This document provides an overview of the FlexNet Operations entitlement management solution. It describes benefits to application producers such as improving efficiency by managing multiple license generators through a single system, automating the license lifecycle to accelerate revenue recognition, and increasing channel revenue. It also summarizes FlexNet Operations' capabilities like managing entitlements across their lifecycle, building new licensing models, reporting insights, and easing M&A integration.

1. DATASHEET
FlexNet Operations
End-to-End Entitlement Management for Managing the Entire License
Lifecycle of Software, Entitlements and Devices
Benefits to
Application Producers
• Improve efficiency by
managing multiple
license generators and
technologies with a
single system
• Accelerate revenue
recognition and reduce
manual effort by automating
the entire license lifecycle
of software, entitlements
and devices
• Increase channel revenue
by tracking channel
performance and planning
incentive programs to meet
business goals
• Ease the pain of mergers
and acquisitions by
easily integrating new
license generators into
a single system
• Maximize revenue with new
licensing models (support
for the full software licensing
spectrum) and better
tracking and reporting
• Cut support costs and
improve customer
satisfaction by empowering
end-user self-service
• Reduce software license
leakage due to virtual
machine cloning
• Bring products to market
faster by quickly creating
new product configurations
and license models
Application producers, both software vendors and
intelligent device manufacturers, often underestimate
how complicated managing software and device
entitlements can be. Homegrown and legacy
entitlement management tools might work initially, but
can rarely scale and count to meet the changing needs
of the software and intelligent device industries.
FlexNet®
Operations provides a single, end-to-end
entitlement management solution, from license
lifecycle management for software, entitlements and
devices, to software delivery and entitlement driven
software updates.
Manage Entitlements More Efficiently
FlexNet®
Operations gives you the power to
manage software entitlements, subscriptions, and
devices easily and efficiently. It cuts operational
costs by automating the generation, fulfillment and
activation of entitlements and improves customer
satisfaction by providing a consistent experience
and a 24x7 self-service Web portal.
Build New Revenue Streams with Flexible
Software Licensing Models
FlexNet Operations lets you capitalize on new
revenue opportunities by quickly creating new
product configurations and license models–without
involving your IT or development staff—while
helping you to slash inventory costs by using
software licensing, entitlement management and
license lifecycle management to easily create and
manage products.*
Better Understand Customers and Boost Sales
with Rich Reporting Data
FlexNet Operations has rich reporting capabilities
that give you detailed insight information such as
who is receiving entitlements for what product, the
ratio of entitlements to software activations,
how often entitlements are being returned and
re-hosted and which customers are requesting
temporary licenses.
Ease the Pain of Mergers and Acquisitions
FlexNet Operations makes entitlement management
and software license tracking far more efficient,
while simplifying the back-office integration issues
that come with mergers and acquisitions. FlexNet
Operations can also integrate with your ERP and
CRM systems, so you can streamline order entry,
license generation, fulfillment, and change requests
from customers.
Increase Customer Satisfaction
FlexNet Operations helps empower you, your
customers and channel partners with a Web-based
self-service portal they can access 24x7. The portal
enables you to easily return, modify, and rehost
licenses and reassign entitlements, subscriptions, and
device capabilities at any time without calling your
support staff.
*requires FlexNet License Lifecycle Management
“Flexera Software has helped us transition our
focus from individual, repetitive customer fulfillment
transaction processing to customer self-service
enablement – a far more strategic and high-
impact place to be. Since then, Sybase’s per-unit
distribution costs have dropped more than
80 percent.”
– Bob Mullen
Director of Operations, Sybase
“The Entitlement Management Solution from
Flexera Software has helped Alcatel-Lucent improve
the way we view and administer entitlements.
Now our license generators can be consolidated
into a single system, saving us time and
money while giving customers a more
consistent experience.”
– Manish Sharma
Alcatel-Lucent

2. FlexNet License Lifecycle Management: Cut Operational Costs
by Automating the Generation, Fulfillment, and Activation of
Software Licenses and Entitlements
Application producers frequently release new versions, updates
and features for their software and devices, which sometimes
makes it difficult for their enterprise customers to manage the
license through its lifecycle, let alone understand what they are
entitled to use.
When you couple FlexNet Operations (On-Premises or
Cloud) entitlement management with FlexNet License Lifecycle
Management you can quickly create product configurations to
meet market demands, cut your operational costs by automating
the generation, fulfillment and activation of software licenses
and entitlements for your on-premises, cloud, SaaS, virtualized
and embedded applications. With FlexNet License Lifecycle
Management you have the ability and flexibility to:
• Manage the entire software license lifecycle–fulfill,
activate, return, re-host and repair software licenses
• Manage the licensing lifecycle of devices–manage
the licensing activities related to devices including
creating, provisioning (and de-provisioning) capacity and
capabilities, rebalancing, returns and moving devices
• Support virtualization and cloud environments–detect-and-
deny or detect-and-activate products in virtual and cloud
environments to protect against accidental cloning*
• Report on software and device licenses–analyze licenses
by customer, license status, product and version, expiration
dates and more to help you make better decisions
FlexNet Advanced Organization Management: Manage and
Track Software Entitlements Across the Entire Organization and
Channel Partners
One of the biggest challenges application producers and their
enterprise customers’ face is their ability to create, manage
and track software entitlements across the entire organization–
including all the subsidiaries and departments within the
enterprise. In addition, if you are like most application
producers you likely have multiple channel partners and
distributors for your products, yet you don’t have much
visibility into how those channel partners or distributors are
actually performing.
When you couple FlexNet Operations (On-Premises Only)
entitlement management with FlexNet Advanced Organization
Management you have the ability and flexibility to:
• Create and manage tier number of customers, users
and permissions–the hierarchy of business units within
a company can be represented and updated easily with
FlexNet Advanced Organization Management. You can
assign different roles and permissions user or users based
on the business unit they belong to. It also helps you and
your customers handle decentralized purchasing and
accurately track software entitlements and departmental
charge-backs
• Track, report and transfer software entitlements between
producers and tiers of channel partners and distributors
Direct Orders or
Channel Orders
Self-Service end
Customers Channel
Partners
Order
Software
Add-ons
Analyze
Renew
Add-ons
Upgrade
Add-ons
Download
Install
Activate
Software
Add-ons
Configure
Provision
Device
De-activate
Add-ons
Move/
Return
Software
Entitlement and
License Lifecycle
Management
Software
Product Binaries
License Rights
FlexNet Operations Modules
* Requires a FlexNet Licensing Virtualization Platform purchase.

3. FlexNet Usage Management: Support Usage-Based Trust but
Verify Software Licensing and Compliance Models
To stay competitive and grow market share many application
producers adopt their software licensing and compliance
models to meet the changing needs of their enterprise
customers. Recently, many enterprise customers have indicated
that (for some products and in some markets) they want
to move to a usage-based trust but verify software license
compliance management model and in some cases only pay
for what they use.
When you couple FlexNet Operations (Cloud Only) entitlement
management with FlexNet Usage Management you have the
ability and flexibility to:
• Support usage-based trust-but-verify software licensing and
compliance models–by implementing a usage-based trust
but verify model you can offer your enterprise customers
pricing based on actual usage (pay-for-use, pay-for-burst,
pay-for-overage, etc.)
• Provide visibility into actual usage–your enterprise
customer can access the enterprise dashboard to self-
control and self-monitor actual usage data and reconcile
against the software entitlement
• Support compliance initiatives–your access to the
enterprise usage data helps you support enterprise
compliance conversations with a single source of truth
(usage versus entitlement)
• Export usage data–you, the producer, can export usage
data to an external billing system and your enterprise
customer can download the usage data for pattern
analysis and optimization
FlexNet Electronic Software Delivery: Eliminate Physical Fulfillment
Costs by Electronically Delivering your Software to Customers
Today’s application producers need the power to cost-
effectively distribute their products to customers worldwide.
Fulfilling software via physical media incurs freight, assembly,
warehousing and management costs. Studies show these
costs add up to $30 per unit on average and may account for
3-4 percent of product line revenues. Many homegrown FTP
sites are not secure and typically provide no way to enforce
entitlements or track who has downloaded your software.
Electronic software delivery (or electronic software distribution)
is a way to solve these challenges quickly and efficiently.
When you couple FlexNet Operations (Cloud) entitlement
management with FlexNet Electronic Software Delivery you can
eliminate physical fulfillment costs and ensure that only customers
that are entitled to use your software can download it.
With FlexNet Electronic Software Delivery entitlement-based
software distribution you can:
• Eliminate physical fulfillment costs
• Protect maintenance and subscription revenues
• Improve customer satisfaction by delivering software and
updates to customers via a 24x7 self-service portal
• Increase cross-sell and up-sell revenues – by reporting
on your customer’s download activity at a product
version level
• Ensure compliance with complex software export
regulations, revenue recognition, and data privacy rules
• Accelerate revenue recognition–many producers and
intelligence device manufacturers can recognize
revenues as soon as end customers finish downloading
their software
• Provide rapid implementation, high up-time operational
service levels, along with Web services for data access
and integration to ERP/CRM systems
“FlexNet Operations has improved our software fulfillment and entitlement process in many ways. The intuitive cataloging
system, file validation and built-in tools such as automatic MD5 checksum validation (ensures files uploaded and stored
have not been modified and corrupted in any way) are just some of the things that have saved us valuable time and
improved our service. We are able to turn-around software requests much more quickly which has resulted in greater
customer satisfaction. We are very pleased with the service!”
– Steven Pratt
Product Support Manager, FICO
FlexNet Operations Modules
Figure 2: View Usage

4. Flexera Software LLC
(Global Headquarters):
+1 800-809-5659
United Kingdom (Europe,
Middle East Headquarters):
+44 870-871-1111
+44 870-873-6300
Australia (Asia,
Pacific Headquarters):
+61 3-9895-2000
For more office locations visit:
www.flexerasoftware.com
Copyright © 2015 Flexera Software LLC. All other brand and product names mentioned herein may be the trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners.
FNO_DS_Jan15
The Industry’s Top Choice for Software Monetization
Flexera Software is the industry’s solution of choice for software
monetization. Helping software vendors and intelligent device
manufacturers to innovate products faster, streamline back-office
entitlement management processes, and simplify software updating
and distribution. Flexera Software licensing solutions are used by
over 3,000 application producers to protect and monetize over
20,000 software applications. Flexera Software was awarded the
Frost Sullivan 2011 Global Market Share Leadership Award in
Software-Enforced License Management.
FlexNet Operations is available as an On-Premises or as a Cloud,
software-as-a-service deployment. FlexNet Operations provides rapid
implementation, high up-time operational service levels, along with
Web service and XML data access and integration.
FlexNet Operations Cloud is SSAE SOC 2 certified. The SOC
2 certification is designed to provide a means for service
organizations to quantify their adherence to the Trust Service
Principles (TSP’s). The TSP’s are specific controls relevant to security,
availability, processing integrity, and confidentiality.
Flexera Software Professional Services enables you to accelerate
and increase the value your organization receives from Flexera
Software solutions. Each one of our experts average more than ten
years’ experience in software monetization. Through subject matter
expertise and a proven methodology, we can help you implement
and evaluate current or potential strategies to achieve your
business objectives.
About Flexera Software
Flexera Software helps application producers and enterprises
increase application usage and the value they derive from their
software. Our next-generation software licensing, compliance and
installation solutions are essential to ensure continuous licensing
compliance, optimized software investments and to future-proof
businesses against the risks and costs of constantly changing
technology. Over 80,000 customers turn to Flexera Software as
a trusted and neutral source for the knowledge and expertise we
have gained as the marketplace leader for over 25 years and for
the automation and intelligence designed into our products. For
more information, please go to: www.flexerasoftware.com
Next Step:
Visit www.flexerasoftware.com/fno to view online demos,
webinars and read white papers, or call 1-800-809-5659.
“Flexera Software’s embedded software licensing and entitlement
management solution enables CPU Tech to protect our intellectual
property and allow the customer to operate in a classified/
secure area without internet access. We needed a solution
that enables a solid revenue model without expanding our
manufacturing costs.”
“With Flexera Software we can now easily upgrade and
downgrade our customers without deploying additional
hardware as well as offer them licensing and pricing models
based on roles and features.”
– Ryan Kenny
CPU Tech