Introduction
The degree to which computing has become a part of normal life and everyday business has prompted a change in the way business approaches how they manage the money, the processes and the systems within a business. IT is becoming an important factor in business.
As technology becomes more widely used within a business and takes a more prominent vital within the critical processes of that company, it is important to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is applied to this technology. Technological systems that may have previously been overlooked are now important factors in the decision making process.
Technology have come a long way during the past few years and are now seen as critical elements of any company. As such, they are allocated greater budgets but must also be able to deal with a greater amount of responsibility. There is an eternal race between corporate demands and IT capabilities.
But once you have spent a substantial amount of your budget on developing an IT system and seen the requirements of your organisation change, how do you make sure that the technology you are using can keep up with demand?
This is the function by IT management software and procedures.
Every company and every situation will have different specifications and will create unique problems. To satisfy these requirements there are a range of different solutions and approaches that can be used to help manage the IT assets of your business.One of these options is discussed below.
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 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.
SAM is not simply a tool for support staff installing software across a large corporate network, but can be a critical tool to help improve performance at all levels of a business. The objectives of SAM include monitoring costs 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 business 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 broad audit of the software infrastructure of a company has been undertaken. Once existing problems have been highlighted however, the use of software asset management becomes self evident.
Financial benefits are still the most motivating business factor when choosing to employ SAM technology within a company. Every business needs to make money after all and revenue is a very measurable metric. The financial benefits of SAM do certainly exist however.
An increasingly large proportion of a organisation’s IT budget is spent on software licensing so there is a critical need to invest to correctly manage this spending. As companies grow and diversify, their software requirements can change greatly and equipment and software 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 advantage.
SAM is not restricted to simply the technology of your company either. As a management cycle it will often include many of the departments within a organisation, including Finance Human Resources, to ensure that it runs as efficiently as possible. It is a process that does not need to follow established bureaucratic models.
IT service professionals working for a company called microsoft licensing provide a range of IT management solutions including software asset management tools.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having seen the multiple advantages of employing a software asset management solution, how do you know that it would be appropriate for your organisation? Each company is different and has its own separate set of challenges and advantages, so any plan you will undertake needs to be tailored to these specific characteristics.
There are more than just financial 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 versions of software permitted under current licenses held, and communication within the business is aided when support staff know exactly what is deployed on every computer under their control. The benefits of SAM are not confined to the technological hardware of your organisation.
Financial Savings
As discussed before, perhaps the most convincing reason to utilise software asset management within your company is the potential financial savings that can be achieved. The profitability of your company is always going to be the bottom line so any strategy that can help to improve this profitability by descreasing costs is one that should be evaluated.
The most immediate way that SAM can help to lower costs is by identifying any software running on your corporate network that is no longer necessary. 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.
By removing these items of software that are no longer a benefit to the operation of your business you are streamlining a large chunk of your IT network. Paying for unnecessary software licenses and maintenance agreements means that more money can be spent on the vital parts 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 uncontrolled software on your IT network is not advised, because when left unchecked it can become very unpredictable. This is becoming an increasingly annoying factor for IT managers.
Rogue software programs can be introduced into an unmonitored IT system in a number of ways. Software may have been included 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 install their own software onto the system. Running a corporate IT system in this wild way will almost certainly lead to trouble.
The danger of running unlicensed software on your network is clear. When something goes wrong with the hardware or software platform behind your vital processes, how do you recover the situation? Running a complicated software system without the correct support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can critically inhibit your responsiveness to unforeseen events. The cost of recovery will always outweigh the cost of mitigation when it comes to IT systems.
Even in a stagnating and unpredictable market softcat continue to find that SAM is a technology in demand from other companies. To see their website click here.
Implementing Software Asset Management in your Organisation
As previously discussed, there are many potential advantages to employing a good SAM strategy within your business, both financial and otherwise. It is therefore important to determine which parts of SAM you should deploy first since some benefits will be achieved more speedily than others.
This discovery process can be viewed as three basic phases that have to be undertaken to truly build an accurate picture of the usage of software assets within your business. These are:
Inventory
Inventory is the most basic stage of the discovery cycle. It is vital that an accurate inventory of software assets within your organisation is created to aid your IT department to maintain baselines for your IT network.
Fortunately, this process can now be made automatic and even the grandest 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 technological characteristics.
Capture
The next step in the discovery cycle is the capture of the license entitlements that concern the software programs identified in the inventory. The capture stage should gather entitlements regarding all of the software that is installed on your network, even if the software is not currently used.
The risk of human error can be mitigated by using automated tools that are specifically designed to create a library of license entitlements. Tools that are currently available are very 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 the software inventory to the repository of licensing data that were created in the previous two stages. Errors may have occurred anywhere from the original paperwork for software to the most recent audits undertaken on your IT system. These errors can now be rectified.
One crucial factor in the validation step is the ability to associate the license entitlements on your system to your company’s proof of entitlement. This will be vital if any disputes with software vendors arise as a consequence of the discovery process. You want to be as informed as possible in these circumstances.
After these three steps have been performed you will have built an incredibly rich picture of how your IT system is serving software assets to its users. It will be a lot simpler to identify any trouble spots on your network, or areas of software use that are no longer of any practical benefit to your operations. This detailed map can be used for future strategies as well.
You can now start a period of reconciliation on your network. You can compare the software packages that are actually employed on your network against the licensing and support entitlements that you are paying for and bridge any gaps between the two. This is when the financial benefits of SAM start to take effect.
The software spread in your network may include many hundreds or even thousands of individual installations, 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 period, using one or more tools to apply smart rules to the process.
To see how SAM can directly help your organisation use an available Centennial consultant who can devise a SAM strategy suited to your needs.
Compliancy and Flexibility with Software Asset Management
Many of the basic principles of a modern software asset management strategy are based upon the principles set out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library defines a number of ideas and best practices that should be adopted for successful control of IT operations.
This library is a dynamic publication and is often updated with new concepts and policies that cater to the ever 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 requirements of the business within which it is actively utilised.
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has published a standard that applies specifically to SAM practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an incredibly 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 really be adhered to when planning a SAM strategy for your own business, although the level of detail included within can quickly become a daunting challenge. It is important to remember that no matter what guidelines you follow when designing a SAM strategy, whatever plan you decide to implement must aid your organisation rather than hinder it.
Designing a complete and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own company might actually never come to fruition. Your strategy must be flexible to change and mature as your business does, and it should allow for updates to your daily tasks, no matter how trivial or fundamental they might be.
Conclusion
It is easy to see that as the extent and importance of computer systems within your organisation grow, so does the need for good and effective monitoring of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT department was a bonus that would sometimes forward the business. Computer networks are now vital to the modern company. Crucial systems need to be controlled to an appropriate standard.
As with other branches of any organisation, a number of different plans should be considered and used 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 multitude of complimentary policies used to control the system as a whole. SAM can go a long way toward helping your company but should be supported by other strategies.
So if you feel that your organisation is really suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and control over its IT network, or that the possible advantages described in this article could manufacture a critical market advantage over your competitors, then it would be worth investigating how software asset management could be employed within your business. There might be no time to spare.