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Consider the Many Benefits of Switching to the Cloud to Manage Software Licensing

By Ed Silverstein, TMCnet Contributor

There are many benefits to managing software licenses in the cloud—both for the enterprise customer as well as for the producer, who no longer needs to spend as much money on the creation and support for local license server capabilities, according to a blog post from Flexera Software.

In the past, producers forced enterprises to maintain infrastructure needed to support a license server. It also meant hiring additional staff.  But enterprises do not want to purchase and support the infrastructure needed to maintain a local license server. It is also expensive to host local license servers, costs which are reduced with new options.

Software vendors also benefit from cloud licensing services. In the past, they had to deal with “out of compliance” and “revenue leakage” associated with virtual machine cloning, according to the Flexera report. With license servers in the cloud there is less risk of accidental or intentional cloning, as well.

Software vendors which use a cloud licensing service will find they can now manage multiple local license servers across worldwide operations. The new licensing model maximizes the value of their investment in software, too.

Flexera Software’s new version of FlexNet Connect, a software/firmware updating and installed base insight solution, has three goals when it comes to licensing. These include: enterprise customers get transparency in software licensing; product activation is simpler; and only paying customers get access to add-on modules. And the FlexNet Cloud Licensing Service let them accomplish the goals.

“We were able to simplify the customer experience by reducing the number of activation IDs required to activate the modules – now regardless of the number of add-on modules customers purchase, only a single instance ID is required; when new modules are added, customers no longer have to go through an activation process, it will automatically activate on the next call to the Cloud Licensing Service; and lastly if a customer buys a subscription and the license expires they will automatically get a new expiration date on the next call to the Cloud Licensing Service (previously they would have to go through another activation process),” the blog post explained.

One other option is using a combination of local license servers and the cloud. But whatever option is used, the cloud clearly offers many benefits.