Other SAM Tools

Selecting a SAM tool can be a daunting task.

Every SAM tool has its own strengths and weaknesses.

LDS has over a decade of experience in working with various SAM tools - we can help map your unique requirements to the appropriate SAM tool.

SAM Tool Managed Services

SAM tool’s are not ‘set it and forget it’ tools, they need continuous care and maintenance.

LDS can assist in:

Interface health check
- Periodically we compare agents/data reported vs other sources in your environment to make sure your SAM tool coverage is at 100% and all endpoints are reporting into the SAM tool
Publisher Onboarding and clearing
- LDS will daily or as a batch assist in loading/clearing all the entitlements from your procurement system like SAP, Ariba, etc
Deployment clearing
- Clearing deployment signatures
- Applying downgrade/parallel use rights
- Applying specific contract terms and conditions
Remote management of your SAM tool
- Daily monitoring/troubleshooting input data feeds
- Daily status reporting
- Running daily automated cron jobs, etc.
- Monitoring agent health

Aspera

SmartTrack has optimized software and cloud licenses in large Global Fortune 500 companies. The platform is built for enterprises with many employees to manage data centers that stretch globally. It directly integrates with your tools and systems that are already in place, and easily scales in large environments.

Services Offered:

Interface Health Check
- Identify missing or broken agents
- Identify missing software inventory data points and transactions
- Monitor feeds from various systems into LIMA/SmartTrack
Normalize Entitlements
- Add new licenses and contracts
- Clear new entitlements
- Apply upgrade and downgrade rights
Normalize Deployments
- Normalize signatures coming out of various end points to high level product name
- Apply metric engines to relevant products
- Clear deployments
- Identify and calibrate suite products
Reconciliation
- Create final compliance position to show overage and under utilization

About the Tool

Aspera SmartTrack has a central product database, flexible roles and rights, and tight integration into any IT backend. Allows tracking of financials and contracts to keep ahead of the budget, and prepare early for vendor audits and negotiations.

What LDS Can Offer

Interface Health Check
- Identify missing or broken agents
- Identify missing software inventory data points and transactions
- Monitor feeds from various systems into LIMA/SmartTrack
Normalize Entitlements
- Add new licenses and contracts
- Clear new entitlements
- Apply upgrade and downgrade rights
Normalize Deployments
- Normalize signatures coming out of various end points to high level product name
- Apply metric engines to relevant products
- Clear deployments
- Identify and calibrate suite products
Reconciliation
- Create final compliance position to show overage and under utilization

Sample Reports

Flexera

The core of Flexera’s SAM offering is FlexNet Manager, which is available as a suite or individual modules. These modules include FlexNet Manager for Clients, for Data Centers, for SAP Applications and for Engineering Applications.

Flexera offers a depth of vendors and products. Also, recently they have added support for SAAS and cloud

About the Tool

Flexera FlexNet Manager software and IT (Information Technology) asset management solutions manage and optimize enterprise software regardless of location, from the desktop to the data center to the cloud. Flexera helps companies manage and reduce spending on applications for example Adobe, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, VMware, Symantec and SAP.

What LDS Can Offer

SAM Pro’s Content Library contains tons of software publishers. Commonly used license metrics such as Per User, Per Device, Concurrent User, Per Named Device, Per Core, and Per Processor, are provided.

For software publishers with complex licensing, packs are included for publishers such as SAP ®, Microsoft ®, Oracle ®, IBM®, Vmware ®, Citrix ®, and Adobe®.

These packs include publisher-specific calculations to aid mostly with complex server licensing, such as Oracle database options that can go unused providing a tremendous optimization opportunity to reduce license costs.

Sample Reports

Snow

Snow is a leader in the Magic Quadrant per the Gartner June, 2020 SAM Tools Report.

Snow offers strong support for traditional SAM objectives, including software license compliance, and optimization of vendors such as Microsoft, Oracle, IBM and SAP, while adding capabilities to support cloud consumption management.

About the Tool

Snow Software’s integrated SAM platform empowers organizations for both on-premise, hybrid and cloud software licenses, it reduces costs by providing insight and control of assets and availability across the cloud, software vendors, device types, and locations.

What LDS Can Offer

For software publishers with complex licensing, packs are included for publishers such as SAP ®, Microsoft ®, Oracle ®, IBM®, Vmware ®, Citrix ®, and Adobe®.

Sample Reports

ServiceNow SAM Pro

SAM Pro is a relatively new entrant in the SAM market, but in a very short period of time they have gone to become a leader in the Magic Quadrant per the Gartner 2025 SAM Tools Report.

The ServiceNow® Software Asset Management (SAMPRO) application systematically tracks, evaluates, and manages software licenses, compliance, and optimization. You can reclaim unused software rights, purchase new software rights, and manage allocations for entitlements.

LDS Offerings

Interface Check
1. Interface Health Check
2. Identify missing or broken agents
3. Identify missing software inventory data points and transactions
Entitlements
1. Normalize Entitlements
2. Add new licenses and contracts
3. Clear new entitlements
4. Apply upgrade and downgrade rights
Installations
1. Normalize Deployments
2. Normalize signatures coming out of various endpoints to high-level product name
3. Identify and calibrate suite products
Final Calibrations
1. Apply upgrade and downgrade rights
2. Create final compliance report

About the Tool

For software publishers with complex licensing, packs are included for publishers such as SAP ®, Microsoft ®, Oracle ®, IBM®, Vmware ®, Citrix ®, and Adobe®. These packs include publisher-specific calculations to aid mostly with complex server licensing, such as Oracle database options that can go unused providing a tremendous optimization opportunity to reduce license costs.

LDS Offerings

Interface Check
1. Interface Health Check
2. Identify missing or broken agents
3. Identify missing software inventory data points and transactions
Entitlements
1. Normalize Entitlements
2. Add new licenses and contracts
3. Clear new entitlements
4. Apply upgrade and downgrade rights
Installations
1. Normalize Deployments
2. Normalize signatures coming out of various endpoints to high-level product name
3. Identify and calibrate suite products
Final Calibrations
1. Apply upgrade and downgrade rights
2. Create final compliance report

Sample Report

SAM Tooling

If you use ServiceNow, SAM Pro LDS can help you in range of areas.

You are in an audit

You Are In Audit

It does not matter where you are in the audit process. Maybe all you did was to respond to the publisher or the audit firm’s request. Maybe you are at the end of the audit process where you have received a settlement letter and don’t agree with the findings. Remember they do this type of work every day. You should find help to even out the sides. LDS can help anywhere along the process.

The Biggest Mistake You Can Make

Do not assume that the licensing position is correct. Auditors typically use the approach of throwing everything at the wall and seeing what will sticks. At best, they interpret all the data in the way that servers them best. They know with experience that most of the customers are not going to review the license position report, rather they will accept the report and then focus on the settlement numbers.

The Second Mistake We Often See

The second biggest error customers fall into is often to negotiate a lower cost settlement before knowing if the license position is correct. Settling before knowing the true license deployment without evaluating the actual position can be costly. This mistake usually ends up with a higher initial settlement cost then what is required, and also higher on-going costs for licenses or products that are not truly required.

Understand You Have Rights

You should not be controlled by the rulings of the auditors or by their time schedule. You have the right to review their findings and to correct mistakes that have been made. You should review all the findings and thoroughly challenge what you believe is not correct. Only then, should you start to discuss a settlement. Ideally you can negotiate a settlement that gives your company some business value and try to avoid a settlement that is punitive and where you end up with products you do not want.

Received Audit Letter

It is not always what is true, it is often what can be proven and seen from the data that wins. Generally the best data wins.

Build The Core Cross Functional Team

Seek Specialized External Help

Perform An Internal Health Check To Understand & Optimize Your Risk

Before sending any data to the customer you should get a through understanding of your software deployments and entitlements. Perform an internal health check on your SAM tools because they might be incomplete or reporting false positives. There are many avenues available to you to optimize your real estate before receiving the bill from the software vendor. Determine your risk and where allowed to make remediation before submitting the data to the auditors.

LDS Can Help!

Software Audit-Negotiation Support

If you have received an audit letter or inquiry from a software publisher, let us help you.

More...

Other Publishers

For organizations wishing to reduce the overall cost and risk associated with their software estate, this service delivers a complete license position plus recommendations for improvements and to future-proof licensing. It offers particular value if you are looking to make changes to your current on premise infrastructure, or move to a cloud environment.

LDS helps clients inventory their software investments using a combination of our own proprietary scripts, system generated reports, data collection methodologies, and any available SAM tools. Our analyst (former software auditors) then calculate consumption and compare that against license entitlement to give clients true auditor-level accuracy in their compliance positions. Our analysis identifies cost savings via unused software, recommends alternate cost effective ways of licensing the same product, and suggests architectural changes that can substantially reduce footprints/cost. We have deep expertise with many publishers lets get on a call where we explore your concerns with our vendor specific licensing manager.

Who Will Benefit?

Our Licensing Review Service is aimed at organizations who wish to manage and reduce the overall expenditure and risk associated with their software estate.

Key Review Subjects

Service Outline: Output

Case Study

Microsoft Licensing Review

For organizations wishing to reduce the overall cost and risk associated with their software estate, this service delivers a complete license position plus recommendations for improvements and to future-proof licensing. It offers particular value if you are looking to submit your yearly true up, make changes to your current on-premise infrastructure, or move to a SaaS/Cloud environment.

Who Will Benefit?

Our Microsoft Licensing Review Service is aimed at organizations who wish to manage and reduce the overall expenditure and risk associated with their Microsoft portfolio of key products. It is particularly suited to those looking to renew their Enterprise Agreement, submit yearly true up, make changes within their current infrastructure, or just looking to ensure maximum return on investment.

Key Review Subjects