Efficient license planning is a prerequisite for effective system planning. BI platform managers and administrators, however, typically encounter difficulties in optimizing licensing, because they don't have a clear picture of how the users are leveraging the tools.
Administrators should not rely on raw numbers and anecdotal evidence to make licensing decisions. To plan effectively, they need to establish an accurate picture of current usage patterns, including:
- How many connections are there during peak usage periods?
Understanding how many distinct connections are made by more casual users over the course of the day, how often, and when, will allow you to determine how close you are to maxing out, and what number of concurrent user licenses is best for your deployment. - What is the pattern of usage for the deployment over time?
Knowing how often peaks in usage occur - for example, daily, weekly, month-end - will help you determine the optimum concurrent licensing requirements. - Who are your most active users?
Understanding who and how many users need named user licenses is key to ensuring the most efficient use of your BI deployment. - How is usage evolving?
Your BI deployment never stands still. The number of users change constantly, as do their requirements. Deployment consolidations, migrations, and new capabilities leave their mark on usage patterns, and on licensing requirements.
Improving utilization of the licenses currently owned and enabling effective planning for future licensing decisions is critical to ensuring the ongoing success of your BI deployment. Analysis of system metadata can show you:
- License usage over time
- Specific user login activity over time
Together, these analytics will help you gain a full understanding of how your deployment is being used and how you can serve your users and inform consumers better, and provides information for license planning discussions internally and with SAP. Being able to answer these questions and to ensure the ongoing success of your deployment comes down to establishing deep knowledge of the deployment.
Other system planning topics where metadata analysis can help include:
- "What-if" impact analysis
- Content structure and usage analysis
- Report design analysis
- Universe structure and connectivity analysis
- Pre-migration planning
- Post-migration auditing and validation
An effective means of establishing this deep system knowledge is to deploy a solution that provides insight into your BI usage patterns. There are solutions available within the Partner Ecosystem that can help provide you with the insight you need to plan, build and manage a robust BI deployment more effectively.
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. Please feel free to add comments or ask questions below. Should you want to discuss or find out more about how you can partner with SAP to embed SAP technology into your own products please feel free to contact me.
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