Siemens’ recent acquisition of Altair expands its digital engineering footprint across disciplines including MBSE, PLM, HPC, and data analytics. For federal agencies and defense contractors, this shift introduces significant complexity in terms of software license management and compliance. Combining Siemens’ and Altair’s tools under one licensing umbrella will require disciplined IT asset management to prevent overspending, non-compliance, and inefficient allocation of digital engineering tools.
Siemens and Altair Portfolio Expanded
License Complexity at Scale
Siemens and Altair each maintain extensive, multi‑tiered licensing schemes. Their combined digital engineering catalog now spans computer‑aided design (CAD), model‑based systems engineering (MBSE), product lifecycle management (PLM), HPC scheduling, data analytics, and more. The breadth of SKUs, license types (concurrent, token‑based, subscription), and contract terms has therefore increased exponentially.
Federal organizations already operate under strict procurement regulations. Reconciling overlapping entitlements, legacy contracts, and divergent usage metrics will be essential to prevent duplicate purchases and ensure every seat or token is cost‑justified.
“Together, Siemens and Altair form the most powerful engineering and data ecosystem available to the defense sector.”
Charles Lambert, Defense Director at Altair Engineering
Managing Entitlements across Cross-Functional Teams
Engineering teams routinely need simultaneous access to Siemens’ Teamcenter, NX, and Simcenter alongside Altair’s simulation, data‑science, and HPC toolchain. Without granular usage metering, agencies risk paying for peak demand that only occurs occasionally or, conversely, over‑allocating scarce licenses and blocking critical work.
Aligning entitlements with real consumption, therefore, requires feature‑level telemetry across users, projects, and external contractors’ capabilities that most government IT departments do not natively possess.
Restricted-Use Scenarios and Compliance Risks
Federal agencies and defense contractors often operate under strict regulations like ITAR and FedRAMP, where certain Siemens and Altair solutions must be restricted to authorized personnel. Properly enforcing access and generating audit-ready reports requires automated license monitoring and policy-driven allocation — especially as Siemens and Altair tools converge into one enterprise-wide engineering platform.
Usage Peaks and Cloud Bursting
Both vendors offer on‑demand cloud and HPC bursting. While invaluable for large‑scale simulations or AI training, these elastic workloads create volatile, high‑cost consumption spikes that traditional on‑prem license daemons don’t capture. Absent real‑time visibility, costs can escalate beyond contract ceilings.
Opportunities to Drive Federal Software Efficiency
Despite these challenges, Siemens’ acquisition of Altair also unlocks opportunities for federal organizations to optimize their software investments and boost digital engineering capacity.
Portfolio Rationalization and Consolidation
Agencies can consolidate overlapping Siemens and Altair tools to streamline procurement and gain better licensing terms.
Improved Interoperability and Innovation
Cross-domain engineering powered by Siemens’ digital twins and Altair’s simulation tools will allow agencies to design, test, and iterate faster. That shortens program schedules and increases responsiveness to evolving defense requirements.
Actionable Insights for Strategic Decision-Making
When paired with reliable usage data, the unified platform can feed predictive analytics that forecast demand, right‑size entitlements, and inform budget requests, converting licensing from a sunk cost into a managed investment.
Open iT: Positioned to Help
Implementing Siemens and Altair across a federal agency requires a proven software license optimization partner. Open iT empowers agencies to extract maximum value from Siemens and Altair investments by providing:.
Vendor-Neutral Analytics
Open iT tracks Siemens, Altair, and other engineering tools — consolidating all consumption data into a single platform that supports cost optimization and transparent usage tracking.
Granular Usage and Governance
Feature-level tracking per user, workstation, and project enables actionable license analytics. Policy-driven allocation restricts access to ITAR- and FedRAMP-controlled tools and simplifies audits.
Cloud-Bursting and HPC Optimization
With continuous usage monitoring and predictive analytics, Open iT empowers agencies to manage cloud workloads, token pools, and bursting events — preventing surprises in licensing costs.
Simplified Transition Support
Open iT can provide baselining and migration support for Siemens and Altair entitlements, ensuring minimal disruption and smooth adoption of new tools across digital engineering teams.
Drive Digital Engineering Value with Proven License Optimization
Siemens’ acquisition of Altair enhances digital engineering capabilities across the federal sector — but also raises the bar for license tracking and compliance. By leveraging detailed consumption data, policy-driven allocation, and automated reporting, agencies can navigate this new environment confidently.
Implementing a proven solution like Open iT provides agencies and defense contractors with the tools to maintain audit-readiness, optimize engineering license investments, and scale engineering output without unexpected licensing risks.
Act now to gain full visibility into your Siemens and Altair license consumption — contact Open iT to know more.
