IntelliFest 2012 International Conference on Reasoning Technologies

1. IntelliFest 2012 International Conference on Reasoning Technologies INTELLIGENCE IN THE CLOUD Using Niyum to Select Software Licensing Agreements Paul Snow SourcePulse Paul van den Berg Coander

2. About the Speaker Paul Snow Rules Management Chief Architect, SourcePulse pauls@sourcepulse.com In 2001, Paul implemented his first Decision Table based Rules Engines using English like Domain Specific Language for the Texas TIERS project. He went on to implement a similar Rules Engine for AMS (now CGI) in Ohio. His third implementation became the basis for DTRules, an Open Source project. DTRules is used by Maximus Inc. in production systems in New York, Pennsylvania, and Colorado. DTRules forms the foundation for Niyum, an Enterprise Rules Engine licensed and supported by SourcePulse.

3. Paul van den Berg IT Sourcing Strategist, Technology architect Coander paul@conander.com Paul started his professional career as driller at Neddrill an oil and gas exploration contracting company in the Netherlands. There he moved into IT, and has developed into a senior consultant with 25 years of interfacing with Executive Management Teams. He has worked with energy, finance, consumer products, manufacturing, and other industries. Since 2007, Paul has been focusing on IT procurement and IT vendor management issues which appeared to be common on the projects across industries. His work on licensing on average saves clients more than 40%

5. 11500 users, nationwide distributed over 25+ locations Case Study: Dutch Court System

6. Project was the First in the Netherlands: • Large scale Windows 7 Deployment • Large Scale Deployment of Solid State Technology • 47% Reduction in • Energy Consumption Case Study: Dutch Court System

7. 14 Million Dollars Saved using Rules Based Analysis • Savings of 60% on Microsoft Licences Fees • The Rules Based Analysis Implementation was completed on Time, and on Budget • Program “Health” continuously checked by KPMG Case Study: Dutch Court System

8. First Step: Large Account Resellers/Microsoft • Microsoft proposed 22.4 Million to get Started • $1,947 per user! • Plus Development and Support • Funding at this Level • was Not Possible! Case Study: Dutch Court System

9. There was no Clear Understanding by Anyone on how to Assemble the Software Products Satisfy the Business Requirements

10. Track your EA over all your Assets Assets and Roadmaps Additional Products? Select Agreement? EA and Asset Management Steps to Solving the Problem… Deployment Planning and Timing Matching the EA with your Roadmap

11. Track your EA over all your Assets Assets and Roadmaps Assets and Roadmaps • You cannot negotiate without goals and data • Asset management inventory • Complete purchasing records with history • Matched to the hardware it is running on • Know the invisible: Client Access Licenses (CALs), entitlements • You must know what you use • With an EA, you could be buying Office for every device • Whether the user ever writes a memo, populates a spreadsheet, builds a PowerPoint deck, or not • You must be able to quantify running servers • Only running servers require licenses • What is the maximum # of Windows Server instances that you will run simultaneously? • Inventory tools may discover backups, multiple images, unused server applications that don't need licenses Additional Products? Select Agreement? Additional Products? Select Agreement? EA and Asset Management EA and Asset Management Deployment Planning and Timing Client’s Canlendar Matching the EA with your Roadmap

12. Track your EA over all your Assets • Desktop software is the most difficult to track • The EA is all about desktops: Windows, Office, the rights of clients to access servers • Any device or user can use any version of any product covered by the EA • No requisition required for every PC • New, replacement desktops are covered immediately • No need to individually track the software. Just track the device or the user • The Risk • If you can't track who is using what on which device and how it got there, you cannot NOT renew your EA • No negotiating leverage Assets and Roadmaps Additional Products? Select Agreement? EA and Asset Management Deployment Planning and Timing Matching the EA with your Roadmap

13. Track your EA over all your Assets • You don't need licenses until you deploy • On the release date? • After SP1 and 6 months evaluation and testing? • Don't deploy and wait for the following version? • Ask yourself: • When did we stop using Windows XP? • Released in Oct. 2001. How long did you use it? • When did we stop using Office 2003? • Released in Nov. 2003. How long did you use it? • When did we start retrofitting Windows 7? • How long after the Aug. 2009 release date? • When did we start retrofitting Office 2010? • Released in May 2010 Assets and Roadmaps Additional Products? Select Agreement? EA and Asset Management Deployment Planning and Timing Matching the EA with your Roadmap

14. Your qualified desktop/user count is based on the count on the anniversary date. Are some anniversary dates better than others? • Tax dates • Seasonal employment • Summer students and interns • Fiscal year • Push true-up costs into the next fiscal year with agreements that coincide with the fiscal year Track your EA over all your Assets Track your EA over all your Assets Assets and Roadmaps Additional Products? Select Agreement? Additional Products? Select Agreement? EA and Asset Management Deployment Planning and Timing Client’s Canlendar Matching the EA with your Roadmap

15. Track your EA over all your Assets Assets and Roadmaps • For new agreements • How important is it for everyone to have standard desktop licensing? • The bank: 90% of our employees will use Windows and at least part of Office • The engineering firm: a small number of clerical, marketing, planning staff need Office; a large number of engineers don't • Are we ready to do a companywide, retrofit deployment of the latest software now? • For renewals • How does Microsoft's product release roadmap compare with our product deployment roadmap? • You don't get your money back if you don't deploy the upgrade within 3 years • But not committing now can mean higher costs later Additional Products? Select Agreement? Additional Products? Select Agreement? EA and Asset Management Deployment Planning and Timing Client’s Canlendar Matching the EA with your Roadmap

16. Additional product discounts are not always best • Not a problem with a Platform EA and >15,000 seats • You'll always get Select D • Organizations with <15,000 seats may do better with Select • 2,000 PCs earns only a Select A discount on Additional Products • Through Select, buying 20 Windows servers, 20 Exchange servers and 2,000 CALs with SA may earn B or C discount Track your EA over all your Assets Assets and Roadmaps Additional Products? Select Agreement? EA and Asset Management Deployment Planning and Timing Matching the EA with your Roadmap

17. Approach Taken Microsoft uses > 50,000 License Options! We had to build decision trees to unravel the license rules We hired an IT advisory specialist from KMPG to validate our approach • We had to negotiate with Microsoft for three months ! • It helped that 4500 of our users were judges !

18. What we want to do: • Collect Information about an Organization through a series of Questions over the Web • Apply our rules, and pick the licensing options that fit • Look up the prices on those options • Display a report

19. The Idea is to have a separate Question Server from the Rules Server Rules Server Question Sever The Rules should be Available from the Cloud via a Browser or an Application

20. Question Server Niyum Rules Server Web Service Rule Set XMLs Question XML Web Service http Applications Applications Browser Applications

21. Niyum Workstation: Leverages Eclipse, Excel, and Java • Use of Excel to Edit Decision Tables • Use of Excel to Define the Structured Data that the Decision Tables process • Java/Eclipse to Compile the Tables into XML • Provides for Validation, Testing, and Analysis of Rule Sets

22. Rule Sets, Question Sets, and other artifacts are deployed to Niyum Server using a Browser Niyum Rules Server Question Server Question XML Rule Set XMLs Web Services Niyum Management Server http Niyum Workstation

23. How Does Information Flow through the Microsoft License Application?

24. Question Server Niyum Rules Server 1 Questions Browser

25. Question Server Niyum Rules Server Answers 2 Browser

26. 3 Question Server Niyum Rules Server Answers Browser

27. Question Server Niyum Rules Server Process Rules 4 Browser

28. Question Server Niyum Rules Server Process Rules 5 Look up Prices Browser

29. 6 Question Server Niyum Rules Server Results Browser

30. Question Server Niyum Rules Server 7 Report Browser

31. Niyum: A Good Fit for this Application • Decision Tables represent complex tests well • English like syntax makes the rules easy to understand • Small foot print, and easy integration • XML deployment of Questions and Rules • Great support for testing/debugging Rule Sets • Rules Authoring (Workstation and Cloud based) • Flexible licensing

32. A Decision Table N Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y YYYYY * suggestSA == true orgProfile == "Agressive" orgProfile == "Stable" orgProfile == "Current" orgProfile == "Growing" userCount > 250 Otherwise Condition Table Conditions Action Table set suggestSelectPlus = true; set suggestEA= true; set suggestOtherPrograms = true; X XXXXXX X X X Actions

33. A Decision Table N Y Y Y Y N Y Y Y YYY YY * suggestSA == true orgProfile == "Agressive" orgProfile == "Stable" orgProfile == "Current" orgProfile == "Growing" userCount > 250 Otherwise set suggestSelectPlus = true; set suggestEA= true; set suggestOtherPrograms = true; X XXXXXX X X X

34. The Context Section Queues the Objects to Test and manage Organization [Invoice] Result Organization Context Organization [Invoice] For all Organizations For all results where the Recommended Program == EA [Invoice] Result Organization Result Result Result

35. Decision Tables Specify the Evaluation of other Tables in their Actions.

36. Niyum Provides a Mechanism for Harvesting Submitted Data • Upon an error the Data can captured to debug Rule Sets • A percentage of captured Data can be used for impact analysis • Captured Data can be used for performance testing

37. Niyum Provides a Mechanism for Harvesting Submitted Data Answers Question Server Niyum Rules Server Data Set Niyum Workstation Browser

38. Niyum Test Generation: • Niyum Rules operate against typed, structured data • Test Generation uses English like constraints on data elements • Test Generation solves those constraints and produces Test Cases that fits those constraints

39. Niyum Testing: • Execution of entire Test Suites are Supported • Execution of groups of Tests within Niyum Workstation provides Coverage Reports • Test Suites can contain: • Captured Tests, Generated Tests, and Hand created Tests

40. Getting the Job Done • Automatic Test Generation allowed us to test the License Rule Set with a wide range of inputs outside of the application • Test Capture allowed us to debug odd results and errors outside of the application • Test Suites and coverage reports allowed us to identify corner cases that had not been tested

41. Results • A Business Case which got Funded! • Green IT - lower CO2 with a 47% Energy Saving • Standard, Stable, and Flexible IT infrastructure • Support for Remote Access • New! Multimedia, Video Conferencing • Foundation for: • Compliance with Dutch Government Standards • Digital Accessibility (a more Effective Judiciary) • Digital court

42. Results The Rules Set for the Niyum Rules Engine presented today allowing us to quickly assess the License needs of an organization and achieve a 30% to 60% reduction on their Microsoft Licensing costs

43. Demo You can watch a video of the use of the Microsoft License Advisor at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb7INuRwbqQ

44. The Next Stage: Monitoring Licenses in Real Time

46. Fine Print Coander Consulting or SourcePulse do not not speak for Microsoft, nor do we guarantee that our interpretations of Microsoft's licensing rules, policies, and related data are those of Microsoft. We are not responsible for harm resulting from any actions you take. You should get the applicable rules, interpretations, and prices from Microsoft before beginning any project or purchase.

47. Questions?

48. Demo Result Screenshot