How to control your Software Licenses
Introduction
The degree to which technology has become a part of everyday life and day-to-day commerce has forced a change in the way management approaches how they manage the money, the tasks and the systems within a business.
As technology becomes more widespread within a business and takes a more prominent vital within the critical functions of that company, it is important to make sure that an appropriate amount of attention is applied to this computing. Technological assets that may have previously been ignored are now important factors in the decision making process.
IT capabilities have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as critical parts of any business. As such, they receive larger budgets but must also be able to deal with a larger amount of work. There is an eternal race between corporate needs and IT capabilities.
But once you have spent a substantial amount of your budget on developing an 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 role carried out by IT management software and procedures.
Every business and every situation will have different specifications and will present different issues. To satisfy these needs there are a range of different technologies and approaches that can be implemented to help manage the IT assets of your business.One of these options is discussed below.
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 business. It is a business process rather than a distinct area of expertise and is becoming a more critical part of the modern commercial environment, particularly for companies operating in the field of Information Technology.
SAM is not simply an aid for technicians deploying software across a large corporate network, but can be a crucial tool to help improve performance at many levels of a company. The objectives of SAM include managing of the IT infrastructure within a business, 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 software asset management is often thought of as an unnecessary evil due to the intangible nature of what it is designed to deal with, and the commercial case for using a SAM solution is not always obvious until a broad audit of the software infrastructure of a company has been done. Once existing problems have been highlighted however, the use of SAM becomes self evident.
Monetary benefits are still the most motivating business factor when choosing to use SAM technology within a company. Every corporation needs to make money after all and profitability is a very measurable figure. The financial benefits of SAM do certainly exist however.
An increasingly large percentage of a organisation’s IT budget is spent on software licensing so there is a vital need to invest to correctly monitor this spending. As businesses expand and spread, their software requirements can change greatly 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 advantage.
software asset management is not restricted to simply the IT department of your business either. As a management cycle it will often include many of the branches within a organisation, including Finance Human Resources, to make sure that it runs as efficiently as possible. It is a process that does not need to follow standard.
The many benefits of SAM ensure Centennial resellers maintain a healthy product portfolio they can supply to clients.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having seen the various advantages of employing a software asset management solution, how do you know that it would be appropriate for your company? Every business is different and has its own separate set of challenges and advantages, so any strategy you will use needs to be tailored to these specific characteristics. The benefits of SAM do cover the fundamental aspects of software management.
There are more than simply monetary benefits that can be made through the management of licensing and maintenance agreements across an organisations IT network. Productivity can be hugely boosted by ensuring that users have the newest editions of software permitted under current licenses held, and communication inside the business is helped 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 increase this profitability by lowering costs is one that should be evaluated.
The most immediate way that SAM can help to reduce costs is by targeting any applications running on your corporate network that is no longer necessary. The software might not be being used any longer, it may be very outdated to be of use or it may be duplicated on your system. software asset management can help to remove this unnecessary overhead.
By removing these items of software that are no longer a help to the operation of your business you are streamlining a large portion of your IT system. Paying for unneeded software licenses and maintenance contracts means that more finance can be spent on the vital sections of your IT system. Focusing your finances on these critical components will improve the overall performance of your IT department.
Mitigate Risk
A surprising amount of software that is currently used in the business environment is either licensed incorrectly or not licensed at all. Having any amount of uncontrolled software on your IT network is not advised, because when left unchecked it can become incredibly unpredictable. This is becoming an increasingly annoying factor for IT managers.
Rogue software programs can be introduced into an unmonitored IT system 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 security policies in place, users may also be able to load their own software onto the network. Operating 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 something goes wrong with the hardware or software platform supporting your critical processes, how do you recover the situation? Operating a complicated software system without the correct support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can critically limit your responsiveness to unforeseen events. The cost of recovery will forever outweigh the cost of prevention when it comes to IT systems.
Some of the most profitable Centennial distributors throughout modern times have viewed software asset management as key part of their portfolio.
Implementing Software Asset Management in your Organisation
As previously discussed, there are numerous potential benefits to employing a good SAM strategy within your organisation, both financial and otherwise. It is therefore important to consider 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 fundamental stages that have to be performed to truly build an accurate picture of the usage of software assets within your organisation. These are:
Inventory
Inventory is the most basic stage of the discovery cycle. It is crucial that an accurate audit of software assets within your business is created to help your IT department to maintain baselines for your IT network.
Fortunately, this process can now be made automatic and even the largest of networks can be investigated 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.
Capture
The next step in the discovery cycle is the capture of the software license entitlements that cover the software programs identified in the inventory. The capture process should gather entitlements for all of the software that exists on your network, even if the software is not currently in use. Without this information the inventory would be nearly useless.
The factor of human error can be avoided by using automatic tools that are specifically created to build a library of license entitlements. Tools that are currently employed are very efficient at capturing accurate data. These tools will also maintain databases containing up to date information from IT vendors.
Identification & Validation
The third process is to match up the software inventory to the repository of licensing data that were created in the previous two stages. Errors may have been made anywhere from the original invoices for software to the latest audits performed on your IT network.
One critical factor in the validation stage is the ability to link 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 cycle.
Once these steps have been performed you will have built an incredibly detailed picture of how your IT network is delivering software programs to its users. It will be much easier to identify particular trouble areas on your system, or sections of software use that are no longer of any practical benefit to your operations. This detailed image can be used for future strategies as well.
You can now start a period of reconciliation upon your network. 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 gaps between the two.
The software distribution in your system may include many hundreds or perhaps thousands of individual installations, and there are any number of rules that may be involved with the licensing contracts you have in place. It is therefore a necessity to automate the reconciliation process, utilising one or more tools to apply smart rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your business
The IT industry is in dire need for many Centennial vendors who can supply the right IT monitoring products.
Compliancy and Flexibility with SAM
Many of the fundamental practices of a modern software asset management strategy are based upon the concepts set out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library defines 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 concepts and techniques that cater to the constantly changing IT environment of modern business. A good SAM strategy should be fluid enough to follow the guidelines laid out in the ITIL whilst matching the changing needs of the company 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 incredibly comprehensive collection of guidelines 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 important role in achieving standardisation across an industry.
The ISO standard should certainly be followed when planning a SAM strategy for your own business, although the level of detail included within can easily become a daunting prospect. It is vital to remember that no matter what recommendations you follow when designing a SAM strategy, whatever you decide to employ needs to help your business rather than stifle it.
Designing a full and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own company may actually never come to fruition. Your plan must be flexible to change and mature as your business does, and it must allow for modifications to your daily activities, no matter how trivial or fundamental they might be. This really is the key to a successful SAM plan.
Conclusion
It is easy to see that as the scope and importance of IT systems within your company grow, so does the need for correct and effective management of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT branch was a bonus that would occasionally forward the business. IT networks are now vital to the modern business.
As with other branches of any organisation, a number of different strategies should be evaluated and utilised in order to ensure the smooth running of day to day activities. software asset management should not be the only tool used to manage computing resources within your organisation, but rather one of a number of complimentary policies used to control the system as a whole.
So if you think that your organisation is currently suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and control over its IT network, or that the potential advantages outlined in this article could provide a critical market advantage over your competitors, then it would be well worth researching how SAM could be used within your business.
Filed Under: Our Authurs
