Introduction
The degree to which computing has become a part of everyday life and day-to-day business has seen a change in the way management approaches how they manage the money, the processes and the systems within an organisation. IT is fast becoming an increasing factor in business.
As computing becomes more widespread within a business and takes a more prominent vital within the vital processes of that organisation, it is important to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is given to this technology.
Technology have come a long way during the past few years and are now seen as critical parts of any business. As such, they are allocated greater budgets but must also be able to handle a greater amount of responsibility.
But once you have spent a large amount of money on developing an IT network and seen the needs of your company 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 systems.
Every business and every environment will have different specifications and will present unique challenges. To satisfy these needs there are a number of different technologies and approaches that can be used to help control the IT network of your organisation.One of these approaches is discussed below.
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 skill and is becoming a more essential part of the modern business environment, particularly for companies operating in the field of Information Technology. 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 program for technicians deploying software across a large corporate network, but can be a critical tool to help improve performance at all levels of a company. The goals of SAM include monitoring expenses of the IT infrastructure within a organisation, 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. As IT usage in an organisation grows, so do the potential benefits of SAM.
The practice of SAM is often seen 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 complete of the software infrastructure of a company has been undertaken. Once existing problems have been identified however, the use of SAM becomes self evident.
Economic benefits remain the most motivating commercial factor when choosing 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 organisation’s IT budget is spent on software licensing so there is a real need to invest to correctly handle this spending. As businesses expand and spread, their software needs 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 software asset management really delivers an edge.
SAM is not restricted to simply the IT department of your business either. As a management process it will often include many of the departments within a company, including Finance Human Resources, to ensure that it runs as cost-effectively as possible.
Anybody who was going to ask Softcat which package stands out would get the simple answer SAM software asset managment.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having seen the various benefits of employing a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be appropriate for your organisation? Each company is different and has its own unique set of problems and benefits, so any plan you will undertake needs to be tailored to these specific traits.
There are more than just cost advantages that can be gained through the control of licensing and maintenance agreements across an organisations IT network. Productivity can be vastly by ensuring that staff have the latest versions of software available under current licenses held, and communication inside the corporation 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 persuading reason to implement SAM within your business is the potential cost savings that can be achieved. The profitability of your business is always going to be the bottom line so any strategy that can help to increase this profitability by reducing expenses is one that should be evaluated. Money can be saved in a number of ways.
The most immediate way that SAM can help to lower costs is by identifying any applications running on your corporate IT system that is no longer necessary. The software might not be being used anymore, it may be too outdated to be of use or it may be duplicated on your system.
By clearing these items of software that are no longer a help to the operation of your business you are streamlining a large chunk of your IT system. Paying for unnecessary software licenses and support and maintenance contracts means that more money can be spent on the vital parts of your IT infrastructure.
Mitigate Risk Factors
A surprising amount of software that is actively used in the corporate environment is either licensed incorrectly or not licensed at all. Having any amount of unmonitored software on your IT network is ill advised, because when left unchecked it can become very unpredictable.
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 originally bought although the original software licenses may have expired. Without the correct security policies in place, users may also be able to load 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 anything goes wrong with the hardware or software platform behind your vital processes, how do you handle the situation? Operating a complicated software system without the correct support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can seriously inhibit your responsiveness to unpredictable events.
Even in a stagnating and unpredictable economy softcat continue to find that SAM is a technology in demand from other businesses. See their website.
Implementing SAM in your Organisation
As previously discussed, there are numerous potential advantages to employing a good software asset management strategy within your business, both monetary and otherwise. It is therefore important to determine which parts of SAM you should implement 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 seen as three primary areas that have to be undertaken to really develop an accurate picture of the usage of software assets within your organisation.
Inventory
Inventory is the most fundamental stage of the discovery process. It is important that an accurate inventory of software assets within your business is created to aid your IT department to maintain baselines regarding your IT system. This inventory process must be performed before continuing with discovery.
Thankfully, this process can now be made automatic and even the grandest of networks can be investigated and analysed in a relatively 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 second step in the discovery process is the capture of the software license entitlements that concern the software assets identified in the inventory. The capture process should gather entitlements for all of the software that exists on your network, even when the software is not currently used. Without this step the inventory would be nearly useless.
The factor of human error can be mitigated by using automatic tools that are specifically designed to create a library of license entitlements. Packages that are currently employed are incredibly efficient at gathering accurate information.
Identification & Validation
The third step is to match up your software inventory to the repository of licensing information that were created in the last two stages. Errors may have occurred anywhere from the original invoices for software to the latest audits performed on your IT system.
One critical factor in the validation step is the ability to link the license entitlements on your system to your organisation’s proof of entitlement. This will be vital if any disputes with software vendors arise as a consequence of the discovery process.
Once these steps have been performed you will have built an incredibly detailed image of how your IT system is delivering software programs to its users. It will be a lot simpler to identify particular trouble areas on your system, or areas of software usage that are no longer of any practical benefit to your operations.
You can now start a period of reconciliation upon your network. You should compare the software programs that are actually used on your system against the licensing and support contracts that you are paying for and close any gaps between the two.
The software distribution in your network may include many hundreds or even thousands of individual installations, and there are any number of restrictions that may be involved with the licensing agreements 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.
To learn more about the SAM process you could utilise virtualization information via the Internet.
Compliancy and Flexibility with SAM
Many of the fundamental principles of a successful SAM strategy are based upon the principles set out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library details a number of ideas and best practices that should be adopted for successful management of IT operations. The ITIL can be found online.
This library is a changing publication and is often updated with new concepts and techniques that reflect the ever changing IT environment of modern business. A good SAM strategy should be fluid enough to comply with the guidelines laid out in the ITIL whilst matching the changing requirements of the company within which it is actively used.
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has published a standard that applies specifically to software asset management practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an incredibly comprehensive collection of suggestions that are designed 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 role in realising standardisation across an industry.
The ISO standard should really be followed when planning a software asset management strategy for your own company, although the level of detail included within can quickly become a daunting challenge. It is vital to remember that no matter what recommendations you follow when planning a software asset management strategy, whatever plan you decide to employ needs to aid your business rather than stifle it. Industry standards cannot simply be copied when it comes to applying them within your organisation.
Creating a complete and comprehensive SAM strategy for your own company might actually never come to fruition. Your plan must be flexible enough to change and mature as your business does, and it must allow for updates to your daily tasks, no matter how trivial or underlying they might be. This really is the key to a worthwhile software asset management plan.
Conclusion
It is easy to see that as the extent and importance of IT systems within your company grow, so does the need for correct and efficient monitoring of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT department was a bonus that would occasionally progress the business. IT networks are now critical to the modern company.
As with other parts of any business, a number of different plans should be considered and utilised in order to ensure the efficient running of day to day tasks. SAM should not be the only tactic used to manage computing resources within your company, but rather one of a number of complimentary policies used to manage the system as a unit.
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 potential advantages outlined in this article could manufacture a critical market edge over your competitors, then it would be well worth investigating how SAM could be used within your organisation. There may be no time to spare.