Many organizations understand the need to effectively manage their software in the desktop environment but overlook software in the datacentre. According to Gartner, 80% of software spend takes place within the datacentre, so managing it is vital. But, due to the complexity and variety of licensing models ensuring compliance can be a difficult and time consuming task. However, the implications of non-compliance can be considerable with organizations like Mars and Specsavers suffering as a result.

So what are the issues with licensing in the datacentre? We believe they fall into 3 categories: complex vendor licensing models, multi-platform environments and virtualization.

Vendor licensing models

Each of the major vendors in the datacentre (Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and SAP) have different and complex licensing models. From Microsoft, now basing their licensing for Windows Server 2016 on physical cores, through IBM with more than 250 licensing metrics, Oracle with more than 80 to SAP who base theirs on usage.

SOURCE: certero.com