ACH Colombia S.A. Optimizes IT Asset Investment and Ensures Licensing Compliance
 
 

ACH Colombia S.A. Optimizes IT Asset Investment and Ensures Licensing Compliance

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ACH Colombia S.A. is one Colombia's two institutions for financial clearing and automatic settlement services, serving 17 of the largest banks in the country. Its mission is to facilitate electronic transactions and information exchange between financial institutions and their customers in a safe and efficient manner. The company provides debit transaction, credit, payment, and online buying services for companies and businesses and manages the settlement of social security contributions and charges from special taxes.

The company needed to create an effective and sustainable process to continually ensure compliance with software licensing and copyright requirements and align more closely to the international standard for software asset management, as established by International Standards Organization (ISO) 19770-1. ACH. Colombia managed its Oracle licenses internally, but a lack of centralized licensing information and difficulty in automating license management led ACH Colombia to seek a solution outside the company. Oracle License Management Services advised the company on best practices for managing its software assets, reviewed its installed licenses, and helped it negotiate a new unlimited license agreement (ULA), potentially saving the company up to US$1 million dollars.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from ACH Colombia S.A.

  • "With the advice they gave us, Oracle License Management Services helped us align ourselves with ISO rules. We value the peace of mind that comes with having an impartial, outside company, such as Oracle, review our license configuration and give us their best recommendations." - Luis Alberto Fernandez, Vice President of Operations and Technology, ACH Colombia S.A.

  • Centralize all enterprise application and technology licensing information to enable more efficient and accurate management of business-critical IT licenses
  • Properly license all software products in every environment, such as production and contingency, to ensure compliance and maximize ACH's investment in Oracle software assets
  • Automate software licensing management to eliminate errors that can lead to system downtime and keep the company from providing its settlement, credit, debit, and payment services to banks and their customers

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Worked with Oracle License Management Services to get advice on best practices for software asset management, negotiate a new ULA with Oracle, and review installed licenses at the end of the first ULA licensing period for Oracle WebLogic Suite
  • Implemented centralized management of Oracle software, allowing a more accurate and accessible view of all Oracle assets deployed by ACH Columbia and improving business decision-making capability
  • Gained the ability to effectively manage the lifecycle of Oracle Database, Enterprise Edition with Real Application Clusters and Oracle Partitioning , minimizing the risk of violating the provider's copyright
  • Achieved the company's goal that, by the end of 2011, it would have no unlicensed or improperly licensed software, complying with copyrights and ensuring that all systems operate without interruption, ensuring continuous service to banks and their customers
  • Reduced all risk of under licensing and unbudgeted IT costs by implementing a ULA
  • Supported organization efforts to align more closely to the international standard for software asset management as required by International Standards Organization (ISO) 19770-1

Why Oracle

"The transparency and confidence between our two companies―ACH Colombia and Oracle License Management Services―were the most important factors in our selection process," said Luis Alberto Fernandez, vice president of operations and technology, ACH Colombia." We truly value the professionalism and commitment of the Oracle License Management Services team, which enables us to optimize our IT asset investment."

Implementation Process

Over a two month engagement, Oracle License Management Services worked with ACH to implement standard asset management processes in line with ISO 19770-1 and to transfer knowledge that has allowed ACH to develop sustainable business processes to ensure future license compliance.

"In our company, we measure achievement with indicators and concrete figures," Fernandez said. "Our achievement here was becoming certain that, by the end of 2011, we were fully in compliance with all licenses."

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