Datacom Eliminates License Management Woes With Microsoft Enterprise Agreement

SITUATION
Since it was established in New Zealand over 35 years ago, Datacom has grown into a major IT services company in the Asia-Pacific region. Datacom also operates in Australia and Malaysia and is acknowledged as an industry specialist in the provision of call centers to international IT companies operating in the region. It also offers data centre services, managed support services, marketing services and systems integration.
Datacom Asia was established in 1993 and its customers include leaders in the IT market space. It has about 160 staff at its Kuala Lumpur office and over 600 employees in Sydney,Melbourne and Brisbane.

Datacom strives to achieve its goal of delivering business value to its customers through the efficient use of information technology. And over the years, the company had acquired many personal computers and servers, and software applications for its offices around the region.

Until recently, its management of software licensing was not centralized and many processes were manual. It had a system of assigning various staff to manage licensing throughout its sites in Asia-Pacific with manual counting of software licenses and version tracking.

This meant Datacom had to devote a substantial portion of its IT resources and spend a significant amount of money managing its licensing responsibilities. Its software licenses consisted of OEM, full products, upgrades and software assurance which made tracking very difficult. Given the every increasing number of licenses acquired over the years, it was not unusual for licenses to be misplaced or lost.

“It was a nightmare trying to keep track of our licenses. We had staff searching drawers and cabinets to locate the licenses each time we needed to do an audit,” says Andrew Goodwin, IT Manager, Datacom Southeast Asia.

“For example, in Sydney, a person was specially contracted to handle this audit. It took two months just to complete this laborious task,” he says.

Datacom also had to grapple with versioning complexities. “For example, we may have 25 staff using the latest version of a particular application while another 25 may be running an older version of the same software,” he explains.

Goodwin adds that Datacom was concerned about the lack of inefficiency in managing software licensing and decided it needed to adopt a more effective and simpler approach.

SOLUTION
As Microsoft applications made up over 90 per cent of Datacom’s software portfolio, the company evaluated the various corporate licensing options available from Microsoft. Datacom decided that the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement 6 was the ideal solution to resolve its software licensing management woes.

Essentially, the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement provides a solid framework for making Microsoft software-license acquisitions and management easier for organizations with more than 250 desktops. Only a single transaction is needed to acquire licenses across the enterprise and ensure compliance, allowing organizations like Datacom to focus on productivity and business growth.

In the case of Datacom, the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement signed in July 2005 covers its operations in Australia and Malaysia. The agreement offers rights to the most current versions of selected enterprise products; a fixed, annual price per desktop enrolled; and equal annual payments for a three-year enrollment term.
“We no longer need to worry about licensing or versioning within our operation. We know the cost of each product and are free to use whichever software we require and pay for it in our yearly audit,” explains Goodwin. He says the agreement was concluded in Malaysia because Microsoft Malaysia was “very willing to assist us and made it easy for us to do the transaction.”

With the agreement, Datacom can now standardize its software versions and avail itself to any new releases without additional cost. “We utilized Active Directory on Windows 2003 Server and implemented Software Deployment alongside Software Restriction Policies. Now there is no question as to what software is installed as it is all policy based, regardless of geographical location.”

By leveraging on the Remote Installation Services available in Windows 2003 Server, Datacom is able to automatically build systems across the region. Previously, new systems or the upgrading of existing systems was done manually.

BENEFITS

Full Focus on Business
The Microsoft Enterprise Agreement has eliminated most of the inefficiencies and headaches that was a feature of Datacom’s previous software licensing system. Goodwin says: “It enables us to concentrate fully on our core business rather than worrying about licensing compliance.”

The manual process of licensing audit is now unnecessary. “We don’t need to scour the cabinets to track down the licensing documents anymore. The licensing details are now available online,” Goodwin explains.

“With the Active Directory environment, we have a list of all the users and the applications they are using. For example, if we want information on how many new licenses are needed, we can get the reports from Active Directory in a couple of minutes,” he adds.

As the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement offers rights to the most current versions of selected applications, Datacom no longer needs to grapple with versioning complexities. “In the past, we were running different versions of the same software. It was a nightmare for us to keep track of this.”

“Now, we don’t need to worry about versioning as all our users can run the most current versions. When there’s an upgrade, we are entitled to move our users to the new version if we so wish, without additional charge,” explains Goodwin.

Eliminates Over-Licensing
The difficulty of keeping track of huge number of software licenses accumulated over the years sometimes resulted in over-licensing for Datacom. “Was over-licensing a real problem for us? Absolutely!,” exclaims Goodwin.

“For example, we could have purchased 100 licenses of a particular application but eventually loose track of 90 licenses. We have already paid for these missing licenses but we can’t prove it. Eventually, we’ll have to buy another 90 licenses to ensure we are compliant,” he explains.

On the other end of the equation, Datacom also faced the problem under-licensing. “We may think that we have enough licenses but in reality, we don’t. And because of that, we often worried about compliance issues,” he says.

However, the problem of over-licensing or under-licensing is now eliminated with the new agreement. “There’s no need to have a physical license. Our licensing details are now online, and we can view our license account anytime. We can easily keep track of what we have acquired,” he adds.

With the licensing information at its fingertips, Datacom has been able to thoroughly review if particular groups of employees really require certain applications for their work. In some cases, Datacom has cut down on the number of licenses after deciding that certain categories of employees did not really need to use a particular application.

Reduces IT Support Costs
For Datacom, the new licensing arrangement coupled with the capabilities of the Windows 2003 Server platform has resulted in significant reductions in IT support costs and improved productivity in the workplace.

For example, support costs have been reduced significantly by the elimination of the requirement to install and uninstall software manually.

“Using Remote Installation Services on Windows 2003 Server, whenever a machine needs to be built we can automatically install the operating system, drivers and all the required Microsoft applications without the need for any manual processes,” explains Goodwin. Similarly, the remote installation process is also utilized to deploy any new upgrades across Datacom’s offices in Kuala Lumpur, Sydney,Melbourne and Brisbane.

“It’s a painless process now,” adds Goodwin.

Previously, Datacom had to divert significant IT support resources to the task of managing software licensing using manual processes. By moving to the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement and automating these processes, it has virtually eliminated the overhead costs related to licensing management for its operations in Australia and Malaysia.

“For example, we used to contract a third party to track down our licenses at the Sydney office and this process took about two months. This is no longer necessary. With Active Directory, the latest licensing information is available and can be retrieved within minutes,” he adds.

Financial Flexibility
The flexibility of being able to make equal annual payments over the three-year enrollment term of a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement provides a cash flow boost to Datacom, which has about 1,000 desktops in the Asia-Pacific region.
“There’s no lump sum payment upfront and that’s really helpful in terms of cash flow. This is an important consideration for any business,” says Goodwin.
The new agreement also simplifies the company’s budgetary planning as software license prices are fixed for three years. “It is also very flexible as we can increase or reduce the number of licenses every year depending on whether we grow or downsize. We don’t pay for what we don’t need.”
“As an organization, we no longer need to focus on licensing compliance … and from a cost perspective our licensing is now black and white,” adds Goodwin.

End.