software licence management

SERVICE
TRANSFORMATION

Service Definition
Document

service overview

Harrison will help you manage software licensing risks across various cloud vendors including IBM, Oracle, SAP, Adobe, Symantec, Veritas, Microsoft, VMWare, RedHat, and more. We will also assist you in acquiring software in the most optimal and cost-effective way possible.

Service Features:

  • Our cloud software management portfolio consists of processes designed to proactively administer and optimise cloud-based applications.
  • Proactively identify and mitigate risks throughout all stages of software development and implementation.
  • Optimise the process of procuring, implementing, and retiring cloud software.
  • Implement effective strategies for cloud software licence management.
  • Address the heightened risks and complexities that come with licensing cloud-based technologies.
  • Simultaneously manage cloud-provisioned, marketplace, and bring-your-own-license (BYOL) software licenses.
  • Create a well-structured ecosystem to track and ensure adherence to licensing requirements and present it as your Enterprise License Position (ELP)
  • Strengthen cybersecurity by establishing and carrying out effective policies and procedures.
  • Actively oversee, control, and limit the software utilised within the Cloud environment.
  • To reduce the risk of undetected unauthorised or malicious software, and implement and maintain effective security controls.

Service Benefits:

  • Identify cloud software that is being utilised without a valid license.
  • Determine which software programs need more licenses to be purchased.
  • To avoid losing discounts due to vendor audits, ineffective procurement (True Up’s), and ensure compliance with all terms and conditions.
  • Detect and report any software that enables illegal or improper activities.
  • Detect software that contains malware or viruses.
  • Identify any software programs that could potentially compromise the system’s security.
  • Lower your organisation’s cloud software expenses by optimising usage and leveraging cost-saving measures.
  • To minimise risks from improper cloud software management, and establish clear procedures and guidelines.

Cloud commercial compliance

As companies move services to the cloud or build new cloud-based or even hybrid cloud services, they must navigate the complex and ever-evolving landscape of software licensing to do so cost-effectively and in compliance with vendors’ terms.
This requires thoroughly understanding the licensing options, including Bring Your Own License (BYOL) models, public marketplace offerings, pay-as-you-go runtime models, and Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions.
Further, the increased purchasing freedom in the cloud can raise the risk of overspending or violating licensing agreements, since cloud marketplaces have a variety of terms, conditions, and licensing metrics but rarely supply adequate ways to monitor the consumption.

harrison’s solutions

We identify licensing optimisation opportunities for cloud software deployments by proactively detecting compliance risks before ‘true-ups’ and audits
We evaluate your existing software licenses to determine their transferability to, and compatibility with, cloud-based
usage and identify opportunities to reduce costs through cloud migration.
We assess cloud commercial compliance controls such as purchasing policies and procedures, software license allocation
and monitoring processes, and provide support with implementing recommended improvements.

main challenge

There are risks related to ensuring compliance with
software license terms in the cloud, and managing the variety
of cloud pricing models.

observing the cloud environment

CloudService Providers generate a wealth of financial data for their cloud
adopters. This data can then be leveraged by cloud-native, third-party, or custom
in-house reporting tools to generate valuable cloud financial management
insights.
However, adopters who fail to fully explore the range of insights and reporting
options miss out on critical opportunities to optimise costs and operations,
ultimately increasing expenses.

main challenge

The inability to fully monitor
cloud usage, costs, and
compliance creates potential
for wasteful spending and
security risks.

harrison’s solutions

We help businesses centralise monitoring of their multi-cloud assets, spend, and
usage by implementing change management, policy implementation, and testing of monitoring technology across cloud estates.
We help design financial monitoring dashboards and processes, to extract financial management insights and optimise spending on an ongoing basis.

We help clients optimise their cloud financial monitoring by streamlining capabilities across multi-cloud and hybrid environments. This increases financial benefits while reducing operational needs.

cloud resource wastage

Cloud adoption enables organisations to dynamically scale and evolve their IT
infrastructure in response to changing business needs. This includes rapidly
deploying new software and infrastructure as required.
However, such freedoms can lead to a lack of cohesive spending strategy and
centralised oversight of ongoing costs. Without clearly defining a spending
strategy and responsibilities, and understanding how teams use cloud resources,
organisations waste cloud budgets. This waste happens through weak retirement
and decommissioning processes, no resource or asset consolidation, and poor
visibility to negotiate discounts with cloud service providers or vendors.

main challenge

Resources are wasted due to the
lack of shared guidance and
unified strategy.

harrison’s solutions

We analyse cloud resource usage, identify opportunities to optimise costs, and
provide recommendations such as reducing capacity, shifting usage patterns, migrating to alternative deployment models, and leveraging alternative resource types.
We evaluate cloud spending and cost management, including reviewing strategy
and policy, spend processes and restrictions, guidance, and support. We then provide recommendations to improve implementations if needed.

service transition risks

Cloud migration presents commercial and operational challenges for
organisations, as cloud service providers offer various new service deployment
and running methods, each with different financial implications.
Without analysing existing service licensing and expenditures, as well as the
variety of commercial offerings available to cloud users when deploying services,
adopters may encounter compliance problems and unexpected costs during
migration. They may also continue to use unregulated, cost-inefficient cloud
services on an ongoing basis.

main challenge

Transitioning services to the
cloud can introduce compliance
and cost-efficiency risks that
must be managed during and
after the migration process.

harrison’s solutions

We provide assurance throughout the cloud service migration process including
initial scoping and design, the migration itself, and post-migration spending and
monitoring.
We evaluate existing spend assurance and planning procedures and assist with
designing and implementing improved processes to support ongoing service migration to and deployment in the cloud.
We optimise cloud service migration by comparing cloud resource models, applying financial analysis, and advising on proposed cloud architectures.

why harrison

IT consulting that isn’t scripted, templated or one we did earlier We’ve regularly experienced a hit and run culture of IT service providers that create an amazing sales experience.

Yet still, the delivery has fallen short, leaving the customer to pick up the pieces, often at a considerable cost.
At Harrison, our IT consulting is all tailored to the individual customer needs and desired outcomes. We utilise all of the best practice frameworks (ITIL, COBIT, SIAM, Prince2, Agile, etc.) across the full enterprise combining the best elements to ensure your goals and objectives are met.

Our interactions with clients embody a friendly and pragmatic ethos, centred around people. We take a holistic 360-degree approach to our work, deliberately avoiding silo thinking.
Choose Harrison for IT consulting with bespoke solutions, meticulously crafted to align with your unique business
objectives.

contact us

Please send your requirements to info@harrisonjamesit.com.
Alternatively, if you wish to discuss your requirements in more detail,
please send us the following information and we will be happy to
contact you:
1. Your organisation name
2. The name of this service
3. Your name and contact details
4. A brief description of your business situation
5. Your preferred timescales for starting the work

www.harrisonjamesit.com
+44 203 667 3666
info@harrisonjamesit.com
Guildford, United Kingdom