SAP LAW or LAW 2.0 are not solutions for optimizing SAP licenses.
The availability of new technologies has reached such an advanced level and promotes a true “digital revolution” that irreversibly affects everything, efficiently providing institutions with technological resources becomes a strategic competence, essential for business success.
That said, we can clarify what SAP LAW (License Administration Workbench) is, comment on the new version, SAP LAW 2.0, and understand the difference between these first two in relation to SAM (Software Asset Management)). Thus avoiding expecting something from SAP LAW that they are unable to deliver.
SAP LAW and SAP LAW 2.0
SAP itself defines the License Administration Workbench as a tool for central consolidation of license audit data, with the possibility of supporting the process of auditing SAP licenses for complex systems.
Developed in the year 2002, SAP LAW is basically a tool for aggregating audit data to aid in contractual compliance. In this way, despite also enabling internal analyzes of the actual consumption of SAP licenses, the LAW serves SAP's commercial purposes, which through it can guide its customers regarding any non-compliance in licensing detected by the tool and thus propose new hires, adjustments, license renewals, etc.
SAP LAW 2.0, launched in 2014, essentially maintained the same objective (priority benefiting SAP) but also started to offer information on internal consumption. For example, the “Manage system data” function, through which the manager can perform a series of tasks, including: maintaining non-SAP systems; create consolidation groups for internal purposes of the organization (departments, call center, points of sale, etc.); and the transfer system overview of previous audits. Another new functionality is “User Group” through which it is possible to select a second criterion to combine users who have not yet been grouped by the first criterion.
However, even though LAW 2.0 offers several new features and potential benefits to the end user, contributing to some extent to reducing costs and non-compliance risks, version 2.0 continues to present difficulties for many administrators or even more experienced SAP professionals in due to the complexity that hinders the adherence to the solution and the extraction of the best.
Why is SAP LAW not a SAM and for software license optimization?
Charges for licenses or fines for non-compliance can weigh on a company's costs, situations that, avoided by themselves, already confer some value to the use of LAW and would explain that it is common for SAP client managers to believe that the tool is sufficient to manage SAP users, mechanisms and license types, and that, for that reason, there would be no need for other software to optimize the management of software assets and their licenses.
But if we have the LAW in SAP, why would we need another tool? Simple. SAP LAW is more of a collection, measurement, and reporting tool for compliance than an optimization tool. As a result, LAW provides very little information about the effectiveness of licensing and deployment roles. Because it is not a SAM or a license optimization solution, SAP LAW does not address all aspects necessary to achieve the competency of efficiency in managing all the resources necessary for the effective management, control and protection of software assets such as as expected from a SAM or a solution for license optimization. The LAW tool is provided by SAP and is intended to collect and provide mandatory audit data to SAP.
Accurately manage licenses SAP promoting their compliance is not about maximizing resource utilization. Reducing costs and or avoiding some non-conformities is little close to everything that is within the reach of managers to accomplish via SAM or a solution for optimizing licenses to maximize the use of resources in various aspects in relation to software and digital solutions. Because it is not an optimization tool, from a user or customer perspective, the LAW does not indicate which users are inactive or over-licensed, for example.
Unlike SAP LAW, SAM or a more complete solution for software license optimization aims to help and manage by optimizing, the purchase, deployment, maintenance, use and retirement of software, within an organization, offering greater advantages and better results for organizations. Among several expected benefits with the implementation of SAM we have: improved financial visibility during accountability and optimization of software costs; increased IT customer satisfaction; reduced financial risk, increased security and compliance; and support for strategic planning and decision-making support with more complete and diverse information and information formats.
The process of technological development, digital transformations, are increasingly accelerated and dynamic. For this reason, managing all resources efficiently, including technological ones, which increasingly correspond to key resources in the activities of organizations, is essential. Thus, no matter what software or systems are used, it is increasingly necessary to maximize the efficiency of investments in technology and their exploitation. Just ensuring compliance and/or relying on isolated or incomplete analyzes of piecemeal solutions is insufficient. More needs to be done. Organizations need to implement a SAM or software license optimization solution if they are to achieve competency in this regard.
If you have any questions or need help with this, please know that you give us 4Matt Technology we are focused on IT Asset Management (ITAM), more specifically in the area of cost optimization and risk reduction in software contracts integrated with IT service management (ITSM).
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