License Compliance and IT Chargeback

Software monitoring is used to measure how different software packages are used over time – by feature, feature-group, application or product – by business unit, location and project – and by all types of measurements, including:

• Concurrent License Usage (max, min, average)
• Named License Usage (number of different users)
• License Denial reporting
• Total vs. Active Usage
• Top 10 users of a product
• Usage above a 10-minute filter

A study just released by Gartner [1] states that “depending on the level of process maturity, enterprises that implement software usage capabilities will achieve savings of 5-25% in the first year. After the first full cycle of contract renegotiations, the savings will likely stabilize at 2-3 % in subsequent years.”

The study goes on further to say that you should invest in tools that have quick payback with minimal effort after implementation; and software usage tools fill that requirement.