IBM software licensing is about as complex as it gets and many IBM customers have real difficulties tracking license consumption, managing expense and staying compliant. But if you don’t do a good job of this, you are likely to be wasting money on unneeded support and suboptimal technical configurations and there can be painful financial consequences if IBM carries out an audit and finds overdeployed licenses or other non-compliance.

What is the IBM Authorized SAM Partner program?

IBM has launched the Authorized SAM Partner Program (“ASP”) as an alternative to performing license verification audits under the terms of its software license agreements. The goal of the program is to enable customers to demonstrate compliance without the need for an intrusive, disruptive and potentially costly audit process. IBM customers can opt into the program by engaging an Authorized SAM partner such as KPMG to deliver IBM SAM as a Service, and delivering periodic license consumption reporting to IBM. For as long as KPMG remains engaged and the consumption reports are delivered, IBM will exempt the customer from verification audit.

Why KPMG?

KPMG have been supporting IBM’s Enterprise Licensing team since 2001 and we effectively wrote the book on counting IBM license consumption and managing compliance. We have invested heavily in the development of market leading IBM measurement tools and methodologies and can offer a combination of efficiency and quality which cannot be matchedby any other service provider. We have over 300 professionals worldwide who specialise in this field and have deployed in every size of client and every industry sector. We are plugged directly into the functions within IBM which are focused on supporting IBM clients on their SAM journey and we can leverage IBM’s resources to smooth the path. IBM recognises and is prepared to rely without question on KPMG’s capability, experience and reputation as a whilst fully respecting our confidentiality obligations to our clients.

But beyond IBM, we offer a full service SAM capability and can support you in meeting your SAM objectives whatever your specific needs, including ISO 19770 assessment, process design, SAM tool procurement, implementation and optimisation, consumption baselines and value extraction, ELA planning and full SAM managed service.

Resources

KPMG - IBM Approved SAM Partner.pdf

For more information