As sure as there is software, there will be audits. With more than 70%* of organizations reporting one or more software vendor audit in the past year, you know the auditors will be at your door imminently, if they’re not there already.
SO HOW DOES SOFTWARE ASSET MANAGEMENT HELP YOU OUTSMART THE LICENSE AUDITORS?
Effective management of your software installs, usage, licenses and entitlements can not only improve your audit negotiation tactics but ensure continuous compliance. You need a single source of truth for your software estate, and complete discovery across datacenter, cloud and network.
That´s Audit Defense.
Effective audit defense is about having a proactive, continuous SAM program. It’s not just about responding to audits with a one-off snapshot of your software compliance position.
USE SNOW SAM PLATFORM TO
- Tackle compliance
Ensure you have the right number of licenses to be compliant – take remedial action well ahead of an audit by removing or reassigning unused software.
- Pool licenses for reuse
Instead of buying new licenses and subscriptions for each request, reuse any which are unassigned, and make them available via an app store so you can manage the approvals and availability.
- Pick your vendors
Work out where you have the largest liability in terms of budget or number of applications. Focus your efforts on those and the vendors which are reputed to audit the most.
- Inventory your entire estate
Manage licensing across the entire estate, from the desktop to the datacenter, across Cloud, virtualized and mobile assets.
Don’t wait for the audit letter. Actively start your Software License Optimization program today.
That´s Audit Defense.
Typically, software vendors will focus their audit activity in the datacenter, on indirect usage and the Cloud. An area of increasing interest is mobile. Snow can help on all fronts:
- In the Datacenter: Snow License Manager automatically calculates the compliance position for processor and processor core based software based on both virtual and physical resources. Full details on each application are displayed as well as how the compliance position was calculated together with which use rights were applied to optimize the entitlement coverage from the available licenses.
- Indirect Usage: Many vendors will penalize you if one application is accessing or querying data from another system. This is because it can impact licensing requirements and financial exposure. Snow Optimizer for SAP Software highlights potential unlicensed and non-compliant users that are accessing SAP systems by monitoring unusual behavioral patterns
- Cloud: The good news is that use of SaaS subscriptions reduces the risk of vendor audits as the vendor can accurately track the use of cloud deployed software. But what about use of software licenses in public cloud environments? Many organizations are unaware of the audit risk created by Bring Your Own License models and are unable to track license entitlements against their usage in platforms such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Snow’s Cloud solutions provide comprehensive visibility of cloud virtual machines and the licenses deployed in each VM.
- Mobile devices: Apps that are free for personal use often need a license if used for work purposes. Snow Device Manager gives you the control to blacklist or whitelist applications and limit users in what apps they can download to their devices.
Snow’s Software Asset Management platform can discover and inventory the whole estate – from the datacenter to the cloud, through PCs and laptops to mobile devices – to give you a true 360-degree visibility of what applications are in use across all platforms andhow they are being accessed by users and give you the intelligence you need to make informed decisions and ensure compliance.
That´s Audit Defense.
- Avoid unbudgeted costs
- Minimize disruption caused by vendor audits
- Optimize licensing to manage overall spend
The complexity of today’s multi-platform, multi-network and cloud estates makes it more necessary than ever to have the right software Asset Management Solution to be audit-ready. Automate the process to establish your exact entitlement position with Snow SAM Platform and you’ll not only be able to successfully defend an audit, you’ll deliver significant cost savings too.
* Snow proprietary research. May 2016.
USE SNOW SAM PLATFORM TO
- Tackle compliance
Ensure you have the right number of licenses to be compliant – take remedial action well ahead of an audit by removing or reassigning unused software.
- Pool licenses for reuse
Instead of buying new licenses and subscriptions for each request, reuse any which are unassigned, and make them available via an app store so you can manage the approvals and availability.
- Pick your vendors
Work out where you have the largest liability in terms of budget or number of applications. Focus your efforts on those and the vendors which are reputed to audit the most.
- Inventory your entire estate
Manage licensing across the entire estate, from the desktop to the datacenter, across Cloud, virtualized and mobile assets.
Don’t wait for the audit letter. Actively start your Software License Optimization program today.
That´s Audit Defense.
Typically, software vendors will focus their audit activity in the datacenter, on indirect usage and the Cloud. An area of increasing interest is mobile. Snow can help on all fronts:
- In the Datacenter: Snow License Manager automatically calculates the compliance position for processor and processor core based software based on both virtual and physical resources. Full details on each application are displayed as well as how the compliance position was calculated together with which use rights were applied to optimize the entitlement coverage from the available licenses.
- Indirect Usage: Many vendors will penalize you if one application is accessing or querying data from another system. This is because it can impact licensing requirements and financial exposure. Snow Optimizer for SAP Software highlights potential unlicensed and non-compliant users that are accessing SAP systems by monitoring unusual behavioral patterns
- Cloud: The good news is that use of SaaS subscriptions reduces the risk of vendor audits as the vendor can accurately track the use of cloud deployed software. But what about use of software licenses in public cloud environments? Many organizations are unaware of the audit risk created by Bring Your Own License models and are unable to track license entitlements against their usage in platforms such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Snow’s Cloud solutions provide comprehensive visibility of cloud virtual machines and the licenses deployed in each VM.
- Mobile devices: Apps that are free for personal use often need a license if used for work purposes. Snow Device Manager gives you the control to blacklist or whitelist applications and limit users in what apps they can download to their devices.
Snow’s Software Asset Management platform can discover and inventory the whole estate – from the datacenter to the cloud, through PCs and laptops to mobile devices – to give you a true 360-degree visibility of what applications are in use across all platforms andhow they are being accessed by users and give you the intelligence you need to make informed decisions and ensure compliance.
That´s Audit Defense.
- Avoid unbudgeted costs
- Minimize disruption caused by vendor audits
- Optimize licensing to manage overall spend
The complexity of today’s multi-platform, multi-network and cloud estates makes it more necessary than ever to have the right software Asset Management Solution to be audit-ready. Automate the process to establish your exact entitlement position with Snow SAM Platform and you’ll not only be able to successfully defend an audit, you’ll deliver significant cost savings too.
* Snow proprietary research. May 2016.
