Insights on seeing your engineering clearly.

Practical thinking on license and engineering analytics — turning the data you already generate into smarter decisions on cost, teams, and projects.

Latest · 5 articles
FlexLM 9 min read · Tooling vs Insight

lmstat Shows the Pulse. Analytics Shows the Story.

The FlexLM lmstat command gives a real-time health check — server up, who's holding a seat right now. But renewals and procurement need the history, peaks, and denials a point-in-time snapshot can't provide. Here's the difference.

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AI & Analytics 9 min read · AI & Log Data

The Most Expensive Way to Read a Log File

Feeding raw license logs straight into an LLM is the wrong tool for the job — and a fast way to overload your token budget. The context-window math, the accuracy problem, and the real per-run dollar cost of doing analytics the naive way.

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Build vs Buy 10 min read · Strategy

Build It in an Afternoon, Own It for a Decade

AI made building internal tools feel cheaper than ever — but the cost was never in the building. A clear-eyed look at build versus buy through total cost of ownership, maintenance, key-person risk, and what vibe coding actually changed (and didn't).

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Engineering Analytics 9 min read · For Eng Leaders

Run on Instinct, or Run on Instruments

A leadership case for engineering analytics across teams, projects, cost, and quality. What instrumentation actually reveals, the traps to watch out for, and how it sharpens planning for the next phase of your teams and projects.

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License Analytics 8 min read · License Strategy

The Licenses You Own Are Not the Licenses You Use

Engineering software is one of your largest budget lines — and one of the least examined. How license usage analytics turns the logs you already generate into recoverable budget, evidence-based renewals, and measurable ROI.

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