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Introduction

The extent 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. Technology becoming an increasing factor in business.

As computing becomes more widespread within a company and takes a more prominent vital within the critical functions of that company, it is necessary to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is given to this technology. Technological systems that may have once been overlooked are now important factors in the decision making process.

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 larger budgets but must also be able to deal with a greater amount of responsibility.

But after you have spent a substantial amount of your budget on developing your 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 systems.

Every organisation and every environment will have different specifications and will offer different problems. To meet these needs there are a range of different solutions and approaches that can be implemented to help manage the IT infrastructure of your organisation.

Software Asset Management

Software Asset Management (SAM) is designed to do exactly what it says on the tin – monitoring and maintaining the deployment and usage of software programs within your company. It is a business process rather than a distinct skill and is becoming a more essential part of the modern business 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 tool for technicians installing software across a large company network, but can be a critical tool to help improve performance at all levels of a organisation. The goals of SAM include monitoring costs of the IT infrastructure within a business, negating legal risks 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. As IT usage in a company grows, so do the potential benefits of SAM.

The practice of SAM is often thought of as an unnecessary evil due to the abstract nature of what it is designed to deal with, and the commercial case for employing a SAM solution is not always obvious until a broad audit of the software infrastructure of a company has been carried out.

Monetary benefits remain the most motivating business factor when choosing to use software asset management software within a company. Every corporation needs to make money after all and profitability is a very measurable metric. The financial benefits of SAM do certainly exist however.

An increasingly large percentage of a company’s IT budget is spent on software licensing so there is a real need to invest to correctly manage this spending. As organisations expand and diversify, their software requirements can change radically and hardware and software can swiftly become outdated. There is no requirement to spend money to maintain the licenses on this outdated software, which is where SAM really delivers an edge.

software asset management is not restricted to simply the IT department of your business either. As a management operation it will often involve many of the departments within a business, including Finance Human Resources, to ensure that it runs as cost-effectively as possible. It is a process that does not need to follow regular.

IT managers and staff with decision making authority should consider Centennial Discovery at meetings about the implementation of IT resource management.

Why follow a SAM Strategy?

Having seen the many benefits of employing a software asset management solution, how do you know that it would be right for your company? Each business is different and has its own unique set of problems and benefits, so any plan you will undertake needs to be catered to these specific characteristics.

There are more than simply cost advantages that can be made through the control of licensing and maintenance agreements across a businesses IT system. Productivity can be vastly by ensuring that staff have the newest editions of software permitted under current licenses held, and communication inside the business is aided when support staff know exactly what is in use on every workstation under their control.

Financial Savings

As discussed previously, perhaps the most persuading reason to utilise SAM 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 system that can help to improve this profitability by reducing costs is one that should be considered.

The most immediate way that SAM can help to reduce costs is by identifying any applications running on your corporate network that is no longer necessary. The software might not be being used anymore, it may be very 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 removing these items of software that are no longer a benefit to the running of your company you are streamlining a large chunk of your IT system. Paying for unneeded software licenses and maintenance agreements means that more finance can be spent on the critical parts of your IT infrastructure. Focusing your finances on these critical components will improve the overall performance of your IT department.

Mitigate Risk

A surprising proportion of software that is currently used in the corporate environment is either licensed incorrectly or not licensed at all. Running any amount of uncontrolled software on your IT system is not advised, because when left unchecked it can become very unpredictable. This is becoming an increasingly annoying factor for network managers.

Unlicensed software applications can be introduced into an unmonitored IT environment in a number of ways. Software may have been included when your IT hardware was first purchased although the initial software licenses may have expired. Without the correct access policies in place, users may also be able to load their own software onto the system.

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 recover the situation? Running a complex software system without the proper support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can seriously inhibit your responsiveness to unpredictable events.

The financial case for working with a part-time virtualization throughout your IT review process has never been clearer.

Implementing Software Asset Management in your Organisation

As previously mentioned, there are numerous potential benefits to employing a good SAM strategy within your company, both monetary and otherwise. It is vitally important to determine which branches of software asset management you should deploy first since some benefits will be realised more quickly than others.

This discovery process can be viewed as three basic areas that have to be undertaken to truly build an informative picture of the usage of IT assets within your organisation. These are:

Inventory

Inventory is the most fundamental function of the discovery cycle. It is crucial that an accurate audit of IT assets within your business is created to help your IT managers to maintain baselines for your IT network.
Fortunately, this process can now be made automatic and even the largest of infrastructures can be investigated and analysed in a relatively short period. Inventory must be able to identify your IT assets regardless of their physical location or technological characteristics.

Capture

The next step in the discovery process is the capture of the license entitlements that manage the software programs discovered in the inventory. The capture stage should gather entitlements for all of the software that is installed on your network, even if the software is not currently in use. Without this step the inventory may be nearly useless.

The element of human error can be mitigated by using automated tools that are specifically created to build a library of license entitlements. Packages that are currently employed are incredibly efficient at capturing accurate information.

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 invoices for software to the most recent audits undertaken on your IT network.

One critical factor in the validation stage is the ability to combine the license entitlements on your system 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. You want to be as informed as possible in these circumstances.

After these steps have been performed you will have created an incredibly rich image of how your IT system is serving software programs to its users. It will be a lot simpler to identify any trouble areas on your system, or areas of software usage that are no longer of any practical benefit to your activites. This detailed picture can be used for future reference as well.

You can now commence 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 bridge any gaps between the two.

The software spread within your system 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 stage, utilising one or more programs to apply intelligent rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your business

More about utilising software asset management within your organisation is available through my company who can be found across the country.

Compliancy and Flexibility with SAM

Many of the basic principles of a modern software asset management strategy are based upon the concepts laid out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library details a number of ideas and best practices that should be followed for successful management of IT operations. The ITIL can be found online.

This library is a dynamic entity and is often updated with new concepts and techniques that reflect the constantly changing IT environment of modern business. A good software asset management strategy should be fluid enough to follow the guidelines set out in the ITIL whilst meeting the changing requirements of the business within which it is actively utilised.

The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has created a standard that applies directly to SAM practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an exceptionally comprehensive collection of guidelines that are built to ensure that SAM 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 SAM strategy for your own company, although the level of detail included within can easily become a daunting prospect. It is important to remember that no matter what recommendations you follow when planning a software asset management strategy, whatever plan you decide to employ must help your organisation rather than stifle it.

Creating a full and comprehensive SAM strategy for your own business may 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 tasks, no matter how small or underlying they might be.

Conclusion

It is easy to see that as the extent and importance of IT systems within your organisation grow, so does the need for good and efficient monitoring of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT branch was a bonus that would occasionally forward the business. Computer networks are now vital to the modern business.

As with other branches of any organisation, a number of different strategies should be considered and used in order to ensure the smooth running of daily activities. software asset management should not be the only tool used to manage technological assets within your organisation, but rather one of a multitude of complimentary policies used to manage the system as a unit.

So if you think that your organisation is currently suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and management over its IT network, or that the possible benefits outlined in this article could manufacture a critical market edge over your competitors, then it would be well worth researching how SAM could be used within your company. There may be no time to spare.

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