Key Points to Prioritize Vendor

Most of the organization has huge spent on Software purchase. Now, question comes, which publisher do I need to put focus more? Normally, organization spend 80% of total software spend on only 20% application/ software's. But then how do you prioritize these 20% software vendors. Below are key points which one can consider:

1-  Way to manage SAM: You need to list down if SAM management for particular application is proactive or reactive. It's been seen, if an organization is managing SAM for particular application proactively, it is important.

2-  License Analysis: License is managed thru SAM tool or only SAM tool in conjunction with other other tools or on excel or as required

3- Entitlement information: Do you have always entitlement data or only collect as and when required 

4- Correctness of data required : High , low or as needed 

5- %Software Spend: % on software Spend vs Total spend 

6- Business Critical: Check if an application goes down for few hours then what is impact on business? Obviously, Those software where business dependency is high are critical and must be managed on priority. 

7- Audit nature of vendor: Few vendor are very aggressive and frequent for audit so companies should focus these vendors

8- Time for true-up / renewal: If any true-up or renewal is coming up that is again a factor for you to consider while prioritizing software because you can achieve a great saving out there.

9- Easy wins: Target vendors where cost optimization is easy. This will help you to build confidence in your top management.\

So, considering above factor may help you to prioritize software vendor which end of day will help you to save some cost.

Name Changes to Some Office 365 and Microsoft 365 Plans

Microsoft announced to change the name of some Office 365 and Microsoft 365 effective from 21st, April, 2020. Changes will automatically be reflected on each relevant portal. Here is the quick summary:

For business plans: 

Office 365 Business Essential is now Office 365 Business Basic

Office 365 Business Premium is now Office 365 Business Standard

Office 365 Business is now Office 365 Business Premium

For office plans: 

Office 365 Business is now Microsoft 365 Apps for Business

Office 365 Pro Plus is now Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise

For Home plans:

Office 365 Personal is now Microsoft 365 Personal
Office 365 Home is now Microsoft 365 Family

Microsoft 365 E3 ( unattended)

Interesting  to see a new addition in office 365 family  which is probably a step ahead towards most hot topic now a days how to licenses RPA for Office. More clarity yet to come from #Microsoft

Autodesk Transition to Named User Program

On May 7, 2020, Autodesk is launching new subscription-based plan that is based on people in place of serial numbers. This new change will lead to retire Maintenance plan and Subscription with multi-user access. 

Key points:

·         Maintenance plans will retire on May 7, 2021 and cannot be further renewed.

·         Subscriptions with multi-user access will retire on August 7, 2021 and cannot be further renewed.

·         As part of retiring maintenance, the last version of the Design & Creation Suites will be released in April 2020 for customers to download, and the last date to renew Suites will be April 16, 2020.

·         Starting February 29, 2020, we will no longer sell new 2 or 3-year subscriptions with multi-user access or allow renewals. Starting August 7, 2020, we will no longer sell new annual subscriptions with multi-user access.

What do I need to do to transition to named user?

For customers who own a subscription with multi-user access or maintenance, at your first renewal after May 7, 2020, we’ll help you transition to a plan for named users through trade-in offers that keep your costs consistent today and predictable to 2028*

Please refer below link for key dates. 

https://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/transition-to-named-user/terms-and-conditions

5 Key reasons for an organization to be non-complaint

Quick SAM check:

Top 5 key reasons for software license non-compliance

1- Your non-production licenses somehow used in production environment.

2- You misinterpreted licensing definitions

3- Due to change in product use rights, you have now unlicensed software installed and you didn't realize

4- Lack of awareness of using software on virtualization environment 

5- You upgraded and downgraded your software without understanding the product use rights.

IBM new announcement for retired OS ( Windows 7/ Windows Server 2008/ 2008 R2

IBM license change which may impact IBM license positioning.

In order to remain eligible for sub-capacity licensing for IBM software, deployed on following operating systems:

• Windows Server 2008
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Windows 7

 

You should update your operating system within the next 180 days to one of the supported operating systems as per IBM’s policy. This since the above listed operating systems have reached End of Support/End of Life on January 14th, 2020

Below is IBM announcement: 

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/1079427

Azure Hybrid Benefit

#windowsserver licensing on hashtag#azure cost optimization Tip: Azure hybrid benefit 1- Windows Data center edition( 2 proc or 16 core) : you are allowed to run up-to 2 vms & up-to 16 cores ( vm can run in azure as well as in on-prem) 2- Windows Standard edition ( 2 proc or 16 core) : you are allowed to run up-to 2 vm & up-to 16 cores ( vm can run in either azure or in on-prem) hashtag#microsoft hashtag#cloud hashtag#azure hashtag#licensing

Changes to Software Assurance Benefits- Microsoft Announcement

Microsoft just announced that they will be making significant changes to SA Benefits.  Below are the highlights of some of the changes and how they will impact your organization.

What’s changing? 

Microsoft will be retiring in phases the following legacy SA benefits:

 - Deployment Planning Services (Vouchers)

2    - Training Vouchers (SATV)

3    -  24x7 Problem Resolution Support

Why is Microsoft making these changes? 

Microsoft is looking for new ways to help customers deploy, train and receive support.  Microsoft continues to grow the FastTrack program to enable customers to successfully adopt Microsoft cloud services.  They are also looking at investing in new training and certification offerings along with programs to drive adoption of solutions with customers and partners.  Finally, they are adjusting SA support eligibility criteria and changing support incident allocations.

Key Dates!

Deployment Planning:

February 1, 2020 – DPS cloud engagements will be retired. All cloud customers will be directed to FastTrack Programs

February 1, 2021 – Customers will no longer accrue DPS days

June 30, 2021 – Last day to create planning days to be used

January 1, 2022 – Last day for partners to redeem DPS vouchers for current engagements

Training Vouchers:

February 1, 2020 – Training vouchers can no longer be converted to planning services days

February 1, 2020 – Customers will no longer be able to use training vouchers for Azure courses

February 1, 2021 – Customers will no longer accrue training vouchers

June 30, 2021 – Last day to create training vouchers to be used

January 1, 2022 – Last day to redeem training vouchers for existing contracts

Support:

February 1, 2020 – Customers who convert Software Assurance incidents to buy down Premier/Unified or pay for DSE will be permitted to do it one more time after this date until February 2021

February 1, 2020 – Support incidents can no longer be converted to Premier/Unified support after the one-time renewal event (one-time buy down option is ended)

February 1, 2021 – Incidents will no longer be awarded or allowed to convert to Premier/Unified

February 1, 2021 – Microsoft will provide support for eligible customers who spend $250,000/year or more on Software Assurance

#Microsoft#ITAM#Licensing#SAM
#Software Assurance 

#Licensing#SA

Java Licensing Changes: Impact and alternatives

From the January 16^th, 2019, Oracle has stopped free public updates for Java SE 8 [Update 201] was released on January 15, 2019. The next update [Update 202] which requires a subscription, is scheduled for April 2019. See : https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/alerts-086861.html

Technically, Java is still free. The current release (11) is available via the GPL open source license. But to use free Java, you have to upgrade all your applications to Java 11, you must use the open source OpenJDK distribution and you must commit to deploying a new release every 6 months. OpenJDK 12 is scheduled to be released in March, and OpenJDK 13 is scheduled to be released in September.

you are required to get a Java Subscription from Oracle if you are using Oracle JDK in production. Starting with Java SE 11, OpenJDK and Oracle JDK are identical (in previous releases, they were different). 

According to Oracle’s licensing FAQ (https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/overview/faqs-jsp-136696.html) , Java SE 8 remains free of charge for general purpose desktop and server use. This version of Java is licensed under the Oracle Binary Code License (BCL), which is free to use for development, testing, and production. You can still download Java SE 8 from here: https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html. But Oracle no longer provides free bug fixes or security patches for Java SE 8. You must buy a Java Subscription to get updates from Oracle.

Licensing facts: 

Oracle’s free support for past, current and future commercial distributions of Java SE (Oracle JDK) ended on January 15, 2019. To get critical bug fixes and security patches for Java SE after January, Oracle customers can purchase a support subscription for past and current releases of Java. See below Oracle’s Java SE Support Roadmap. See https://www.oracle.com/support/lifetime-support/ for definitions of Premier/Extended/Sustaining support.

Oracle's Java SE Support Roadmap

Release	GA Date	Premier Support Ends	Extended Support Ends	Sustaining Support
6	2006-12	2015-12	2018-12	Indefinite
7	2011-07	2019-07	2022-07	Indefinite
8	2014-03	2022-03	2025-03	Indefinite
9	2017-09	2018-03	Not Available	Indefinite
10	2018-03	2018-09	Not Available	Indefinite
11 (LTS)	2018-09	2023-09	2026-09	Indefinite
12	2019-03	2019-09	Not Available	Indefinite

Oracle’s licensing, support subscription model, and release cadence:

·         Oracle is increasing the cadence of releases from one major release every 3 years to one feature release every 6 months. Java 11, released in September, is a major release. Java 8 was the last major release.

·         Oracle will continue to provide free support for the open source Java distribution, OpenJDK – but organizations must be prepared to upgrade in every 6 months. Oracle will publish free bug fixes and security updates to open JDK but only to current release.

·         Organizations that are unwilling to upgrade in every 6 months have the option of using Oracle JDK (commercial license) or staying with an older version (Java SE 8) and purchasing a Java Subscription.

·         Going forward, Oracle will offer Long Term Support (LTS) for periodic releases (comparable to a major releases) – e.g., Oracle will provide LTS for Oracle JDK 11 and Oracle JDK 17 (due out in 2021). Oracle will not provide long term support for any of the intermediate releases – Java 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, etc. 

• Oracle offers two Java Subscriptions — one for desktops (licensed by Named User at USD 2.50/user/month) and one for servers (licensed by Processor at USD 25/processor/month). You must license all machines where the JRE is installed. Volume discounts apply (see below). Per Oracle’s pricing list (http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/pricing/price-lists/java-se-subscription-pricelist-5028356.pdf): 
• Named User Plus: is defined as an individual authorized by you to use the programs which are installed on a single server or multiple servers (“server” = desktop computer) regardless of whether the individual is actively using the programs at any given time. A non-human operated device will be counted as a named user plus in addition to all individuals authorized to use the programs, if such devices can access the programs. 
• Processor shall be defined as all processors where the Oracle programs are installed and/or running. Programs licensed on a processor basis may be accessed by your internal users (including agents and contractors) and by your third-party users. The number of required licenses shall be determined by multiplying the total number of cores of the processor by a core processor licensing factor specified on the Oracle Processor Core Factor Table which can be accessed at http://oracle.com/contracts. 
• Published volume discount rates for Java SE Subscription (for servers):
• 1-99 — $25/processor/month (full price) $300/yr.
• 100-249 — $23.75 (5% discount) $285/yr.
• 250-499 — $22.50 (10% discount) $270/yr.
• 500-999 — $20.00 (20% discount) $240/yr.
• 1,000-2,999 — $17.50 (30% discount) $210/yr.
• 3,000-9,999 — $15.00 (40% discount) $180/yr.
• 10,000-19,999 — $12.50 (50% discount) $144/yr. 
• 20,000+ — negotiable 
• Published volume discount rates for Java SE Desktop Subscription (for desktops): 
• 1-999 — $2.50/user/month (full price) $30/yr.
• 1,000-2,999 — $2.00 (20% discount) $24/yr.
• 3,000-9,999 — $1.75 (30% discount) $21/yr.
• 10,000-19,999 — $1.50 (40% discount) $18/yr.
• 20,000-49,000 — $1.25 (50% discount) $15/yr. 
• 50,000+ — negotiable 
• Oracle provides limited support for Java SE if you have licensed other Oracle products that require Java SE. Customers are entitled, without the need to separately purchase Oracle Java SE Support, to do the following:
• Download and use Java SE updates, patches, and tools for use with the licensed Oracle product. Customers are entitled to download only the Java SE versions that are required by their Oracle product.
• Install and use Java SE updates, patches, and tools to develop or deploy their Oracle product.
• File service requests for Java issues against their Oracle product, but not directly against Java SE.
• Other application vendors, including SAP, may offer a similar support agreement, if they provide their own JDK distribution. Very few do. Check with your vendors.
• SAP provides its own Java SE implementation, SAP JVM — Java SE 8 compatible
• SAP BusinessObjects Java Viewer (which relies on Java Web Start) will not work past Java 8
• IBM provides its own Java SE implementation in many of its products, like WebSphere and DB2

Alternative sources for Java distributions and support:

• You can get Java from numerous vendors that provide distributions based on OpenJDK, including:
• You can get Java from numerous vendors that provide distributions based on OpenJDK, including:
• AdoptOpenJDK with HotSpot JVM or with IBM’s OpenJ9 JVM (GPL2+2, current and past releases, as long as other vendors [IBM, Azul, SAP] produce the patches; community support for Java 8 is planned until 2022). Note that AdoptOpenJDK is not a certified distribution. See https://adoptopenjdk.net/. 
• Azul Zulu (certified commercial build of OpenJDK with paid support, or free certified community edition, promising 8 years support for major releases, including Java 6 support until 2019, Java 7 support until 2023, Java 8 support until 2026, and Java 11 support until 2027). Azul also offers mid-term support for some feature releases (Java 9 until 2020 and Java 13 until 2022). See Azul’s support roadmap: https://www.azul.com/products/azul_support_roadmap. Prices range from standard support for 25 systems for $13,200/year to unlimited premium support for $341,500/year. See Azul Zulu Enterprise pricing: https://www.azul.com/products/pricing/.
• Red Hat certified OpenJDK builds for RHEL (commercial product with paid support – supports JDK 7 until 2020, and JDK 8 until 2023, and JDK 11 until 2026.)  Red Hat distributes OpenJDK builds for Windows that are supported for development of applications that work in conjunction with JBoss middleware for deployment on RHEL. Red Hat also offers paid support for OpenJDK 8 and 11 on Windows. See https://access.redhat.com/articles/1299013. Red Hat’s distribution includes support for Java Web Start via the IcedTea-Web open source implementation. See https://icedtea.classpath.org/wiki/IcedTea-Web.
• IBM provides and supports its own certified JDK 8 on its various OSes through 2022 (updates provided via OS update process) and offers paid support for AdoptOpenJDK with Open J9 JVM. See https://www.ibm.com/us-en/marketplace/support-for-runtimes.  
• Amazon provides a free certified distribution of OpenJDK 8, Corretto, available for Linux, Windows, and MacOS. Amazon will provide free quarterly updates for JDK 8 until at least June 2023. (Updates include performance enhancements and security patches. Amazon doesn’t provide on-call support.) Amazon plans to release Corretto 11 (compatible with OpenJDK 11) in the first half of 2019. See https://docs.aws.amazon.com/corretto/latest/corretto-8-ug/what-is-corretto-8.html and https://aws.amazon.com/corretto/faqs/.   
• Other Linux distros include OpenJDK, including Arch, Debian, Fedora, SUSE, and Ubuntu (previous versions available, updates provided via OS update process). See https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/Build/Supported+Build+Platforms
• Most PaaS providers included a curated JDK platform. E.g., Azure includes Azul Zulu, AWS Elastic Beanstalk and Lambda include Amazon Corretto, Pivotal provides an OpenJDK build with Pivotal Cloud Foundry. (Because of “field of use” restrictions in the Oracle Java SE license agreements, you shouldn’t deploy Oracle’s commercial distributions on IaaS. You definitely want to use a third-party distribution.)
• One MAJOR restriction with OpenJDK is support for applets and Java Web Start. These technologies are not included in OpenJDK. They are proprietary add-on features in Oracle's commercial distribution, and Oracle Java SE 8 is the last version that supports them in a production environment. They have been dropped from Java 11 altogether. But you do have an option: The IcedTea-Web open source project (sponsored by Red Hat) also supports applets and Java Web Start. Red Hat’s OpenJDK distribution for Windows includes IcedTea-Web. You may also be able to use IcedTea-Web with other OpenJDK distributions.

Recommendations:

You have three choices:

1. Run unsupported older version java (Not recommended at all)
2. Pay Oracle 
3. Find an alternate source for a JDK or JRE distribution and for either commercial or community support.

 What you should do now:

• Immediately identify every application that uses Java SE. Oracle provides a tool called Java Usage Tracker in their Java SE commercial products -- but you need to have licensed it to use the tool.
• For each application, determine the application provider, what version of Java it uses, whether it requires a specific Java distribution, what operating system it runs on, and whether it’s running on a desktop or server.
• If Oracle is the application provider (e.g., WebLogic, Oracle Financials), you can get support for Oracle JDK through your Oracle application support agreement.
• If SAP is the application provider, you can get support for SAP JVM through your SAP application support agreement.
• If the application runs on RHEL, you can get support for OpenJDK through your RHEL support agreement.
• If the application runs on an IBM OS, you can get support for OpenJDK through you IBM OS support agreement.
• If none of the above, you will need to select a Java provider (Oracle, Azul, OpenJDK, AdoptOpenJDK, Amazon, Red Hat -Windows) 
• Determine whether you are comfortable relying on the OpenJDK community support model and whether you are willing to upgrade Java every six months. If so, upgrade as many applications as is reasonable to Java 11, be prepared to upgrade every 6 months, and go with OpenJDK with community support. (You will still need a support option for those applications that remain on Java 8.)
• If you prefer to subscribe to commercial support or aren’t willing to adopt the six-month upgrade cadence, identify a support provider for long term support for Java 11 (Oracle, Azul, or community support via AdoptOpenJDK).
• For those applications that require an older version of Java, identify a distributor and support provider (Oracle, Azul, Amazon, or AdoptOpenJDK) or run unsupported (not recommended). 
• If you are going with a provider other than Oracle, you will need to replace Oracle Java SE and/or Oracle JDK with OpenJDK or another distribution on all desktops and servers.
• If you don’t intend to buy the Oracle Java Subscription, immediately disable auto-update on all copies of Oracle Java SE.  

Some useful links:

Oracle Support Life Cycle: 

https://www.oracle.com/support/lifetime-support/  

Oracle’s Binary Code License (for Java SE 8):

https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/terms/license/index.html  

Oracle’s OTN license (for Java SE 11 - limited to dev and test):

https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/terms/license/javase-license.html   

Oracle’s licensing FAQ: 

https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/overview/faqs-jsp-136696.html  

Oracle’s licensing information user manuals: 

https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/documentation/java-se-lium-2018-06-21-4892263.pdf (Java 8, 9, 10)

https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/documentation/jdk11-lium-2018-09-20-5106626.pdf  (Java 11)

Here is an Oracle blog entry that describes many of the licensing changes:

https://blogs.oracle.com/java-platform-group/faster-and-easier-use-and-redistribution-of-java-se

Here is a link that describes free personal use support for Java 8 through 2020 but free commercial support ending in 2019

https://www.java.com/en/download/release_notice.jsp

Here is a link to a whitepaper on Oracle's client-side road map for java...

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/javaclientroadmapupdate2018mar-4414431.pdf

Here are links to other Oracle notes about this licensing change:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/eol-135779.html

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/eol-135779.html

https://www.oracle.com/java/java9-screencasts.html?bcid=5582439790001&playerType=single-social&size=events 

https://community.oracle.com/docs/DOC-1011529 

Here is a link to the recent Java SE Subscription plan from Oracle:

https://www.oracle.com/java/java-se-subscription.html  

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/pricing/price-lists/java-se-subscription-pricelist-5028356.pdf  

https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javaseproducts/overview/javasesubscriptionfaq-4891443.html

Here are links to AdoptOpenJDK:

https://adoptopenjdk.net/

https://hub.docker.com/r/adoptopenjdk/

Here are links to Azul:

https://www.azul.com/downloads/zulu/

https://www.azul.com/java-stable-secure-free-choose-two-three/

https://www.azul.com/products/zulu-and-zulu-enterprise/zulu-enterprise-java-support-options/

https://www.azul.com/products/azul_support_roadmap  

https://www.azul.com/products/pricing/  

Here are links to Redhat's Java support policies:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/1299013

https://access.redhat.com/articles/3409141  

Here are links to IBM's Java support policies:

https://developer.ibm.com/javasdk/support/lifecycle/

https://www.ibm.com/uk-en/marketplace/support-for-runtimes

SAP JVM - SE 8 compatible — documentation:

https://help.sap.com/viewer/65de2977205c403bbc107264b8eccf4b/Cloud/en-US/7613c8c7711e1014839a8273b0e91070.html 

SAP’s advisory regarding SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence Java Viewer (i.e. Java Applet):

https://apps.support.sap.com/sap/support/knowledge/preview/en/2656446 

Mainstream Positions in SAM

I came across a question many times, what are the key positions in SAM during my conversations with HR, clients and with senior management? Today, I would like to briefly talk about role and positions in SAM. 

When I joined SAM industry 10 years ago, there were not a lot highly experienced Software Asset Management (SAM) professionals. Very few companies have deployed SAM tools. 

In the course of time, SAM industry has evolved, and it's been turned out from "nice-to-have" to "must-have". The management/ executives prospect towards SAM investment has also changed from investment to cost optimization. 

This was not just happened, the importance of SAM programs has risen up because many things like increasing software audits with negative outcomes, badly negotiated contracts in terms, overspending on software licenses and maintenance etc. Now a day, companies want to gain control on their software investment and reduce audit risk.

There could be many SA roles but mainly below are the key positions: 

Software Asset Manager: This position manages and priorities IT Asset management projects and tasks base on business driver (cost saving, risk mitigation, innovation) 

License Analyst: Gathering data, license entitlements and compliance positioning etc. 

Contract Management Analyst: Primarily responsible for favorable terms and conditions. better negotiations of support and maintenance etc.  

SAM Technical Analyst: Primarily responsible to run and configure SAM tools 

These are the main positions, however there could be many more roles based on organization structure. The industry is rapidly growing with lot of dynamic changes in licensing metrics and models. So, demand of SAM professional will be risen up, the only thing is important to have being SAM professional you always need to update the skills and follow the trend of IT to be in race.