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Open to change: QIAGEN switches to samQ
QIAGEN’s journey began in the mid-1980s, the early days of biotechnology. By now the company which is headquartered in Hilden near Düsseldorf has 4,700 employees and supplies more than 500,000 customers worldwide. The sample technologies of QIAGEN enable a filtration and treatment of nucleic acids and proteins out of blood, tissue and other materials. Test technologies make these biomolecules visible and ready for analysis. QIAGEN now also uses another kind of analysis: VOQUZ’s SAP License Optimization solution samQ tho-roughly analyzes and manages QIAGEN’s SAP license portfolio.
Interview with VOQUZ and Iris Gunia, IT Licensing Mana-ger, and Michaela Elek, Global Category Leader ITCProcurement from QIAGEN in Hilden near Düsseldorf.
VOQUZ: Ms. Gunia, can you describe the SAP landscape at QIAGEN? How many users do you have?
Iris Gunia: We own multiple SAP solutions built around our core SAP system. Every single one of our 4,700 employees is set up as an SAP user, as our HR system runs on SAP. We have many other departments that use SAP depending on the area a given employee specializes in. Thereby, we have a broad spectrum of different kinds of Named User Licenses.
VOQUZ: With such a great number of users, you are surely happy to use samQ for managing your SAP Licenses. How did you come across samQ?
Iris Gunia: At the beginning of the year I was observing media reports about license management. Actually, we already had another SAM-tool deployed at that moment, but we weren’t satisfied with it. All in all, it couldn’t cover the areas that we needed for our SAP License Management.
For this reason, I started looking for better alternatives and in so doing found the samQ License Optimizer as a perfect fit. The advantages of samQ really convinced us and so we decided to compare both tools directly. Then everything went really quick. With the project license of VOQUZ we performed a one-time analysis of our land-scape using samQ. We were convinced right away and decided to replace our old tool with samQ.
VOQUZ: So you already had some experience using other SAM tools. Can you list the criteria that were important to you while looking for an SAP-specific SAM solution?
Iris Gunia: What really bothered us with the old tool was that it didn’t ship with a usage database for SAP transactions. Instead, all licenses were assigned on the basis of very simplistic rules. The bottom line was that we had to define all rules by ourselves, which didn’t work well for us. That was a herculean task we couldn’t keep up with.
It was important to us that our new tool could manage all aspects automatically, so it would simplify our work. samQ has access to a huge transaction data base and automatically matches the myriad of our different transac-tions with the proper license types – this was the critical factor for us. On top of that, samQ offered additional features which the other tool couldn’t provide.
VOQUZ: Which special advantages do you see in samQ?
Iris Gunia: Automation is important for us. samQ works fully automatically and can adjust license keys within all our SAP systems, responding to changes in our employees activities patterns in real-time. This way we can save a lot of costs and enable compliance at the same time.
Besides, we were happy with the quick and easy instal-lation process. It was much less complicated than the installation of our prior tool. We also appreciated the expertise of the VOQUZ team during the setup – the team was knowledgeable and very professional. The samQ con-sulting group addressed all our concerns and wishes.
Michaela Elek: The samQ License Optimizer is a big crutch for us to lean on throughout the year to optimally manage our SAP licenses. License Management has gotten much easier since we adopted samQ and we can track exactly how our licenses are used at any point in time. We found that level of detailed data also helpful when it comes to negotiations with SAP.
VOQUZ: Can you describe the implementation process from first contact to go-live?
Iris Gunia: To start, we performed a one-time analysis using a project license offered by VOQUZ. This was a great opportunity to directly test the capabilities of samQ within our actual landscape. The tool was fully installed within three days. Altogether it took about a week until all ana-lyses were completed. As we had previously established a License Position baseline using our old tool, we could easily compare both tool outputs. We quickly realized that we prefer samQ. Even though the subscription to our old tool hadn’t expired yet, we intentionally decided to replace it by upgrading to samQ.
Since 80% of the initial configuration was already perfor-med as part of the project license engagement, the remai-ning setup was completed swiftly. A transport update and special adjustments tailored to our landscape were per-formed, so that the tool perfectly matched our systems.
Building on top of the base installation, we also enabled engine tracking and compliance dashboards. Everything was set up according to our wishes. Looking back, we were very satisfied with how quickly and uncomplicated the entire process was managed by VOQUZ.
VOQUZ: Did you need help during the installation?
Iris Gunia: The installation process was simple. Our IT team collaborated with the VOQUZ team and the setup was completed quickly. When we needed help afterwards, the samQ support team was there to assist us. Our project lead engaged the relevant subject matter experts immediately, who were able to give us further information on multiple topics. All our questions were quickly resolved.
VOQUZ: Ms. Gunia, Ms. Elek, thank you for the interview!
