Is your IT team ready for a surprise software vendor audit? Today, one of the hot topics regarding license management is maintaining license compliance. With OpenLM, a smart license management solution, organizations can stay on top of their license by controlling access and enforcing compliance.
A recent survey by Unisphere Research reflected the importance of tracking critical data about your license allocation and usage, as vendors are prioritizing audits than ever before. The study revealed that 62% of the respondents faced audit by a major software vendor in the past year, often resulting in unbudgeted true-up costs and penalties.
This underscores a critical challenge in today’s IT landscape: managing a diverse portfolio of software from multiple vendors. The reliance on a variety of specialized tools, from design and engineering to data analysis, creates what we call the multi-vendor jungle—a complex environment where varying licensing models, terms, and compliance requirements can easily lead to costly mistakes. For organizations, particularly those with a large engineering footprint, navigating this maze to stay compliant with software licenses and avoid hefty penalties is not just a best practice—it’s a financial imperative.
Read on to learn what multi-vendor license management truly means and how you can ensure license usage optimization with OpenLM while staying compliant with the access rules.
What is multi-vendor license management?
Multi-vendor license management is the practice of overseeing and optimizing software licenses from different providers within a single organization. Instead of managing each vendor in a silo, this approach provides a centralized view of all software assets, usage data, and license agreements.
This is crucial for engineering and design firms that use a mix of specialized tools from companies like Autodesk, Dassault Systèmes (SolidWorks), and MathWorks (MATLAB). Effective multi-vendor management is not just about tracking what you own; it’s about understanding how your licenses are being used to ensure you are both compliant and getting the maximum value from your investment.
Additional Read: What ‘they’ do, but ‘we’ don’t: OpenLM’s commitment to data security
How you can leverage OpenLM to enforce license compliance
With OpenLM (now version Annapurna), organizations can get the visibility and control needed to manage complex licensing environments. OpenLM’s core functionalities for license compliance include:
- Rule creation: Define specific usage rules based on license type, time of day, and geographical location. This ensures that software usage aligns with your licensing agreements, preventing accidental over-licensing.
- Compliance reporting: Generate detailed reports that highlight non-compliant instances, identifying which users, licenses, and timeframes were involved. This proactive approach helps you address issues before they lead to an audit.
- Usage insights: Get a clear picture of how licenses are actually being used versus the rules you’ve set, allowing you to identify areas for license usage optimization. For instance, if a user checks out a license but leaves the application idle for hours, OpenLM can flag this as an opportunity for reallocation.
- Data visualization: Leverage OpenLM’s built-in BI dashboards to visualize license compliance data and drill down into specific instances of non-compliance.
Additional Read: Shadow IT risks: How to protect your software assets in 2025
FAQs
Can I track Autodesk, SolidWorks, and MATLAB licenses in one solution?
Yes, absolutely. For example, using OpenLM can be ideal for Autodesk license monitoring, as well as managing licenses for other major engineering software like SolidWorks and MATLAB. The solution is built to interface with over 100 license managers, including FlexNet Publisher, which is used by many software vendors.
Thanks to their single, centralized dashboard, being an OpenLM customer enables you to monitor and optimize licenses from all these vendors simultaneously. It also eliminates the need for separate management tools and spreadsheets.
Is OpenLM suitable for enterprise-level license management?
Yes, it is. OpenLM users get support for a vast number of license managers and can leverage its robust feature set for reporting, optimization, and license compliance.
