Introduction

The extent to which computing has become a part of everyday life and day-to-day business has forced a change in the way business approaches how they manage the finances, the tasks and the assets within an organisation. Computing becoming an increasing factor in business.

As technology becomes more widely used within a company and takes a more prominent role within the critical functions of that company, it is important to make sure that an appropriate amount of attention is applied to this computing.

Technology have come a long way during the past few years and are now seen as vital parts of any organisation. As such, they are allocated grander budgets but must also be able to handle a greater amount of work. There is an eternal race between business demands and computing capabilities.

But after you have spent a substantial amount of your budget on developing an IT system and seen the needs of your organisation change, how do you make sure that the technology you are using can keep up with demand?

This is the role carried out by IT management software and procedures.

Every organisation and every situation will have different requirements and will present different problems. To satisfy these requirements there are a range of different technologies and approaches that can be used to help control the IT infrastructure of your company.

Software Asset Management

SAM ( Software Asset Management) is designed to do exactly what it says on the tin - monitoring and managing the deployment and usage of software suites within your organisation. It is a business process rather than a distinct skill and is becoming a more essential part of the modern commercial environment, particularly for companies operating in the field of Information Technology. 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 many levels of a business. The aims of SAM include controlling of the IT infrastructure within a company, negating legal threats associated with incorrect software license usage and maintaining high levels of productivity by making sure software is up to date and fit for its purpose.

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 using a SAM solution is not always obvious until a full of the software infrastructure of a company has been carried out.

Monetary benefits are still the most motivating commercial factor when choosing to operate SAM technology within a company. Every company needs to make profit after all and revenue is a very measurable metric. The financial benefits of SAM do certainly exist however.

An increasingly large amount of a organisation’s IT bank roll is spent on software licensing so there is a critical need to invest to correctly monitor this spending. As businesses grow and diversify, their software requirements can change radically and equipment and software can quickly become out of date. There is no requirement 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 company either. As a management process it will often involve many of the branches within a company, including Finance Human Resources, to make sure that it runs as cost-effectively as possible.

Some of the most experienced SAM technicians work at Centennial specialists where their skills are put to good use.

Why follow a SAM Strategy?

Having heard the various advantages of deploying a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be appropriate for your business? Each business is different and has its own unique set of problems and advantages, so any strategy you will use needs to be tailored to these specific traits.

There are more than simply monetary advantages that can be gained through the management of licensing and maintenance agreements across a companies IT network. Productivity can be vastly by ensuring that users have the newest versions of software permitted under current licenses held, and communication inside the corporation is helped when support staff know exactly what is deployed on every workstation under their control. The benefits of SAM are not confined to the technological hardware of your business.

Cost Savings

As discussed previously, perhaps the most convincing reason to implement SAM within your company is the potential cost savings that can be made. The profitability of your company is always going to be the bottom line so any system that can help to increase this profitability by lowering costs is one that should be considered. Money can be saved in a number of ways.

The most direct way that SAM can help to lower 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 very outdated to be of use or it may be duplicated on your system. SAM can be used to remove this unnecessary overhead.

By removing 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 network. Paying for unnecessary software licenses and support and maintenance agreements means that more money can be spent on the critical sections of your IT system. Focusing your attention on these vital 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. Running any amount of uncontrolled software on your IT network is not advised, because when left unchecked it can become incredibly unpredictable. This is becoming an increasingly annoying factor for network managers.

Rogue software programs can be introduced into an uncontrolled IT system 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 access policies in place, users may also be able to install their own software onto the network.

The danger of running unlicensed software on your system is clear. When something goes wrong with the hardware or software platform behind your critical processes, how do you handle the situation? Operating a complicated software system without the correct support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can seriously limit your responsiveness to unpredictable events. The cost of recovery will forever outweigh the cost of prevention when it comes to data systems.

If you are willing to do business with the most appropriate Centennial distributoryour company will be well placed to achieve the maximum benefit from software asset management.

Implementing Software Asset Management in your Organisation

As previously discussed, there are many potential benefits to utilising a good software asset management strategy within your organisation, both monetary and otherwise. It is therefore important to consider which branches of software asset management you should implement first since certain benefits will be realised more speedily than others. Some may take a period of years to be fully felt.

This discovery process can be seen as three fundamental phases that have to be undertaken to truly build an accurate picture of the deployment of IT assets within your company. These are:

Inventory

Inventory is the most fundamental stage of the discovery process. It is vital that an accurate inventory of IT assets within your business is created to aid your IT managers to maintain baselines for your IT system.
Thankfully, this process can now be made automatic and even the largest of networks can be searched and analysed in a relatively short period of time. Inventory should be able to identify your IT assets regardless of their physical location or technological characteristics. Modern inventory processes are capable of this.

Capture

The second step in the discovery process involves the capture of the software license entitlements that concern the software programs discovered in the inventory. The capture process 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 build 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 software vendors.

Identification & Validation

The next process is to match up the software inventory to the repository of licensing data that were created in the last two stages. Errors may have been made anywhere from the original paperwork for software to the latest audits performed on your IT system.

One critical factor in the validation step is the ability to combine the license entitlements within your system to your company’s proof of entitlement. This will be essential if any arguments with software vendors arise as a consequence of the discovery process.

Once these three steps have been performed you will have built an incredibly rich image of how your IT system is delivering software packages to its users. It will be a lot easier to identify particular trouble areas on your system, or areas of software use that are no longer of any practical benefit to your operations. This detailed image can be used for future strategies as well.

You can now begin a period of reconciliation upon your network. You should compare the software programs that are actually installed on your system against the licensing and support contracts that you are paying for and bridge any divides between the two.

The software spread within your system may include many hundreds or even thousands of individual instances, and there are any number of restrictions that may be associated with the licensing agreements you have in place. It is therefore essential to automate the reconciliation process, using one or more tools to apply intelligent rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your business

To learn more about the software asset management process you could use Centennial reseller resources through the web.

Compliancy and Flexibility with SAM

Many of the fundamental principles of a modern 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 principles and best practices that should be adopted for successful control of IT operations.

This library is a changing entity and is often updated with new concepts and policies that reflect the constantly changing IT environment of modern business. A good SAM strategy should be fluid enough to comply with the guidelines set out in the ITIL whilst matching the changing needs of the business within which it is actively utilised. This is an essential requirement of effective SAM

The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has created a standard that applies directly to software asset management practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an incredibly comprehensive set of guidelines that are designed to ensure that software asset management is used in such a way as to “satisfy corporate governance requirements”.

The ISO standard should really be followed when planning a SAM strategy for your own company, although the level of detail covered within can easily become a daunting challenge. It is vital to remember that no matter what guidelines you follow when creating a software asset management strategy, whatever plan you decide to implement needs to help your business rather than hinder it.

Creating a full and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own business might actually never come to fruition. Your strategy must be flexible to adapt and grow as your organisation 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 clear to see that as the extent and importance of IT systems within your company grow, so does the requirement for correct and efficient management of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT department was a bonus that would sometimes progress the business. IT systems are now vital to the modern business. Critical systems need to be controlled to an appropriate standard.

As with other parts of any company, a number of different plans should be considered and utilised in order to ensure the smooth running of day to day activities. software asset management should not be the only tool used to manage technological resources within your organisation, but rather one of a number of complimentary policies used to control the system as a whole.

So if you feel that your organisation is really suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and control over its IT infrastructure, or that the potential benefits described in this article could provide a critical market edge over your competitors, then it would be well worth investigating how SAM could be used within your company.

Bookmark to: