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The Shift to Virtualization and Software-Defined Networks Brings Licensing Complexities

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The Shift to Virtualization and Software-Defined Networks Brings Licensing Complexities

October 22, 2015
By Laura Stotler, TMCnet Contributing Editor

It’s an exciting time for data center infrastructure and networking architectures as enterprises and service providers steadily move to a software-defined model that relies heavily on virtualization. Software and applications rule the market in today’s cloud economy and companies are re-architecting data infrastructure out of necessity.


Shifting applications to the driver’s seat brings about some interesting challenges when it comes to software licensing and compliance. Many applications are being offered as a service, with usage-based licensing and pricing models. So companies are faced with a challenge of not only managing legacy software resources and their associated licensing, but a whole range of usage-based apps and services.

There are additional challenges with the migration to a software-based, virtualized network and data center architecture. According to Andrew McGowan, business technology executive at Flexera Software, virtualization comes with a number of associated costs and companies don’t always plan accordingly. Software licensing can be tricky and can offset money saved from downsizing server volume. Flexible licensing terms can help offset these additional costs, especially when coupled with software asset management (SAM) solutions, which Flexera specializes in.

Flexera’s software license compliance and installation offerings help customers ensure continuous licensing compliance and optimized software investments throughout their entire data infrastructure and network architecture.

“Consolidating eight physical servers into one physical hosting server with eight virtual servers should significantly reduce hardware costs, facilities and power expenses, right?” McGowan asked in a recent blog post. “The short answer is yes, but nowhere near the 88 percent reduction a straight line projection would lead us to believe is possible. The savings on software are not as immediately obvious but there are very good reasons why software asset management (SAM) and license optimization practices are crucial for reducing costs in the virtualized datacenter.”

Flexera recently expanded its focus to include vulnerability management and cybersecurity with the acquisition of Secunia (News - Alert). The company specializes in software vulnerability management solutions, which are an ideal complement to Flexera’s software license optimization offerings.




Edited by Maurice Nagle

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