Case Study:
SAS Software Usage Analysis
Client Description
The client is a well-known, multi-national manufacturing company with a large data center running both mainframe and distributed platforms.
Client Situation
This client approached ISAM with an interest in exploring product substitution for SAS products and any additional SAS software savings that were available to them.
Process for SAS Software Usage Analysis
Once the usage analysis objectives were confirmed, the ISAM process included:
- Signed confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements.
- ISAM developed a data collection process and data extraction scripts for the client.
- The client provided the necessary license data, pricing data and usage information.
- Loaded the client’s licensing and pricing data into ISAM’s Software Intelligence Database.
- Compared the client’s data to industry “best practice” and “best in class” targets.
- ISAM identified multiple usage scenarios to examine savings potential.
- Identified specific improvement areas and software savings opportunities.
- Developed and presented a report with specific recommendations for improvement.
- Usage statistics with time and day graphs
- Comparison of SAS usage by SAS product
- Recommendations for SAS workload consolidation
- Strategies to eliminate low-use SAS products
- Strategies for replacement products
- Recommendations included multiple scenarios considering different configurations.
- The ISAM report also included suggestions for SAM best practices and tools to raise the company to “Best in Class” status.
Results & Benefits
- The SAS Usage Analysis was completed in four weeks.
- The client was able to successfully reduce their SAS budget by 86 percent.
- Total annual savings: $500,000.