From the Labs: Information Technology

New publications, experiments and breakthroughs in information technology--and what they mean.

Optimizing Assets
A software capable of tracking computing assets and their usage.

Results: Researchers at Altair Engineering have developed a business intelligence (BI) software solution that helps calculate computing assets of organizations to enable them to optimize their computing resources – software licenses and hardware - in the best manner for better results.

Why it matters: R&D divisions, engineering services teams, and engineering data centers employ computing assets comprising of desktops, servers, and expensive software licenses. This investment in computing assets is essential for development and on-time project completion. It is therefore imperative to have a good insight into the usage of these resources in order to optimize their usage while not compromising on the project demands. The software will also help ensure that there is optimal return on investment on the computing asset investment and that the future requirements based on projects in pipeline can be rationalized.

Methods: The software uses the HiQube technology that is a combination of hierarchical, relational and multidimensional database technologies. It provides multiple selection filters to view inventory and top used software across a combination of projects, teams, and business units. It shows license utilization trend. For example, the utilization pattern of licenses across time periods, ranging from days to hours within a day, and across projects/teams.

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Next steps: Altair is making the solution more comprehensive to detect manpower productivity linked to the software licenses usage and hardware occupied for undertaking the projects.

Source: “Altair Licence Analytics: Optimising Your Compute Asset for Improved Engineering Productivity ” by Avadhesh Mittal and Aspandyar Karkaria; Altair HyperWorks Technology Conference, September 14-16, 2009, Pune, Maharashtra.