Data Center Consolidation in Your Near Future? Watch Out!!

If your organization is planning on merging, consolidating, or moving a data center, you need to become very aware of the hidden risks involved in the process. As enterprises grow/expand – even minimize – they find themselves involved in significant modifications to traditional data centers.

Is your organization impacted by FITARA or the MEGABYTE Acts? These professional development programs are precisely what you need to succeed.

Here’s Your Warning: “Renegotiate – or negotiate – ALL software agreements to integrate potential data center modifications without additional costs into the terms and conditions of the license, support, and/or maintenance agreement.” Failure to do so can easily double, even triple, your software costs.”

As an effective software asset manager (SAM) or IT asset manager (ITAM) you should already have done this. Unfortunately, very few SAMs have been trained to competence in managing data center-sized issues. Oh... And don't expect your acquisitions or purchasing people to address these issues (very frequently, they simply don't know about the long term licensing risks).

Failure Factor? Your mainframe-related software publishers can – and WILL – void your licenses when you make changes to the data center environment. (They’ll cite “breach” but, like many other software issues, it’s all about how much money they can siphon out of your enterprise.)

Real World: During a recent data center merge, a major mainframe software publisher voided all licenses due to the change and demanded the enterprise re-purchase all products. Cost? Over $12 million – and that was only one of the dozens of software publishers with products on the systems.

Resolution: If you are negotiating new software agreements, or updating old agreements, ensure that you include a VERY CLEAR clause permitting changes to the data center – with no penalties. Also ensure that no clause or agreement is permitted to supersede your negotiated license agreements.

Want to know more? Look over the Institute professional development programs: Core SAM & Extended SAM cover more Software & Copyright Compliance Assurance and Software Life Cycle Management competencies than any other programs in this class.