Enterprises need to improve the security, management, and optimization of SaaS platforms as more users work from home.
I had the opportunity to meet Doug Hazelman, SVP and Chief Evangelist at CoreView to discuss their solution that protects, manages, and optimizes different SaaS applications.
In particular, we spoke about their work with the Jefferson County (Alabama) Library Cooperative with 41 public libraries across 23 municipalities. The cooperative wanted to support a single Microsoft Office 365 tenant for all members while enabling library customizations on the platform and delegating management of certain tasks to local IT administrators.
When you get a subscription to Office 365, there are as many as 12 different administrative tools (e.g., Active Directory, Exchange, Office, Yammer, etc.). Microsoft does not offer a way to integrate those, so CoreView did.
To enable administrator monitoring, reporting, and account updates for these dispersed organizations, CoreView enables the portioning of tenants into smaller, more manageable sub-tenants, what they call virtual tenants (v-tenants). This was important to the Jefferson County Library Cooperative because they wanted to delegate some, but not all, control to local IT administrators.
According to Tobin Cataldo, Executive Director of the Jefferson County Library Cooperative, “We wanted it so members were not just passively consuming the cooperative library services. They needed to be engaged in it, invested in it, to see their own value in it. A common refrain for public libraries across the country is declining or stagnant budget appropriations; it’s no different here. The question becomes, with limited spending power, how are we going to create value for our partners?” They did this by providing local access and autonomy by giving the libraries that have and want the capacity to administer their own data and users.
CoreView also offers license optimization so clients can know who’s using what licenses and to what degree. Jefferson County realized they had over-purchased 285 licenses. CoreView is able to provide license optimization for more than 40 SaaS applications and continues to add more.
License pooling enables administrators to know who’s using what tools and platforms, apply chargebacks based on use, and use an adoption engine to remind and teach users about tools that are optimized for their business and team.
As companies have more employees working from home, I see license optimization and pooling as an opportunity for companies to identify ways to save and consolidate SaaS licensing in response to the post-COVID emphasis on reducing IT spend.
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