Natural Engineer licensing: a modernization tool priced per user.

Natural Engineer is a Software AG tool for analyzing and modifying Natural applications, the fourth generation language that runs against the Adabas database. It loads a Natural code base into a repository and provides code and impact analysis, pattern matching, flow diagramming, version comparison, and assisted modification, so a team can understand a large Natural estate before changing, documenting, or re-engineering it. Since January 2025 the Adabas and Natural business runs as a standalone unit, after Software AG's integration assets moved to IBM and the company came under Silver Lake ownership, so Natural Engineer now sits within the dedicated Adabas and Natural portfolio rather than a broader Software AG catalog. The analysis runs off the mainframe, which is why it is licensed by people, not capacity.

Natural Engineer is typically licensed per user, by the analysts and developers who work in the tool, rather than by the MIPS or MSU capacity of the mainframe, because the analysis runs in a workstation and server environment off z/OS. Critically, it is licensed separately from the Natural and Adabas runtime, so holding a Natural license does not entitle you to Natural Engineer. The practical measurement is the count of people who actually run analyses against the entitled user basis. The model is simple in shape, and the two errors buyers make are assuming the runtime deal covers it and letting the user count drift above the team that uses it.

Directional and pattern level. Confirm the user basis and that Natural Engineer is a distinct line in your own Software AG schedules before modeling a renewal.

The first driver is the user count, since the tool scales with the analysts and developers entitled to it, and modernization teams expand and contract over a program. The second is the bundle relationship, because Natural Engineer is priced separately from the runtime and can be carried inside a wider Adabas and Natural agreement where its real usage is hard to see. The third is project span, since the tool is usually acquired for a specific modernization or documentation effort and the entitlement tends to outlive the work. The genuine renewal question is how many people still run analyses, and whether the modernization program that justified the tool is still live.

Natural Engineer exposure is mostly user drift and bundle confusion. Common traps we see at pattern level:

Because Natural Engineer is a per user tool tied to programs of work, the levers are about counts, the bundle, and timing within the Adabas and Natural relationship. The five that pay:

Alternatives to Natural Engineer fall into two groups. For pure analysis and documentation of a Natural estate, third party Natural migration and analysis specialists offer comparable code understanding, and some buyers use general application intelligence tools that can parse Natural alongside other languages. For the deeper goal many buyers actually hold, leaving Natural altogether, the alternative is a migration of the application off Natural and Adabas to COBOL, Java, or a modern platform, which is a multi year program rather than a tool swap. The honest posture is to right size the tool's user count and confirm it is a separate line first, use a scoped third party analysis option as a reference point, and treat any full migration as a strategic decision costed against the genuine cost of leaving, not a renewal tactic.