Flexera One Reviews

I would rate the compliance tracking of Flexera One and any tool-based compliance six out of ten because compliance is directly proportional to the licensing of a particular publisher. Licensing for each publisher is dynamic, so keeping all those permutations and combinations in line makes it difficult for a tool to perform well, especially on the compliance side. You definitely need a man brain behind the tool. For that reason, I would rate every item tool or technology six out of ten because they provide a snippet of compliance for an enterprise but do not showcase the whole holistic picture.

When measuring the effectiveness of Flexera One's cost management features, I usually look at various metrics, specifically around licensing, license allocation, usage, processor cores for VMs, and load balancing. All these attributes come into play when I use Flexera One Cloud Management features.

I did use Flexera One Cloud cost management.

I have worked with Flexera One in a multi-cloud management environment. This particular customer was using GCP and Azure along with instances of AWS. Flexera One did a fair job in getting the usage, but from an overall optimization perspective, especially regarding resource utilization for VMs, I believe Flexera One can do better.

I have been working with Flexera One for almost eight years.

For Flexera One, what we did was implement the entire tool for a BFSI client six months back. The major challenges with the customer were that they were having a lot of shadow IT, and they were not aware of where their IT assets are, specifically from a software perspective. We created the entire solution on Flexera One for them. They were analyzing two tools; one was ServiceNow and the other was Flexera One, so we had them implement Flexera One in their environment. Now they have an optimized landscape for their overall IT spend, specifically on software.

My major BFSI client faced a lot of challenges with respect to shadow IT and their cloud spend. During COVID, they provided admin access to the end users, leading to unauthorized and unaccounted software. They were using Intune for that; however, Intune is not as capable when it comes to non-Windows based operating systems, and the reporting from Intune is not as good as Flexera One. We implemented Flexera One and started seeing results within the first two months, capturing the majority of their sites. They had eight sites worldwide, and we covered about five sites, capturing about eighty percent of their overall software inventory. We noticed many publishers and software just lying in their environment, posing security threats, especially considering cases of end-of-life and end-of-support products. In our first draft of compliance and value realization, we saved about thirteen point five million for that particular customer.

The first and foremost aspect that could be improved about Flexera One is its capability for customization. It is not easily customizable, and if Flexera One does not have an integration available for different tools and publishers, then creating a custom integration or custom compliance for that particular publisher becomes very difficult. That is a major challenge. Additionally, I believe Flexera One can significantly enhance its information perspective, particularly regarding the attributes of hardware asset management. Although the software side management is good enough, I would rate it four out of five because there are still a lot of attributes that Flexera One can fetch through their agents and non-agent-based discovery, and they really need to step up their game for hardware asset management.

I would rate the compliance tracking of Flexera One and any tool-based compliance six out of ten because compliance is directly proportional to the licensing of a particular publisher. Licensing for each publisher is dynamic, so keeping all those permutations and combinations in line makes it difficult for a tool to perform well, especially on the compliance side.

I have been working with Flexera One for almost eight years.

I have a checklist in place before the implementation of any tool, not just for Flexera One but also for ServiceNow or Snow. We start with a pre-implementation planning phase that typically lasts one to two weeks, where we discuss requirements. We have an Excel-based tracker with questions such as a list of all cloud providers, license contracts, and details regarding entitlements. Once we gather answers to about fifteen to twenty questions, we prepare our assessment and plan. The initial setup and onboarding take about a week, where we install the tool, log in, and configure it for the customer while preparing all the functional requirement documents. Then we move to the integration and data collection part, integrating with cloud systems and other technologies they may have, such as SAP or Azure. By the time we complete all integrations and install all modules of Flexera One, we implement beacon servers across different sites to balance the load. Once we start receiving fifty percent of the inventory data, we move toward normalization and validation of that data.

The architecture of Flexera One is very capable. A tool such as ServiceNow has a lot of implications when it comes to customization, while Flexera One does not allow too much customization; however, it provides all the necessary information to CTOs and CEOs with respect to their software spend. In my opinion, Flexera One is a very capable tool, especially for mid-level and large organizations. Although there are a few negatives, from a positive side, it is easily accustomed within the technology. This means that from an integration perspective, Flexera One is quite capable when it comes to integrations such as SCCM, Tune, and SolarWinds. From the usability perspective, I would say the customer does not want a lot of customization, and if they do not have in-house tools and just want an IT asset management tool, then Flexera One is a good choice for enterprises.

I would say the pricing of Flexera One is good. It is suitable for mid and large sector organizations; however, it may not be the best fit for small sector organizations. Flexera One provides good discounts on substantial deals, but I prefer not to comment on that because it varies on a case-by-case basis.

I would rate this review as an eight out of ten.

During my tenure from 2018 to 2022 with Intel, my primary client was a global network with a significant presence in Europe, particularly Germany. I provided services using Flexera's FlexNet Manager, focusing on software asset management for them. From 2021 to 2023, while working with Process Inc., I continued to offer SAM services, utilizing Flexera's solutions, this time for VMware CRX.

The best thing about FlexNet Manager for my clients is its strong grip on managing licenses and ensuring they stick to their contracts. It helps me keep an eye on what licenses they own versus what they are using. This feature is like a compliance superhero, letting us know if everything's on track or if there are any issues. Knowing this helps us keep the software game in check, making sure they use what they have without overspending. FlexNet makes it easy to stay compliant and cost-effective.

One area that could use improvement is the deployment of Flexera agents. While I haven't personally handled the technical aspects of implementation, coordinating with service providers revealed instances where agents were either missing or corrupt on certain systems. This led to gaps in inventory, making it challenging to monitor compliance and inventory status accurately. Having a smoother and more foolproof agent deployment process would be a valuable enhancement for a seamless experience in managing software assets with FlexNet. Additionally, a key improvement I would like to see in the next release is more timely updates to the application recognition library. The process of creating or updating ARLs ourselves was a bit cumbersome, and having a more proactive approach from Flexera in this regard would be beneficial. Additionally, I believe Flexera could enhance its offering by introducing features related to IT service management. While they excel in IT asset management, integrating more ITSM functionalities directly into FlexNet could provide a more comprehensive solution, similar to platforms like ServiceNow. This could open up new opportunities and make FlexNet an even more valuable tool for organizations.

I have been working with FlexNet Manager for over five years.

I would rate the stability as a nine out of ten.

It is highly scalable. I would rate the scalability as a nine out of ten. Most of the clients using FlexNet Manager are large enterprises, and the solution is more prevalent in markets like Europe and the US due to its higher cost.

I would rate the technical support as a seven out of ten.

Neutral

I would rate the easiness of the initial setup as a nine out of ten. Deploying FlexNet Manager on-premises can take varying times based on factors like the number of systems. Setting up servers and deploying agents to each system determines the project duration. In contrast, Flexera's hosted solution is quicker as everything is managed by Flexera, requiring only remote agent deployment. However, based on customer feedback, the hosted option is still considered maturing compared to the on-premises alternative.

In the Indian market, only a few companies have adopted Flexera, mainly because of its expense. Cost is a significant consideration, but in terms of software asset management effectiveness, Flexera stands out as a top choice, surpassing other tools in my experience. I would give it a nine out of ten in terms of costliness.

For anyone seeking a top-notch software asset management tool with a focus on license and contract management, I would recommend FlexNet Manager. It is particularly suitable for those with dedicated budgets and an interest in exploring advanced functionalities. While it excels in comparison to tools like Snow Licence Manager, SmartTrack, or ServiceNow, the key consideration is pricing. If budget constraints aren't a major hurdle, FlexNet Manager stands out as a go-to solution. Overall, I would rate it as an eight out of ten.

There are no valuable features that the product can provide, owing to which my company plans to move to ServiceNow or SAM Pro.

The hardware and connectors in the product have certain shortcomings where improvements are required. FlexNet Manager's connectors are not that good, especially when compared to what Flexera provides its users in general. ServiceNow and SAM Pro's dashboards are very good compared to what FlexNet Manager offers.

With FlexNet Manager, it would have been good if its hardware and connectors were as good as ServiceNow and SAM Pro. ServiceNow and SAM Pro also serve as a CMDB. FlexNet Manager fails to serve as a CMDB, making it an area where improvements are required.

I have been using FlexNet Manager for a year and a half.

It is a stable solution.

From my experience with large vendors like IBM or Oracle, I can say that ServiceNow and SAM Pro offer good data collectors compared to what FlexNet Manager offers. FlexNet Manager doesn't provide accurate data to its users, owing to which you may have to deal with a lot of false positives. The aforementioned issues don't occur in FlexNet Manager.

Around 100 to 200 people in my company use the product.

People from Flexera should be involved in the installation process of FlexNet Manager. The updates in the product should be managed by someone from Flexera's team. SAM Pro offers features that allow for auto updates, making it a very easy process compared to FlexNet Manager.

The solution is deployed on the cloud.

Based on the enterprise-level packages that my company purchases, I can say that from a price perspective, you can go for FlexNet Manager if you have a very small environment. ServiceNow is better if you have a large environment with a huge number of users.

I only deal with the user side of the product and guide the people in my company on how to work with the tool.

Instead of FlexNet Manager, I would suggest others use SAM Pro, especially those who have ServiceNow deployed in their environment. After a year or two, if you gain good knowledge about SAM Pro. With FlexNet Manager, you may worry about whether the data that you have will get corrupted or not. With SAM Pro, the chances of the data getting corrupted are very low.

Since the tool does work, I rate the overall tool a six or seven out of ten.

I mainly use it for software asset management.

It was in the cloud initially, but my latest one is going to be private.

I like the way it does its compliance. I like its discovery, and I like the fact that it keeps separate hardware and assets and provides easy accessibility to raw data.

They could improve their reporting. I'd particularly like them to allow you to schedule it.

There should also be configuration management. It has most of the other things, but if they could add configuration management, it would be an all-in-one tool. At the moment, because it doesn't have that, you can't adjust it if you need configuration as well.

I have been using FlexNet Manager for the last two years.

It is stable.

It is scalable.

They were very helpful.

I have about 20 years of experience working with Micro Focus Asset Manager. I would recommend FlexNet every single time. The reasons are:

• While Micro Focus Asset Manager is a clever tool and can become cleverer, it has no source of data of its own. It has to be fed by other data sources. 
• There are a lot of things that need improvement in Micro Focus Asset Manager. Software recognition, software licensing, software compliance, data inputs, reporting, and support are some of the areas. 
• Micro Focus Asset Manager also needs a discovery tool of its own. You have to get that from other Micro Focus products, which means you have to pay more to get those products.
• Micro Focus Asset Manager is a very complex tool. It takes a lot of work to keep it, and there are a lot of other elements that have to work with it. It is a very hands-on tool.

I'm also using Snow License Manager at this time. I have used it in my current role for 15 months, and I have also used it for about 15 months in a previous role.

I've never installed it, but like all tools, the configuration takes a little while. That's because you've got to get your agents and your discovery in place, but it was fairly straightforward.

It was certainly on a par with the price we were paying for Snow License Manager. It wasn't overly expensive.

I would rate it a nine out of 10.

• Multiple OSs
• The global presence of 25K servers and 100K desktops and laptops
• Managing the giant publishers like Microsoft/Adobe/SAP/VMware was a nightmare.
• Reporting the asset information and the current spend is also very difficult for my team with our homegrown discovery tools.

• Deployment of the agents was very easy, and we completed the entire estate agent installation in a month.

• Easy to manage the users/application, and the procurement data allows me to push the data to CMDB in a fraction of a second. 
• Workday integration is one of the best helps to manage the users against the systems.
• Audit readiness and 100% users and usage calculation helped the organization to save money.

• Software normalization is really good.
• Discovery and data population are easy and quick to handle.
• Roles and responsibility can be managed according to the organizational structure using AD.

• Sun Solaris server discovery needs to be improved. 
• Apple Mac OS was not supported fully. 
• Naming conversation needs to be improved.

It's a stable product; the only thing is you need to be conscious while designing the server architecture.

It has little difficulties if you are using it on-prem due to license requirements and the system requirements.

Normally the SLAs will take time, as they will often come for meetings to provide solutions.

Slightly complex but their notes can be used.

Vendor team engagement is mandatory -- their level of expertise is mid-level. 

30%.

The subscription-based model would be best for a medium and small organisation.

• CA
• Open iT -- Eracent.