posted by hot news on Jul 19
Introduction
The degree to which technology has become a part of everyday life and day-to-day commerce has prompted a change in the way management approaches how they manage the money, the processes and the systems within an organisation.
As technology becomes more widespread within an organisation and takes a more prominent role within the vital functions of that business, it is necessary to make sure that an appropriate amount of attention is applied to this computing.
Technology have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as essential parts of any organisation. As such, they are allocated grander budgets but must also be able to handle a larger amount of work. There is an eternal race between corporate needs and IT capabilities.
But once you have spent a large amount of money on developing your IT network and seen the needs of your organisation change, how do you ensure that the systems you are using can keep up with demand?
This is the role carried out by IT management software and procedures.
Every company and every situation will have different needs and will offer unique problems. To satisfy these needs 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
SAM ( Software Asset Management) 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 discipline and is becoming a more critical 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 installing software across a large corporate network, but can be a critical tool to help improve performance at many levels of a company. The aims of SAM include controlling of the IT infrastructure within a organisation, negating legal threats 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.
The practice of software asset management is often seen as an unnecessary evil due to the intangible nature of what it is designed to deal with, and the business case for using a SAM solution is not always obvious until a broad inspection of the software infrastructure of a company has been done. Once existing problems have been identified however, the use of software asset management becomes self evident.
Economic benefits remain the most motivating commercial factor when deciding to employ software asset management technology within an organisation. Every business needs to make profit after all and profitability is a very measurable figure.
An increasingly large amount of a organisation’s IT bank roll is spent on software licensing so there is a vital need to invest to correctly handle this spending. As organisations expand and diversify, their software requirements can change radically and hardware and software can quickly 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.
SAM is not restricted to simply the technology of your business either. As a management process it will often involve many of the departments within a organisation, including Finance Human Resources, to ensure that it runs as cost-effectively as possible. It is a process that does not need to follow established bureaucratic models.
IT service professionals working for a company called softcat supply a range of IT management solutions including software asset management tools. To see their website click here.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having heard the many benefits of deploying a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be right for your organisation? Every company is different and has its own unique set of problems and advantages, so any plan you will undertake needs to be tailored to these specific characteristics.
There are more than simply monetary benefits that can be gained through the management of licensing and maintenance agreements across a companies IT network. Productivity can be hugely improved by ensuring that users have the newest editions of software available under current licenses held, and communication inside the business is aided 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 organisation.
Financial Savings
As discussed previously, perhaps the most convincing reason to utilise software asset management 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 plan that can help to increase this profitability by descreasing expenses is one that should be evaluated.
The most direct way that software asset management can help to reduce costs is by targeting any applications running on your corporate network 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. SAM can help 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 system. Paying for unnecessary software licenses and maintenance contracts means that more money can be spent on the essential parts of your IT system. Focusing your attention on these critical components will improve the overall performance of your IT department.
Mitigate Risk Factors
A surprising proportion of software that is currently used in the business environment is either licensed incorrectly or not licensed at all. Running any amount of unmonitored software on your IT network is ill advised, because when left unchecked it can become very unpredictable.
Unlicensed software applications can be introduced into an unmonitored IT environment in a number of ways. Software may have been bundled when your IT hardware was originally bought although the original software licenses may have expired. Without the correct control policies in place, users may also be able to install their own software onto the network.
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 handle the situation? Running a complex software system without the correct support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can critically inhibit your responsiveness to unpredictable events. The cost of recovery will forever outweigh the cost of prevention when it comes to IT systems.
The financial case for working with a part-time Centennial vendor during your IT review process has never been clearer.
Implementing SAM in your Organisation
As previously discussed, there are many potential advantages to utilising a good SAM strategy within your company, both monetary and otherwise. It is therefore important to determine which elements of software asset management you should deploy first since certain benefits will be achieved more speedily than others. Some may take a period of years to be fully felt.
This discovery process can be viewed as three basic areas that have to be undertaken to truly build an informative picture of the deployment of IT assets within your company.
Inventory
Inventory is the most basic stage of the discovery cycle. It is vital that an accurate inventory of software assets within your business 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 networks can be searched and analysed in a relatively short period of time. Inventory must be able to identify your software assets regardless of their geographical location or computing characteristics. Modern inventory processes are capable of this.
Capture
The next step in the discovery process involves the capture of the license entitlements that cover the software assets discovered in the inventory. The capture process should gather entitlements for all of the software that is installed on your network, even if the software is not currently in use.
The risk 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 available are very efficient at capturing accurate information. These tools will also maintain databases containing up to date information from IT vendors.
Identification & Validation
The next step is to match up the software audit to the repository of licensing data that were created 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. These errors can now be rectified.
One crucial factor in the validation stage is the ability to combine the license entitlements within your system to your organisation’s proof of entitlement. This will be essential if any arguments with software resellers arise as a consequence of the discovery process.
After these three steps have been performed you will have built an incredibly rich picture of how your IT network is serving software assets to its users. It will be a lot easier to identify particular trouble spots on your system, or sections of software use that are no longer of any practical benefit to your operations.
You can now start a period of reconciliation on your network. You can compare the software programs that are actually installed on your system against the licensing and support entitlements 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 spread in your network may include many hundreds or perhaps thousands of individual instances, and there may be any number of rules that may be involved with the licensing contracts you have in place. It is therefore essential to automate the reconciliation period, utilising one or more programs to apply intelligent rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your business
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Compliancy and Flexibility with SAM
Many of the fundamental 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 concepts and best practices that should be adopted for successful control of IT functions.
This library is a changing entity and is often updated with new ideas and policies that reflect the ever changing IT environment of modern business. A good SAM 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.
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 guidelines 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 part 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 covered within can quickly become a daunting challenge. It is vital to remember that no matter what guidelines you follow when creating a SAM strategy, whatever plan you decide to implement must help your business rather than hinder it. Industry standards cannot simply be copied when it comes to applying them to your business.
Designing 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 grow as your business does, and it should allow for modifications to your daily activities, no matter how small or fundamental they might be. This really is the key to a successful software asset management strategy.
Conclusion
It is easy to see that as the extent and importance of IT systems within your organisation grow, so does the requirement for good and efficient monitoring of these systems. Gone are the days when an IT branch was a bonus that would occasionally forward the business. Computer networks are now vital to the modern business. Crucial systems need to be controlled to an appropriate level.
As with other parts of any business, a number of separate plans should be evaluated and used in order to ensure the efficient running of day to day tasks. 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 techniques used to manage the system as a unit.
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 advantages described in this article could provide a critical market edge over your competitors, then it would be worth researching how SAM could be employed within your company. There may be no time to spare.