Snow License Manager – SAM for complex use cases
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Snow License Manager is used in our organization for four main purposes: to determine which applications are run and where on 35,000+ computers running Windows, iOS or Linux, to alert responsible individuals to application license expiry and warn of impending and current compliance issues, to assist purchase planning and department software requests , and to identify and harvest unused licenses for reuse elsewhere according the the licensing terms. Before Snow License Manager was deployed in our organization, each branch managed software according to its own capability. There was no comprehensive, holistic application contributing to the awareness of licensing issues. Although each branch did its best, no one really knew the software estate's size, value or deployment. Where permissible by the licenses, there was still little sharing of licenses between international branches, which led in some cases to over-purchasing. Another issue was identifying unwanted and insecure applications. Also many varied applications doing basically the same thing had been deployed. Using Snow License Manager and carefully examining the use cases, the number of different applications used could be reduced. This simplified software asset management. The small footprint of the Snow Agent Manager permits deployment even in the most demanding computing environments.
Pros
- Identifies where and when software applications have been used
- Checks compliance of applications to the license terms
- Warns of impending license expiries
Cons
- Recognition of licensed plugins running in another application's executable is missing
- There is inconsistent use of Wildcards like "%" across search fields in the SLM and SMACC
- The search "filter" called "Also include not installed/used" is necessary to see not installed/used applications.
Most Important Features
- The ability to determine which applications are run and where
- To assist purchase planning and internal software requests
- To identify and harvest unused licenses for reuse elsewhere
- To alert responsible individuals to application license expiry
- To warn of impending and current compliance issues
Return on Investment
- In the first year SLM was deployed about $1,000,000 was saved in license costs
- Departments could determine their current use and project future needs better
- The number of software providers could be consolidated
Usability
Other Software Used
Microsoft Visual Studio Code, Eclipse, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Blender, GIMP
