Software licensing: the benefits of the concurrent license model

Software licensing agreements can be a daunting task for an enterprise. Using a multi-plant organization as an example, I plan to explain the benefits of the concurrent licensing over traditional per devices/user model in terms of cost, flexibility ease of use and administration.

With a devices locked license, fees are applied based on the usage of that particular device. In the concurrent license, fees are paid based on the maximum number of users or devices that can access the software at one time. A concurrent use license allows users to gain access to the software from any device on the network on which the software is installed. A license server manager typically administers a pool of licenses to be shared. The number of concurrent licenses determines the number of devices that can run the applications concurrently. If all licenses are being used, an additional device cannot run the application until one of the other users finishes using his/her license. When one device finishes using the license, another device can begin using it.  A concurrent use license is not locked to a single machine and, as such, can float on a network.

Now, let’s assume that a casual user license is being used on a plant on average 2 hours per day. Casual users are defined as users that do not demand 100% availability of the software.  For a reasonably large deployment, one can assume that the software license will be used for 8 hours per day as all devices in a particular site will have access to the software (4 times the usage and presumably 4 times the value and therefore cost savings). Now let’s assume that your customer is an enterprise with  “around the clock”, multi plant locations. In this situation, the software licenses that were only used 2 hours per day may now be used 24 hours per day. This would be 12 times the usage and the actual cost savings would not be so extreme.

Benefits Concurrent Licensing Summary

Flexibility:

• As seen in the example above, concurrent licenses can essentially replace multiple per-device licenses for casual users
• You can empower an entire team with only the number of licenses that are expected to be in use simultaneously, as they will not require a license for every user.

Easy and cost-efficient:

• Concurrent licensing reduces the administration, as it is easier to administer because the IT department do not have to monitor usage as closely. Concurrent licensing automatically limits the number of devices that can access the application at any one point, for example five, ten devices.
• This model can save you a lot of money.

I’d love to have your comments. First 10 people to comment  below and follow up with an email to Lucian.Fogoros AT Invensys.com will be provided with an outline of a WonderTube Video program that can bring you up to $6000 usd in cash. This is a limited time offer.

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