Introduction
The degree to which technology has become a part of normal life and everyday business has seen a change in the way business approaches how they manage the money, the tasks and the systems within an organisation. Computing 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 business, it is necessary to make sure that an appropriate amount of attention is applied to this technology.
IT departments have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as vital elements of any organisation. As such, they receive grander budgets but must also be able to handle a larger amount of responsibility. There is an eternal race between corporate needs and IT capabilities.
But after you have spent a substantial amount of your budget on developing your IT infrastructure and seen the circumstances of your business change, how do you ensure that the IT you are using can keep up with demand?
This is the role carried out by IT management software and systems.
Every business and every situation will have different needs and will present unique problems. To satisfy these needs there are a number of different technologies and approaches that can be used to help manage the IT network of your company.
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 packages within your organisation. It is a business process rather than a distinct area of expertise and is becoming a more essential part of the modern commercial environment, particularly for corporations operating in the field of IT.
SAM is not simply a tool for support staff deploying software across a large corporate network, but can be a critical tool to help improve performance at many levels of a company. The goals of SAM include controlling of the IT infrastructure within a company, negating legal threats 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. As IT usage in a business 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 going with a SAM solution is not always obvious until a complete of the software infrastructure of a company has been carried out.
Economic benefits are still the most driving business factor when choosing to operate SAM software within a company. Every corporation needs to make money after all and revenue is a very measurable metric.
An increasingly large proportion 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 companies expand and spread, their software requirements can change greatly and equipment and programs can swiftly become outdated. There is no need to spend money to maintain the licenses on this outdated software, which is where software asset management really delivers an edge.
SAM is not limited to simply the IT department of your company either. As a management operation it will often include many of the departments within a company, including Finance Human Resources, to make sure that it runs as efficiently as possible.
SAM can easily be achieved within your organisation through a operable Centennial Discovery solution that is tailored to your specific needs.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having seen the various advantages of deploying a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be right for your organisation? Each company is different and has its own separate set of challenges and advantages, so any strategy you will use needs to be catered to these specific traits. The benefits of SAM do cover the basic aspects of software management.
There are more than just financial advantages that can be gained through the control of licensing and maintenance agreements across a companies IT network. Productivity can be greatly by ensuring that users have the latest versions of software available under current licenses held, and communication within the company is aided when support staff know exactly what is installed on every workstation under their control. The benefits of software asset management are not confined to the technological hardware of your organisation.
Cost Savings
As discussed previously, perhaps the most persuading reason to utilise software asset management within your business is the potential financial 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 improve this profitability by lowering expenses is one that should be considered.
The most immediate way that SAM can help to reduce costs is by targeting any software running on your corporate IT system 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. SAM can be used to remove this unnecessary overhead.
By removing these items of software that are no longer a benefit to the operation of your organisation you are streamlining a large chunk of your IT network. Paying for unnecessary software licenses and maintenance contracts means that more finance can be spent on the essential parts of your IT infrastructure.
Mitigate Risk Factors
A surprising amount of software that is actively used in the business environment is either licensed incorrectly or not licensed at all. Having any amount of unmonitored software on your IT system is ill advised, because when left unchecked it can become very unpredictable. This is becoming an increasingly annoying factor for network managers.
Rogue software applications can be introduced into an uncontrolled IT environment in a number of ways. Software may have been bundled 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 load their own software onto the network.
The risk of running unlicensed software on your network is clear. When something goes wrong with the hardware or software platform supporting your vital processes, how do you manage the situation? Running a complicated software system without the appropriate support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can critically limit your responsiveness to unpredictable events. The cost of recovery will forever outweigh the cost of mitigation when it comes to data systems.
There are a number of adaptable Centennial distributors specialising in SAM who can create the ideal solution for your business.
Implementing Software Asset Management in your Organisation
As previously discussed, there are many potential benefits to employing a good software asset management strategy within your business, both financial and otherwise. It is therefore important to determine which elements of SAM you should implement first since certain benefits will be achieved more quickly than others.
This discovery process can be viewed as three fundamental phases that have to be undertaken to truly build an informative picture of the usage of software assets within your company.
Inventory
Inventory is the most fundamental stage of the discovery cycle. It is crucial that an accurate inventory of software assets within your business is created to help your IT managers to maintain baselines for your IT system. This inventory process must be performed before carrying on with discovery.
Thankfully, this process can now be made automatic and even the largest of infrastructures can be investigated and analysed in a reasonably short period. Inventory should be able to identify your IT assets regardless of their physical location or technological characteristics.
Capture
The second step in the discovery process is the capture of the software license entitlements that cover the software assets identified in the inventory. The capture stage should collect entitlements regarding all of the software that is installed on your network, even when the software is not currently in use. Without this step the inventory would be almost useless.
The risk of human error can be mitigated by using automatic tools that are specifically designed to build a library of license entitlements. Packages that are currently employed are very efficient at capturing accurate data.
Identification & Validation
The next process is to match up your software audit to the repository of licensing information 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 network.
One crucial factor in the validation step is the ability to associate the license entitlements on your network to your company’s proof of entitlement. This will be vital if any disputes with software resellers arise as a consequence of the discovery process.
Once these steps have been performed you will have created an incredibly rich picture of how your IT system is delivering software assets to its users. It will be a lot easier to identify particular trouble spots on your network, or areas of software use that are no longer of any practical benefit to your activites.
You can now start a period of reconciliation upon your network. You can compare the software packages that are actually employed on your system against the licensing and support entitlements that you are paying for and bridge any divides between the two. This is when the financial benefits of SAM start to take effect.
The software spread within your system may include many hundreds or perhaps thousands of individual installations, and there are any number of restrictions that may be associated with the licensing contracts you have in place. It is therefore essential to automate the reconciliation period, utilising one or more programs to apply smart rules to the process.
Staff who have previous experience working with a Centennial specialist firm might be able to provide an early insight into how software asset management can benefit your organisation.
Compliancy and Flexibility with Software Asset Management
Many of the fundamental practices of a modern software asset management strategy are based upon the principles set out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library details a number of concepts 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 ideas and policies that cater to the constantly changing IT backdrop of modern business. A good software asset management strategy should be fluid enough to comply with the guidelines set out in the ITIL whilst matching the changing requirements of the company 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 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 designing a SAM 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 recommendations you follow when creating a software asset management strategy, whatever plan you decide to implement needs to aid your organisation rather than hinder it.
Creating a complete and comprehensive SAM strategy for your own company might actually never come to fruition. Your strategy must be flexible enough to change and grow as your organisation does, and it should allow for modifications to your daily activities, no matter how small or fundamental they might be.
Conclusion
It is clear 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 branch was a bonus that would sometimes forward the business. Computer systems are now vital to the modern organisation.
As with other branches of any business, a number of different strategies should be evaluated and used in order to ensure the smooth running of day to day activities. SAM should not be the only tool used to manage technological assets within your company, but rather one of a number of complimentary techniques used to control the system as a unit.
So if you think that your organisation is currently suffering from a lack of structured monitoring and management over its IT network, or that the potential benefits outlined in this article could provide a critical market edge over your competitors, then it would be worth researching how software asset management could be employed within your organisation. There might be no time to spare.