Concurrency licensing has always been a request for clients,
especially in reporting and view clients. Allowing the “pooling” of a set of licenses
that are used on a first come basis. Often a very effective way of buying licenses at usage cost.
This makes a lot of sense in the transitional systems and
architectures where people really only accessed the system when at work and
within the 8 to 5 pm working day.
But a discussion last week with a customer who struggling
with the shift to people being connected “all the time” thru their mobile
devices and even connected when at home. Even if they not working, the new
generation under 45 expect to be able to go online, and connect to the plant,
system and access some “insight” to make or support a decision. They do not expect to go online and
find a message that there are no available licenses, wait for someone to free
up a license.
The IT department is still asking for con-currency as a cost
effective way of buying licenses, but the operational officer I talking with
was struggling with the reality that they needed the “Named User” license
allocated to a person no matter where he is and allowing the user to be
connected to multiple devices at the same time.
Another challenge with the traditional licensing he is
finding is that the users do not logout, or disconnect before leaving work, so
their desktop at work is still connected, but now they are remote in the plant,
or outside the plant and need to access thru their mobile. So the modern
approach needs to apply of allowing multiple connections for a user at any one
time.
What fascinated me was that this was reality, we have been
going down this path for a while, expecting the change, and it was interesting that
this customer wanted to talk about new models, to suite the new world.
Food for thought as you design the new "operational System".
Con-currency for licencing has always been a cost saving initiative because licencing everyone was an expensive exercise. If the "new models" for use and licencing are to be more widely adopted then the "pricing models" must assist rather than inhibit users.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree Con-Currency has always been a cost saving measure, but now with users always connected the users are switching to User Based. Traditionally con currency has been 2 to 3 times the cost user, which is now driving people to user, as workers are running out of pooled license.
ReplyDeleteBut like many things in this Operational Transformation licensing models must adjust to :
1/ Users always connected
2/ Users working over multiple devices
You have seen a lot of the hotels when you check in transform from single connection to a user allowed 3 connections.
Like on the sizing model I/O is no longer a realistic size measure, so too must the client side.
Certainly at Schneider-Electric software we going thru a transformation over the next year on licensing to suite the current Operational Systems, and simplify.