenzierungsmodelle

[0:02] Hello and welcome everyone. Whether you’re joining us in the morning, afternoon, or evening, thank you for being here for today’s session, preparing for cloud-based and SaaS licensing models. I’m Nix, your host, and I’m excited to guide you through today’s webinar. In the next 20 minutes, our speaker will guide you through the challenges of managing hybrid license environments. You’ll learn how to track usage across on-premises and cloud platforms, adapt to shifting vendor models, and keep your licensing strategy future ready and fully under control.

[0:32] As always, we’d love to hear from you. Drop your questions in the Q&A panel at the top of your screen, and we’ll tackle as many as we can during the live session. And if we run out of time, no worries. We’ll follow up with you afterward via email or LinkedIn. Now, before we begin, let me quickly introduce our speaker.

[0:50] Sagi is a solutions architect focused on delivering measurable value with broad experience across industries. He helps clients maximize their software investments through strategic insights and optimization. Everyone let’s welcome Sagi.

[1:06] Sagi: Thank you very much Nix. So what is cloud or SaaS licensing? Basically, it means that the license server is now based on the vendor’s web portal instead of the on-premises license servers in the customer’s network. It comes with a few benefits, but also a few drawbacks.

[1:28] For example, cloud-based license managers does not require any server resources to be allocated and avoids the need for maintenance, reducing any IT overhead that’s needed for license distribution. It also offers better availability as the vendor uptime is not dictated by the organization’s IT or license administration but by the vendor itself. Now the vendor might be able to offer close to 100% uptime availability with their SLA.

[2:07] Now, the drawbacks in a cloud-based license manager is that you don’t really have a complete ownership of the licenses that you purchased as it is purchased as a subscription. And if the vendor decides to make changes to the licenses or the underlying technology, you have no real control over it and you must submit to the new rules that the vendor imposes. Even Gartner has posted about this matter indicating that trend reports predict that by 2028 one in four organizations will report dissatisfaction with the cloud outcomes.

[2:59] So over the years we witnessed a few changes that were made in the licensing structure of engineering applications showing a clear progression from machine locked licenses to the latest cloud-based subscription models which is offered by some vendors. The first licensing model back in the ’90s was a simple CD or floppy disc which was distributed to different engineers. Each engineer had a copy of the application disc, put it inside the ROM drive. It all had its own CD, but this was replaced by newer licensing models as the discs would get worn out, scratched, even lost.

[3:48] So as the networking got better, vendors switched to a user-based licensing mechanism which required users to authenticate with a central server inside the organization. This way they were able to receive the rights to use a certain application. This model came with its own drawbacks of course as the administrator always needed to keep track of who has a license, who is still using it and constantly reallocate licenses between users who actually need it.

[4:23] Then vendors decided to move to a shared licensing model which most vendors use today, the floating license model which allows any user to get a general license from the server just by pointing the application to the license pool. Now this solved the issue but became very hard to track for the customer as a shared licensing pool requires a much more sophisticated way of usage monitoring and created another issue of license migration and figuring out exactly which features are actually needed for the users.

[5:08] For us, of course, this is no issue as we provide robust concurrent-based reporting to give a solution to this exact issue. Now, some vendors kept innovating and came up with a token-based licensing pool, basically offering access to all features in the suite with each feature having a different licensing cost, resolving the whole issue of license migration and having to figure out which feature is exactly needed could just have all of them. Customers now got the whole suite of features and the end users simply had to choose which one they needed.

[5:54] Now it seems that we have gone full circle as the latest innovation is cloud-based licenses mostly offering subscription or user-based licenses once more.

[6:11] How do we monitor these cloud-based license servers? Well, as you might know, with on-premises license servers such as Flex LM, DSLS, and others, we simply monitor the license servers files and output stream which are found on the organization’s license server. We install a client component on the license server and do the monitoring there, get the license inventory, the check-ins, the checkouts, denials, and we install the same client component on the end-user workstations in order to monitor more refined usage patterns.

[6:57] Now, information from outline components in the network flow into a centralized core component which has a database, the main compiling application and reporting interfaces. But cloud-based license managers work a bit differently and required us to change a bit the way we monitor. You can find the list here of supported cloud-based license managers such as Autodesk, Bentley, Altium, Hexagon, and many more.

[7:30] But how do we monitor licenses on a server which is not owned and operated by the organization but by the vendor himself? Well, here we cannot install a client component on the vendor portal of course. So we do the next best thing. We directly connect to the vendor portal instance from the core component and then we gather all relevant license inventory such as the features, license quantities, packaging, expirations and in order to monitor the usage itself, we will install a client component on the end-user workstation and basically tell it to monitor usage directly tracking the start and closing of a specific application related to this cloud-based licenses.

[8:29] Now, not all cloud licenses are the same. Some vendor instances give us license usage as well as inventory such as ESRI cloud, Bentley cloud, not requiring us to monitor usage on the end user workstation but getting both the inventory and usage from the cloud vendor. So in these cases the only thing that’s required is direct connectivity to the vendor cloud from the core server and once the data is collected it flows to the same Open iT data set as the on-premises license servers enabling all Open iT capabilities also on the cloud-based servers such as our robust reporting and dashboard capabilities.

[9:24] Introducing cost-based impact of license inventory and the usage. Optimizing various product suites to rightsize the inventory. Consolidate license usage to different groups like department, country or any other cost center. You can forecast future license usage patterns and identify your power users and your light users, helping you allocate the right license to the right user and of course many more capabilities that Open iT offers both on cloud and on-premises.

[10:07] So let’s take a look at the end result after gathering license usage from the cloud. What do we get and what can we do with it? We’ll start with the inventory that we collected from the cloud-based server. We can get all licensing information like feature versions, licensing type, serial numbers, quantities, everything. And this helps first map which licenses we have purchased and subscribed to.

[10:40] The data can be presented of course in any of the reporting interfaces that integrate with Open iT like SSRS, Power BI or any other analysis tool. Here we have a dashboard showing us the usage rights and expirations presented in Power BI helping us better prepare for license purchases and subscription updates.

[11:06] Now in some cases we’ll have the inventory bundled into various packages. Now this is another major differentiator of Open iT from the competition as license usage can be viewed in all levels the bundle level or the feature level. In Open iT we call it feature set products, basically a product which packages many different features together.

[11:37] So for example, a set might hold several features while the standard package might hold the same features but adding a few on top of it and the pro package might house even more features and capability in it. This makes monitoring much more confusing as one feature might belong to many different packages in a one to many or even many to many relation. But for Open iT, that’s not an issue as we specialize in mapping these feature sets for both on-premises and cloud-based licenses, providing a complete and cohesive picture of licensing bundles and their usage.

[12:16] Here we see an example of such a bundle for ANSYS where the same feature electronic desktop is found in three different feature sets, each housing totally different sets of features as a single bundle.

[12:41] So, Open iT follows these packages and provides you with license usage and inventory analysis per package as well as per feature. Even if various packages hold different types of licenses, you’ll be able to distinguish between the pools and subscription types to see which one is performing best and which ones might be better to decommission.

[13:12] So, we have mapped our complete license inventory. We’ll look at our cloud-based license usage, whether coming from the workstations or from the vendor cloud itself. We’ll start with a bird’s eye view over license usage across the year using the heat map report. We can see here all our packages and the tokens for each month across the year. As we see October is the highest used month and Autodesk Inventor being the most used package.

[13:53] Now you might have a hybrid licensing inventory, some cloud-based, some on-premises, some user-named, some concurrent, a mix. Open iT helps you figure out the various pools and their license usage with robust reporting capabilities offering the complete picture of all your licenses and how well they are used. Such as you see in this dashboard showing us a combination of various licensing types both flex and named pools and we see how they are performing compared against each other.

[14:37] We can use Power BI to view our usage trends as you see here. Showing us license usage trends for our assigned versus used licenses showing us if a subscription that we have allocated is actually used or maybe it can be reallocated. Now we can also layer on top of that the cost factor as to show the license usage in potential savings in the dollar amount.

[15:10] We see on the left our concurrent subscription spend, but also our potential savings if we get rid of some unused subscriptions, which in our case, we see that it’s about half of the licenses which are assigned but are not used. This leads us to a calculated spend-down prediction. Do it for the next fiscal year or even more based on current usage patterns. Basically taking all data and reducing it to an overall efficiency percentage that is highly indicative of our potential savings.

[16:04] So many cloud-based license models are named subscriptions as well. Now this is important for us to find any optimization options. We need to make sure that we are operating at peak efficiency. So how can we do that with named licenses? So it’s very important to understand if the users which are assigned a license are actually using it or maybe they’re not using it. Some users might have left the company. Some changed position. Maybe some just finished the project that they were working on but never actually told the license administrator that they will no longer need the license which happens a lot. So the administrator is basically left with the task of figuring out if the license pool is properly allocated.

[17:02] Now we have the days since last port that can really help us with that. It allows us to pinpoint how long has it been since a user used his assigned license subscription. Now we can see clearly few users have not been using their application for almost 3 months and these are subscriptions that the organization is paying for but for no real reason. We’re keeping them allocated but the users are no longer using them. These subscriptions can be reallocated or even redacted completely helping the efficiency and optimize the subscription environment.

[17:51] Here at Open iT, our product also has a cloud-based option. You can have the LicenseAnalyzer™ solution as either on-premises or hosted on the cloud. The on-premises model means that the main component is installed on one of your organization’s servers and the client component is spread across the network on the license servers. The core component itself uses SQL database, SQL server analysis services for the cube, SSRS reporting for the reporting module. Now it supports Windows, Linux and Mac for the license servers and workstations. The on-premises version means that your organization is in charge of maintenance, database backups and overall uptime availability.

[18:57] While the Open iT cloud deployment means that we take these tasks on our shoulders. We host the core component, the SQL server database. We provide you with maintenance and database backup services done on our AWS or Azure cloud systems whichever you prefer. And in this option the client component still has to be on-premises because we must have a component on the license server in order to grab data from but everything else is on the cloud. And for the reporting, you get a link where you can access any dashboard, reports, the cube, alerting or administrative interfaces.

[19:51] So that’s it. Today we looked at the recent switch to cloud-based licensing and how it might affect our portfolio. Now I would like to give the floor to David Bole who was once a customer of Open iT and now he’s a part of the team. So David, can you tell us a bit about your experience with the recent shift to the cloud-based licensing models?

[20:29] David: Sure. Thank you, Sagi. Yeah, it’s everywhere, isn’t it? Cloud infrastructure, cloud licensing, you know whatever industry you’re in it’s what everything is moving to. My experience is in energy oil and gas business and the example I want to talk about is SLB’s petrochemical platform as a kind of an example. That platform for most people up until this point has been on-premises but that technology is now being delivered either completely on a cloud infrastructure that is external to the customer. So it’s running licensing, it’s running the software or in some cases there’s an intermediary where the external cloud infrastructure is running the licensing and the distribution of the applications to the customer’s own site. Either way, the licensing and control of the applications is entirely in the purview of the vending company, in this case SLB.

[21:32] Now those infrastructures are very powerful, a lot of advantages for customers. You know, scalability is one, support costs, patching, cyber security has a lot of attractions. However, they don’t necessarily have a clear insight into what they’re using, who is using it, and when. Basically, all the insights that Open iT can provide isn’t there natively. So it’s in those situations where you’re taking advantage of what the vendor is giving you with all that scalable technology. It’s in a way even more important to have the analytics and the data that Open iT can provide to tell you what you’re using on a daily basis, what you’re going to use, but also before you even think about moving to those cloud environments.

[22:20] You want a really good analysis of what you’re using on-premises. A good knowledge of what the new licensing system will be because it might be named user, it might be timed, it might be tokenized, it may have many other different types of licensing mechanism that’s different from what you have now. You need those good analytics to be able to predict it as well as having a full understanding once you’ve moved to that cloud platform. So Schlumberger’s Delfi, Halliburton’s iEnergy are key in the market and those companies advertise and make those offerings very attractive to customers and quite rightly so. But it’s very important to understand what you’re using and be in a good position going into those discussions before you commit. So really I just wanted to emphasize how important this is to have good data and to make good decisions on good data with the level of detail that Sagi supplied. And with that I’ll pass back to Nix to see if we have any questions.

[23:29] Nix: Thank you Sagi and David. We’ve received some excellent questions beforehand. So let’s jump right into the Q&A.

[23:32] Question: What’s the biggest drawback of subscription licensing that you found?

[23:45] Sagi: So basically not having permanent ownership of the software. Instead you get continued access but it depends on maintaining payments. It depends on the vendor architecture and structure of their licensing. If the vendor just decides to change your subscription or up the prices, you have basically no control over that. So in one sentence I would say is the loss of ownership.

[24:28] Nix: I see. Thanks Sagi. We also have here another question.

[24:28] Question: What is the risk if we don’t monitor our cloud servers?

[24:37] Sagi: So not monitoring the cloud servers basically means that you’re flying blind. You need to understand who is using and if someone left the company does he need the license, if someone needs a different level of license or maybe a different application, a different suite of licenses. Most vendors don’t offer this deep technical analytical capabilities. They say that they do and they say that they might provide it, but in many cases we don’t see them owning up to the promises and providing a lackluster reporting. So you’re basically flying blind and guessing the amount of subscriptions that you need.

[25:33] Nix: I see. Thank you, Sagi. Here’s another question.

[25:33] Question: Can I see my on-premises and cloud licenses together in the same dashboard?

[25:42] Sagi: So yes, all the information if it’s on-premises, if it’s cloud, both flow to the same Open iT data set. So let’s say you have a few perpetual Autodesk licenses you have as a legacy. Maybe you moved to the new Autodesk subscription model on the cloud and you would like to know how well they’re performing and also shift your users between power users that can have a subscription from the cloud and more light users that can use the legacy floating license from Flex LM. And you can kind of mix and match between them and make sure that everybody gets the right license and is utilizing it correctly as not to have light users that barely touch the application using those cloud licenses while the heavy users that use it all the time using those flex licenses. So you can better reallocate the pool this way.

[26:53] Nix: I see. Thank you, Sagi. And lastly, what about security regarding the connection with the cloud vendor portal?

[27:01] Sagi: So connection is done using a secure API that has full encryption up to all the security standards coming from the vendor. Of course, the vendor provides the APIs. It ensures that sensitive information remains protected at all times. Access is tightly controlled and it’s limited only to license inventory and usage data in case it provides it.

[27:34] Nix: Thank you, Sagi. And that ends our Q&A session. Thank you for those thoughtful responses. Before we close, a quick reminder. This session has been recorded and you’ll get a link to the replay in your email shortly. You’ll also find it in our webinars on demand page at openit.com. And if you’ve missed our earlier sessions, check out benchmark your engineering license usage, what’s normal and what’s not and from data to decisions license uses analytics for engineering teams. Just scan the QR code on your screen or visit resources webinars on our website.

[28:06] Finally, if you’re ready to take a look at your own license environment, we’re offering a free 30-minute consultation with one of our business solutions consultants. You’ll find the contact info on your screen. And don’t forget to follow us at Open iT, Inc. for updates. Once again, I’m Nix. Thank you so much for joining us.