AppClarity lets you get to grips with software waste, take control of license compliance and manage application portfolios easily. It offers an immediate reduction in software costs by helping you manage your software assets on both desktops and servers more effectively and maintain software license compliance.
The key benefits of AppClarity are:
- Software license compliance – provides at a summary on whether a particular product is license compliant
- Software waste identification – shows unused software and shelfware which are probably the two largest form of software waste
- Efficient application management – identifies version sprawl where there are many versions of the same product used
Now, you can financially quantify all software waste by identifying and controlling unused software across the your enterprise.
AppClarity in context
We shall consider how you intend to use AppClarity, the different components that contribute to software license management and the different types of environments you are likely to encounter. There are two aspects of AppClarity and related components that need to be configured – where it gets its data from and how it removes software that is no longer being used, thereby reclaiming licenses and eliminating waste.
ActiveEfficiency can run in multiple modes to retrieve information from various data sources. These modes can overlap and the data is normalized to provide a more complete and accurate view of the network. In the scenarios that follow, we describe the simplest implementation where the Configuration Manager agent is used to manage the machines where it is installed.
The following guidelines describe which modes to use in the different scenarios. AppClarity supports desktop and server license management independently and the configuration of its components depends on how it is going to be used and the environment it is working in.
AppClarity for desktops
Depending on whether the desktops in your environment are managed by Configuration Manager or not, you may need to install and configure additional components to provide complete cover.
- All desktops managed by Configuration Manager – configure the ActiveEfficiency Scout to monitor Configuration Manager and configure the Software Reclaimer and advertise this to the desktops using Configuration Manager
- Some desktops managed by Configuration Manager – this could possibly be the case where a migration from SMS 2003 to Configuration Manager 2007 or Configuration Manager 2102 is underway and AppClarity is to be implemented while this interim scenario is in force
Managing VMWare and Oracle software
- Managing VMWare software requires the installation of some additional components
To manage Oracle applications you will need to have a version of iQSonar installed on your network. You will then need to configure the ActiveEfficiency Scout to run in iQSonar mode.
Are you running AppClarity while migrating from Configuration Manager 2007 to Configuration Manager 2012?
To enable AppClarity to continue managing software license usage during migration you will need to configure the ActiveEfficiency Scout in migration mode. This will intelligently blend the installation and usage data from the old and new Configuration Manager systems so that a single cohesive picture is maintained as systems are migrated from one to the other.
Before you install AppClarity
Before you install AppClarity, take a moment to consider your deployment and sizing requirements and provision your environment to support it.