Introduction
The extent to which computing has become a part of normal life and day-to-day commerce has seen a change in the way management approaches how they manage the finances, the processes and the systems within a business. IT is fast becoming an increasing factor in business.
As computing becomes more widely used within a company and takes a more prominent critical within the critical processes of that business, it is important to make sure that an appropriate amount of attention is applied to this computing.
IT departments have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as critical parts of any organisation. As such, they receive grander budgets but must also be able to manage a greater amount of work. There is an eternal race between business needs and computing capabilities.
But after you have spent a substantial amount of your budget on developing your IT system and seen the circumstances of your organisation change, how do you make sure that the technology you are using can keep up with demand? Moreover, how can you achieve this without spending a prohibitive amount of money?
This is the role undertaken by IT management software and systems.
Every company and every environment will have different requirements and will create unique problems. To satisfy these needs there are a number of different technologies and approaches that can be used to help manage the IT assets of your company.One of these approaches is discussed below.
Software Asset Management
SAM ( Software Asset Management) is built to do exactly what it says on the tin – monitoring and controlling the deployment and usage of software packages within your business. It is a business process rather than a distinct area of expertise and is becoming a more essential part of the modern business environment, particularly for businesses 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 tool for technicians rolling out software across a large company network, but can be a crucial tool to help improve performance at all levels of a company. The objectives of SAM include managing of the IT infrastructure within a organisation, negating legal risks associated with incorrect software license usage and preserving high levels of productivity by making sure software is up to date and fit for its purpose. As IT usage in a company 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 financial case for using a SAM solution is not always obvious until a complete of the software infrastructure of a company has been undertaken.
Monetary benefits are still the most driving business factor when choosing to operate SAM technology within an organisation. Every business needs to make money after all and expenditure is a very measurable metric. The financial benefits of software asset management do certainly exist however.
An increasingly large proportion of a organisation’s IT bank roll is spent on software licensing so there is a vital need to invest to correctly monitor this spending. As businesses grow and spread, their software requirements can change radically and hardware and software can swiftly become out of date. There is no need to spend money to maintain the licenses on this outdated software, which is where software asset management really delivers an advantage.
SAM is not limited to simply the technology of your business either. As a management operation it will often include many of the branches within a company, including Finance Human Resources, to ensure that it runs as efficiently as possible.
SAM can easily be achieved within your business through a viable Centennial Discovery solution that is tailored to your specific needs.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having seen the many benefits of utilising a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be appropriate for your business? Every company is different and has its own separate set of challenges and benefits, so any strategy you will undertake needs to be tailored to these specific characteristics. The benefits of SAM do cover the basic aspects of IT management.
There are more than just monetary benefits that can be gained through the management of licensing and maintenance agreements across an organisations IT system. Productivity can be hugely improved by ensuring that employees have the latest versions of software available under current licenses held, and communication within the corporation is aided when support staff know exactly what is deployed on every computer under their control.
Financial Savings
As discussed before, perhaps the most convincing reason to implement SAM within your company is the potential cost savings that can be achieved. The profitability of your business is always going to be the bottom line so any strategy that can help to increase this profitability by lowering expenses is one that should be evaluated. Money can be saved in a multitude of ways.
The most direct way that software asset management can help to reduce costs is by identifying any applications running on your corporate IT system that is no longer needed. The software might not be being used any longer, it may be too outdated to be of use or it may be duplicated on your system. software asset management can be used to remove this unnecessary overhead.
By clearing these items of software that are no longer a help to the running of your business you are streamlining a large portion of your IT infrastructure. Paying for unnecessary software licenses and maintenance contracts means that more money can be spent on the essential sections of your IT infrastructure. Focusing your finances on these critical components will improve the overall performance of your IT department.
Mitigate Risk
A surprising percentage of software that is actively used in the corporate environment is either licensed incorrectly or not licensed at all. Having any amount of uncontrolled 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 network managers.
Unlicensed software programs can be introduced into an unmonitored IT environment in a number of ways. Software may have been included when your IT hardware was originally bought although the initial software licenses may have expired. Without the correct security policies in place, users may also be able to load their own software onto the network. Running 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 supporting your critical processes, how do you recover 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 unpredictable events. The cost of recovery will always outweigh the cost of prevention when it comes to IT systems.
Many businesses have reported increases in productivity after Centennial consultants worked alongside their current IT support staff.
Implementing SAM in your Organisation
As previously discussed, there are many potential benefits to utilising a good software asset management strategy within your business, both monetary and otherwise. It is therefore important to consider which elements of SAM you should implement first since certain benefits will be realised more quickly than others.
The discovery process can be seen as three primary areas that have to be undertaken to truly develop an accurate picture of the usage of software assets within your business.
Inventory
Inventory is the most basic function of the discovery process. It is crucial that an accurate audit of IT assets within your business is created to aid your IT managers to maintain baselines regarding your IT network. This inventory process must be performed before continuing with discovery.
Fortunately, this process can now be automated and even the largest of infrastructures can be searched and analysed in a reasonably short period of time. Inventory must be able to identify your software assets regardless of their physical location or computing characteristics.
Capture
The next step in the discovery process involves the capture of the software license entitlements that manage the software assets identified in the inventory. The capture stage should collect entitlements for all of the software that is installed on your network, even if the software is not currently used.
The factor of human error can be mitigated by using automatic tools that are specifically designed to build a library of license entitlements. Tools that are currently available are incredibly efficient at capturing accurate data.
Identification & Validation
The third process is to match up the software audit to the repository of licensing information that were built in the previous two stages. Errors may have occurred anywhere from the original invoices for software to the most recent audits performed on your IT system. These errors can now be rectified.
One crucial factor in the validation step is the ability to combine the license entitlements on your network to your organisation’s proof of entitlement. This will be essential if any disputes with software resellers arise as a consequence of the discovery cycle.
Once these three steps have been performed you will have built an incredibly detailed picture of how your IT network is delivering software programs to its users. It will be much easier to identify any trouble spots on your network, or areas of software usage that are no longer of any particular benefit to your activites. This detailed picture can be used for future reference as well.
You can now commence a period of reconciliation upon your system. You can compare the software packages that are actually employed on your system against the licensing and support entitlements that you are paying for and close any gaps between the two. This is when the financial benefits of software asset management start to take effect.
The software distribution in your network may include many hundreds or even thousands of individual installations, and there are any number of rules that may be associated with the licensing contracts you have in place. It is therefore a necessity to automate the reconciliation period, using one or more programs to apply smart rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your company
The use SAM within your organisation is a very specific process which should be planned by a capable Centennial reseller as they will have more information.
Compliancy and Flexibility with Software Asset Management
Many of the basic practices of a modern SAM strategy are based upon the concepts set out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library defines a number of concepts and best practices that should be followed for successful control of IT operations. The ITIL can be found online.
This library is a dynamic publication and is often updated with new ideas and techniques that reflect the ever changing IT backdrop of modern business. A good software asset management strategy should be fluid enough to follow the guidelines set out in the ITIL whilst matching the changing needs of the company within which it is actively used. This is an essential requirement of successful software asset management
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has published a standard that applies specifically to software asset management practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an exceptionally comprehensive collection of guidelines that are designed to ensure that SAM is used in such a way as to “satisfy corporate governance requirements”.
The ISO standard should certainly be followed when planning a software asset management strategy for your own company, although the level of detail included within can quickly become a daunting challenge. It is vital to remember that no matter what recommendations you follow when creating a SAM strategy, whatever plan you decide to employ needs to help your organisation rather than hinder it. Industry standards cannot simply be copied when it comes to applying them to your company.
Designing a full and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own organisation may actually never come to fruition. Your plan must be flexible to adapt and mature as your business does, and it should allow for modifications to your daily tasks, no matter how trivial or fundamental they might be. This really is the key to a successful software asset management plan.
Conclusion
It is easy to see that as the scope and importance of computer systems within your company grow, so does the need for good and effective monitoring of these systems. Gone are the days when an IT branch was a luxury that would occasionally forward the business. Computer networks are now critical to the modern business.
As with other parts of any organisation, a number of different strategies should be considered and utilised in order to ensure the efficient running of daily tasks. SAM should not be the only tactic used to manage computing resources within your organisation, but rather one of a number of complimentary policies used to control the system as a whole. SAM can go a long way toward aiding your company but should be supported by other techniques.
So if you feel that your business is currently suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and control over its IT infrastructure, or that the potential advantages outlined in this article could provide a critical market advantage over your competitors, then it would be worth researching how SAM could be employed within your company. There might be no time to lose.
Moosesoft
Categories: Timothy Reynold |
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