Strengthening Collaboration - Flexera and IBM Turbonomic

In today's diverse IT environments, software and applications are spread across various clouds, datacenters, and architectures, contributing to a complex landscape.

Additionally, the frequent deployment of software across different IT properties adds to the overall intricacy. The recent shift to a digital-first approach and the rise in remote work (in response to the COVID-19 pandemic) has further escalated IT complexity, as organizations invest more in accelerating their digital transformation efforts. 

Amidst these rapid changes, optimizing IT spend becomes a huge challenge if an organization lacks comprehensive visibility into the entire IT estate. Furthermore, to stay competitive in the digital world, enterprises have to optimize their technology investments. However, Flexera's 2021 State of IT Visibility report reveals that less than 25% of IT leaders have complete visibility into their IT estate. That means that most organizations have an incomplete understanding of their assets. And this poses a dilemma, because achieving the right balance between license costs and application performance can be challenging without a thorough understanding of interdependencies. 

IT Leaders are facing unprecedented challenges 

The value of digital transformation and speed of innovation cannot be overstated. Agile organizations that redirect people, priorities and IT toward value-creating opportunities see 20 to 30 percent improved financial performance, 30 to 50 percent improved operational performance, and statistically quantifiable improvements with employee engagement and customer satisfaction (McKinsey & Company).  

Next to this, it is surprising to read that 88% of senior IT decision makers struggle to demonstrate IT cost transparency to their organizations (Coeus Consulting). This ongoing challenge leads to persistent pressure to cut IT operations budgets, leaving little funding for projects not directly aligned with business functionality. 

With this growing IT complexity, organizations face new challenges, with IT visibility standing out as a crucial concern. Microservices, Kubernetes, and hybrid cloud enhance IT agility but hinder full visibility. Application performance remains a top priority, yet optimizing without complete visibility poses risks. Achieving the balance between cost and performance demands a profound understanding of software deployment locations to ensure compliance. 

In their search to optimize their IT estates, organizations often have to choose between: 

1. license optimization (ITAM) 
2. performance optimization (ARM) 
   
   

IT Asset Management (ITAM) understands where licenses are deployed, how software is being used, what versions of software are deployed, and ensures compliance with software licensing. On the other hand, Application Resource Management (ARM) aids in understanding resource requirements for optimizing application performance. Although both approaches offer substantial benefits, they are often pursued in isolation, with actions in one realm affecting the other. 

Delivering visibility & insights with Flexera and IBM 

This is where Flexera comes in with their Flexera One: a SaaS-based IT management solution tailored for organizations with complex hybrid environments. With Flexera One, visibility across the entire estate is achievable, enabling data-driven IT decisions from on-premises to SaaS to the cloud. 

IBM Turbonomic, an Application Resource Management platform, steps in to address the challenges of managing application resources across a multicloud infrastructure. Integrating with Application Performance Management (APM) solutions like IBM Instana, Turbonomic ensures critical applications receive the necessary resources automatically. 

By bringing together ITAM with Flexera and ARM with IBM Turbonomic, automating the optimization of physical and virtual software licenses removes boundaries between clusters, allowing seamless resource movement. Integration of data from Flexera One into IBM Turbonomic ensures confident optimization without operational risks or compliance issues. 

Automated license compliance enforcement through Flexera One with IBM Observability provides insights into license and application performance data, automating tasks to maintain compliance and control software spending. Additionally, automated license cost optimization by IBM and Flexera ensures compliance while reducing the total cost of ownership of IT investments, covering applications, software licensing, and infrastructure for on-premises and cloud. 

Combining Flexera One and IBM Turbonomic helps you simplify the complexities of license compliance and resource optimization. What will your next step be? The choice is yours!