Introduction
The degree to which computing has become a part of everyday life and day-to-day business has seen a change in the way management approaches how they manage the money, the tasks and the systems within a business.
As technology becomes more widespread within a company and takes a more prominent vital within the vital processes of that company, it is important to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is applied to this technology. Technological assets that may have once been ignored are now key in the decision making process.
Technology have come a long way during the past few years and are now seen as essential parts of any organisation. As such, they receive larger budgets but must also be able to deal with a larger amount of responsibility. There is an eternal race between business needs and IT capabilities.
But after you have spent a large amount of your budget on developing your IT system and seen the requirements of your business change, how do you ensure that the IT you are using can keep up with demand?
This is the function by IT management software and systems.
Every organisation and every situation will have different requirements and will offer unique issues. To satisfy these requirements there are a range of different technologies and approaches that can be implemented to help control the IT infrastructure of your business.
Software Asset Management
Software Asset Management (SAM) is built to do exactly what it says on the tin – monitoring and managing the deployment and usage of software packages within your organisation. It is a business process rather than a distinct area of expertise and is becoming a more critical part of the modern commercial environment, particularly for corporations operating in the field of IT. Despite the many benefits of SAM, there are still a great many companies that are not utilising it to its full potential.
SAM is not simply a program for technicians rolling out software across a large company network, but can be a critical tool to help improve performance at all levels of a company. The goals of SAM include managing of the IT infrastructure within a organisation, negating legal risks associated with incorrect software license usage and sustaining high levels of productivity by making sure software is up to date and fit for its purpose. As IT usage in an organisation grows, so do the potential benefits of SAM.
The practice of software asset management is often thought of as an unnecessary evil due to the abstract nature of what it is designed to deal with, and the business case for employing a SAM solution is not always obvious until a full of the software infrastructure of a company has been done.
Economic benefits are still the most motivating commercial factor when choosing to operate software asset management software within a business. Every corporation needs to make profit after all and expenditure is a very measurable figure.
An increasingly large amount of a business’ IT bank roll is spent on software licensing so there is a critical need to invest to correctly monitor this spending. As organisations expand and spread, their software requirements can change greatly and hardware and programs can swiftly become outdated. There is no need to spend money to maintain the licenses on this outdated software, which is where SAM really delivers an edge.
software asset management is not limited to simply the IT department of your business either. As a management cycle it will often include many of the branches within a organisation, including Finance Human Resources, to make sure that it runs as efficiently as possible. It is a process that does not need to follow standard.
When choosing an appropriate provider of a software asset management solution for your network Centennial Discovery should be a product that is considered amongst many.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having seen the many benefits of deploying a software asset management solution, how do you know that it would be correct for your business? Each company is different and has its own separate set of challenges and benefits, so any plan you will use needs to be catered to these specific characteristics.
There are more than simply monetary advantages that can be made through the control of licensing and maintenance agreements across a companies IT network. Productivity can be greatly by ensuring that employees have the latest editions of software permitted under current licenses held, and communication within the company is aided when support staff know exactly what is installed on every computer under their control. The benefits of software asset management are not confined to the technological hardware of your business.
Cost Savings
As discussed previously, perhaps the most convincing reason to implement software asset management within your company is the potential financial savings that can be achieved. The profitability of your business is always going to be the bottom line so any system that can help to increase this profitability by lowering expenses is one that should be considered.
The most direct way that SAM can help to lower costs is by identifying any applications running on your corporate network that is no longer necessary. The software might not be being used any longer, it may be very outdated to be of use or it may be duplicated on your system. SAM can help to remove this unnecessary overhead.
By clearing these items of software that are no longer a benefit to the running of your business you are streamlining a large chunk of your IT system. Paying for unnecessary software licenses and support and maintenance agreements means that more money can be spent on the essential sections of your IT infrastructure. Focusing your attention on these critical components will improve the overall performance of your IT department.
Mitigate Risk Factors
A surprising amount of software that is currently used in the business environment is either licensed incorrectly or not licensed at all. Having any amount of unmonitored software on your IT network is ill advised, because when left unchecked it can become incredibly unpredictable. This is becoming an increasingly frustrating factor for IT managers.
Rogue software programs can be introduced into an unmonitored IT system in a number of ways. Software may have been bundled when your IT hardware was first bought although the initial software licenses may have expired. Without the correct control policies in place, users may also be able to load their own software onto the network. Operating a corporate IT system in this wild way will almost certainly lead to trouble.
The risk of running unlicensed software on your system is clear. When anything goes wrong with the hardware or software platform behind your critical processes, how do you manage the situation? Operating a complicated software system without the proper support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can critically limit your responsiveness to unforeseen events.
SAM is a leading product that is available from all up to date Centennial distributors selling IT services to a wide range of industries.
Implementing SAM in your Organisation
As previously discussed, there are many potential advantages to utilising a good software asset management strategy within your business, both monetary and otherwise. It is therefore important to consider which branches of software asset management you should implement first since some benefits will be realised more quickly than others.
This discovery process can be seen as three fundamental areas that have to be performed to truly develop an informative picture of the deployment of software assets within your business.
Inventory
Inventory is the most fundamental stage of the discovery cycle. It is important that an accurate inventory of software assets within your business is created to aid your IT department to maintain baselines for your IT system. This inventory process must be performed before continuing with discovery.
Fortunately, this process can now be made automatic and even the largest of networks can be searched and analysed in a reasonably short period of time. Inventory should be able to identify your IT assets regardless of their geographical location or technological characteristics.
Capture
The next step in the discovery cycle is the capture of the software license entitlements that concern the software programs identified in the inventory. The capture stage should gather entitlements for all of the software that is installed on your system, even if the software is not currently in use.
The risk of human error can be avoided by using automatic tools that are specifically created to create a library of license entitlements. Tools that are currently available are incredibly efficient at gathering accurate information. These tools will also maintain databases containing up to date information from IT vendors.
Identification & Validation
The third process is to match up your software inventory to the repository of licensing information that were built in the previous two stages. Errors may have occurred anywhere from the original paperwork for software to the most recent audits performed on your IT network.
One crucial factor in the validation stage is the ability to combine the license entitlements on your network to your company’s proof of entitlement. This will be vital if any arguments with software vendors arise as a consequence of the discovery cycle.
Once these three steps have been undertaken you will have created an incredibly detailed image of how your IT network is delivering software programs to its users. It will be much easier to identify particular trouble spots on your network, or sections of software usage that are no longer of any particular benefit to your activites. This detailed image can be used for future strategies as well.
You can now start a period of reconciliation on your system. You can compare the software packages that are actually installed on your network against the licensing and support contracts that you are paying for and close any divides between the two. This is when the financial benefits of software asset management start to take effect.
The software distribution within your network may include many hundreds or perhaps thousands of individual instances, and there may be any number of restrictions that may be associated with the licensing agreements you have in place. It is therefore essential to automate the reconciliation period, utilising one or more tools to apply smart rules to the process.
The computing industry is in dire need of more Centennial vendors that will provide the right IT monitoring products.
Compliancy and Flexibility with Software Asset Management
Many of the fundamental principles of a successful software asset management strategy are based upon the principles laid out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library details a number of ideas and best practices that should be adopted for successful control of IT operations.
This library is a dynamic entity and is often updated with new ideas and techniques that cater to the ever changing IT backdrop of modern business. A good software asset management strategy should be flexible enough to comply with the guidelines set out in the ITIL whilst meeting the changing requirements of the company within which it is actively utilised.
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has created a standard that applies specifically to software asset management practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an incredibly comprehensive set of suggestions that are built to ensure that software asset management is used in such a way as to “satisfy corporate governance requirements”. Standards of this kind play an essential role in realising standardisation across an industry.
The ISO standard should certainly be followed when planning a software asset management strategy for your own organisation, although the level of detail included within can easily become a daunting challenge. It is important to remember that no matter what recommendations you follow when creating a software asset management strategy, whatever you decide to implement needs to aid your organisation rather than hinder it.
Creating a full and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own organisation might actually never come to fruition. Your strategy must be flexible to adapt and mature as your business does, and it must allow for modifications to your daily activities, no matter how trivial or underlying they might be. This really is the key to a worthwhile SAM strategy.
Conclusion
It is easy to see that as the extent and importance of IT systems within your company grow, so does the need for correct and efficient management of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT department was a luxury that would occasionally progress the business. Computer systems are now critical to the modern organisation. Critical systems need to be monitored to an appropriate standard.
As with other parts of any business, a number of separate strategies should be considered and utilised in order to ensure the efficient running of day to day tasks. software asset management should not be the only tactic used to manage computing assets within your organisation, but rather one of a number of complimentary policies used to control the system as a unit. SAM can go a long way toward helping your company but should be helped by other strategies.
So if you feel that your company is currently suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and management over its IT network, or that the potential benefits outlined in this article could provide a crucial market advantage over your competitors, then it would be well worth investigating how SAM could be used within your organisation. There might be no time to spare.