Introduction
The extent to which computing has become a part of everyday life and day-to-day commerce has prompted a change in the way business approaches how they manage the money, the processes and the assets within an organisation. Computing becoming an increasing factor in business.
As technology becomes more widespread within a company and takes a more prominent role within the vital functions of that business, it is important to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is applied to this technology.
Technology have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as essential parts of any business. As such, they receive grander budgets but must also be able to deal with a larger amount of work.
But once you have spent a large amount of money on developing your 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? Moreover, how can you achieve this without spending a prohibitive amount of money?
This is the function by IT management software and systems.
Every business and every situation will have different needs and will present unique issues. To satisfy these requirements there are a range of different technologies and approaches that can be used to help control the IT network of your business.
Software Asset Management
SAM ( Software Asset Management) is built to do exactly what it says on the tin – monitoring and managing the deployment and usage of software suites within your business. It is a business process rather than a distinct discipline and is becoming a more critical part of the modern corporate environment, particularly for companies operating in the field of IT.
SAM is not simply an aid for technicians deploying 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 managing of the IT infrastructure within a company, negating legal risks associated with incorrect software license usage and sustaining high levels of productivity by making sure software is up to date and fit for its purpose.
The practice of SAM 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 employing a SAM solution is not always obvious until a complete of the software infrastructure of a company has been carried out. Once existing problems have been identified however, the use of SAM becomes self evident.
Economic benefits remain the most driving commercial factor when deciding to employ software asset management software within a business. Every company needs to make profit after all and expenditure is a very measurable metric.
An increasingly large proportion of a company’s IT budget is spent on software licensing so there is a critical need to invest to correctly handle this spending. As organisations grow and diversify, their software needs can change radically and hardware and programs can quickly become out of date. There is no requirement 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 operation it will often include many of the branches within a organisation, including Finance Human Resources, to ensure that it runs as cost-effectively as possible.
Software asset management can easily be achieved within your organisation through a feasible companysolution that is tailored to your requirements.
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 correct for your organisation? Each company is different and has its own separate set of challenges and benefits, so any plan you will undertake needs to be catered to these specific characteristics.
There are more than simply monetary benefits that can be made through the management of licensing and maintenance agreements across an organisations IT system. Productivity can be vastly by ensuring that employees have the latest versions of software permitted under current licenses held, and communication inside the business is helped when support staff know exactly what is deployed on every workstation under their control.
Cost Savings
As discussed before, perhaps the most persuading reason to implement software asset management within your business is the potential cost savings that can be made. The profitability of your business is always going to be the bottom line so any plan 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 immediate way that SAM can help to reduce costs is by identifying any applications running on your corporate IT system 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. software asset management can be used to remove this unnecessary overhead.
By removing these items of software that are no longer a help to the running of your company you are streamlining a large portion of your IT system. Paying for unnecessary software licenses and maintenance contracts means that more finance can be spent on the critical parts of your IT system. Focusing your finances on these critical components will improve the overall performance of your IT department.
Mitigate Risk Factors
A surprising percentage 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 network is ill 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 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. Running a corporate IT system in this unmanaged way will almost certainly lead to trouble.
The danger of running unlicensed software on your system is clear. When anything goes wrong with the hardware or software platform supporting your vital processes, how do you handle the situation? Operating 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 cost of recovery will forever outweigh the cost of mitigation when it comes to IT systems.
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Implementing SAM in your Organisation
As previously mentioned, there are many potential benefits to using a good SAM strategy within your company, both financial and otherwise. It is therefore important to determine which branches of SAM you should deploy first since certain benefits will be realised more speedily than others.
This discovery process can be seen as three primary areas that have to be undertaken to really develop an accurate picture of the deployment of IT assets within your organisation. These are:
Inventory
Inventory is the most fundamental stage of the discovery cycle. It is important that an accurate inventory of IT assets within your organisation 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 searched and analysed in a reasonably short period. 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 cycle involves the capture of the software license entitlements that concern the software assets identified in the inventory. The capture process should gather entitlements regarding all of the software that is installed on your system, even when the software is not currently in use. Without this information the inventory would be nearly useless.
The risk of human error can be avoided by using automated tools that are specifically designed to create a library of license entitlements. Tools that are currently employed are very efficient at capturing accurate information.
Identification & Validation
The next 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 network.
One critical factor in the validation stage is the ability to associate the license entitlements on your network to your company’s proof of entitlement. This will be essential if any arguments with software resellers arise as a consequence of the discovery process. You want to be as informed as possible in these circumstances.
Once these steps have been performed you will have created an incredibly rich picture of how your IT system is serving software packages to its users. It will be much simpler to identify any trouble areas on your system, or areas of software use that are no longer of any particular benefit to your activites. This detailed picture can be used for future strategies as well.
You can now begin a period of reconciliation upon your system. You should compare the software programs that are actually used on your network against the licensing and support contracts that you are paying for and bridge 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 even thousands of individual installations, and there may be any number of restrictions that may be associated with the licensing contracts you have in place. It is therefore a necessity to automate the reconciliation stage, using one or more programs to apply intelligent rules to the process.
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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 defines a number of principles and best practices that should be adopted for successful management of IT operations.
This library is a changing entity and is often updated with new concepts and techniques that reflect the constantly changing IT environment of modern business. A good SAM strategy should be flexible enough to comply with the guidelines set out in the ITIL whilst meeting the changing requirements of the company within which it is actively used. This is an essential requirement of successful SAM
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has published a standard that applies directly to software asset management practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an incredibly comprehensive collection of guidelines that are built to ensure that software asset management is utilised 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 really be followed when planning a software asset management strategy for your own organisation, although the level of detail covered within can easily become a daunting prospect. It is important to remember that no matter what guidelines you follow when creating a software asset management strategy, whatever plan you decide to employ must aid your business rather than hinder it. Industry standards cannot simply be copied when it comes to applying them within your organisation.
Designing a complete and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own business might actually never come to fruition. Your strategy must be flexible enough to change and grow as your business does, and it must allow for modifications to your daily activities, no matter how small or fundamental they might be. This really is the key to a successful SAM strategy.
Conclusion
It is clear to see that as the scope and importance of IT systems within your company grow, so does the need for good and efficient monitoring of these systems. Gone are the days when an IT branch was a luxury that would occasionally progress the business. IT networks are now critical to the modern organisation. Critical systems need to be maintained to an appropriate level.
As with other branches of any business, a number of different strategies should be considered and used in order to ensure the smooth running of day to day activities. software asset management should not be the only tactic used to manage computing resources within your organisation, but rather one of a number of complimentary techniques used to manage the system as a unit. SAM can go a long way toward aiding your business but should be helped by other techniques.
So if you think that your business is currently suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and management over its IT infrastructure, or that the possible benefits outlined in this article could provide a crucial market advantage over your competitors, then it would be well worth investigating how SAM could be employed within your organisation. There may be no time to spare.