Tullow Oil Deploys FlexNet Manager for Engineering Applications

By DE Editors

Flexera Software, a provider of application usage management solutions for application producers and enterprises,  announced that Tullow Oil, Africa’s largest independent oil company,  has selected FlexNet Manager for Engineering Applications as its software license optimization solution. According to the company, the solution paid for itself in just a few weeks via cost avoidance,  maintenance savings, and improved user productivity.

Tullow was having problems with engineers being denied access to applications because of its concurrent licensing model. According to Tim Burke, head of global IS operations at Tullow Oil, this was happening too frequently. “Our engineers are very important to Tullow’s business and their downtime is costly,” he said. “Denials of service cost the business money and slow down our ability to find, appraise and produce hydrocarbons.”

But because Tullow Oil had limited visibility into their software license estate to analyze use, the company had limited means to assess how many licenses were actually needed, and whether denials of service were due to lack of sufficient licenses or something else. As a result,  with significant pressure to minimize denials of service, Burke’s team could only be reactive, which often meant purchasing costly additional licenses that were not always needed.

Within a few weeks of having implemented the solution, a line manager approached someone on Burke’s team asking for an additional license for an important geo-technical application, which cost around $200,000. An analysis of that application revealed that utilization was actually only at 60%, but that some engineers were logging in and not logging out, resulting in the denials of service.

In another denial of service situation, the team discovered that the problem arose from consultants using the system, who were only working for the company temporarily. “We were able to manage the peak and rent a license for the time the consultants were in, again being able to avoid purchasing a costly license and maintenance,” he said.

For more information, visit Flexera Software.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.