How to control your Software Licenses
Introduction
The degree to which technology has become a part of everyday life and day-to-day business has prompted a change in the way management approaches how they manage the finances, the tasks and the assets within an organisation.
As technology becomes more widespread within a company and takes a more prominent critical within the critical functions of that organisation, it is necessary to make sure that an appropriate amount of attention is applied to this computing.
IT capabilities have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as essential parts of any organisation. As such, they receive grander budgets but must also be able to handle a greater amount of work.
But once you have spent a substantial amount of your budget on developing an IT infrastructure and seen the circumstances of your organisation change, how do you make sure that the IT you are using can keep up with demand?
This is the function by IT management software and procedures.
Every business and every environment will have different needs and will create unique challenges. To satisfy these requirements there are a range of different technologies and approaches that can be used to help control the IT infrastructure of your company.
Software Asset Management
Software Asset Management (SAM) is designed to do exactly what it says on the tin – monitoring and controlling 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 critical part of the modern commercial environment, particularly for corporations operating in the field of Information Technology.
SAM is not simply a tool 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 aims of SAM include managing 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 viewed 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 inspection of the software infrastructure of a company has been done.
Economic benefits remain 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 metric. The financial benefits of software asset management do certainly exist however.
An increasingly large amount of a organisation’s IT bank roll is spent on software licensing so there is a critical need to invest to correctly handle this spending. As companies grow and diversify, their software needs can change greatly and hardware and programs can quickly 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 cycle it will often involve many of the departments within a organisation, including Finance Human Resources, to ensure that it runs as efficiently as possible.
One highly recommend software asset management solution say Centennial resellers has to be SAM.Suite; a modern solution to modern IT licensing challenges.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having seen the various benefits of utilising a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be correct for your business? Each business is different and has its own separate set of problems and advantages, so any strategy you will use needs to be catered to these specific traits.
There are more than simply monetary advantages that can be achieved through the control of licensing and maintenance agreements across a companies IT system. Productivity can be vastly by ensuring that employees have the latest editions of software available under current licenses held, and communication inside the corporation is helped when support staff know exactly what is in use on every computer under their control. The benefits of SAM are not confined to the technological hardware of your organisation.
Financial Savings
As discussed before, perhaps the most convincing reason to utilise software asset management within your company is the potential financial savings that can be made. The profitability of your company is always going to be the bottom line so any system that can help to improve this profitability by lowering expenses is one that should be evaluated. Money can be saved in a multitude of ways.
The most direct way that software asset management can help to reduce costs is by targeting any software 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 clearing these items of software that are no longer a help to the operation of your company you are streamlining a large chunk of your IT network. Paying for unneeded software licenses and support and maintenance contracts means that more money can be spent on the critical parts of your IT infrastructure.
Mitigate Risk
A surprising percentage of software that is currently 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 incredibly unpredictable.
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 originally 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 system. Running a corporate IT system in this wild 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 critical 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 seriously inhibit your responsiveness to unpredictable events. The cost of recovery will forever outweigh the cost of mitigation when it comes to IT systems.
Many companies have reported increases in productivity since Centennial consultants worked alongside their current IT support team.
Implementing SAM in your Organisation
As previously mentioned, there are numerous potential advantages to utilising a good software asset management strategy within your organisation, both monetary and otherwise. It is vitally important to determine which elements of SAM you should deploy first since some benefits will be achieved more speedily than others.
This discovery process can be viewed as three fundamental phases that have to be undertaken to really develop an informative picture of the usage of IT assets within your organisation. These are:
Inventory
Inventory is the most fundamental stage of the discovery cycle. It is crucial that an accurate audit of IT assets within your organisation is created to help your IT department to maintain baselines for your IT network. 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 searched and analysed in a reasonably short period. Inventory must be able to identify your software assets regardless of their geographical location or technological characteristics.
Capture
The next step in the discovery cycle involves the capture of the license entitlements that concern the software programs discovered in the inventory. The capture stage should collect entitlements for all of the software that is installed on your network, even when the software is not currently in use.
The element of human error can be mitigated by using automatic tools that are specifically created to create a library of license entitlements. Packages that are currently employed are very efficient at capturing accurate data.
Identification & Validation
The next step is to match up the software audit to the repository of licensing information that were created in the last two stages. Errors may have been made anywhere from the original paperwork for software to the most recent audits undertaken on your IT network. These errors can now be rectified.
One critical factor in the validation stage is the ability to associate the license entitlements on 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 cycle. You want to be as informed as possible in these circumstances.
After these steps have been undertaken you will have built an incredibly detailed picture of how your IT system is serving software packages to its users. It will be a lot easier to identify particular trouble areas on your system, or sections of software use that are no longer of any particular benefit to your operations. This detailed picture can be used for future reference as well.
You can now start 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 gaps between the two. This is when the financial benefits of software asset management start to take effect.
The software distribution within your system may include many hundreds or even thousands of individual instances, and there may be any number of rules that may be involved with the licensing agreements you have in place. It is therefore essential to automate the reconciliation process, utilising one or more tools 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 basic principles of a modern SAM strategy are based upon the principles set out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library details a number of principles 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 policies that cater to the ever changing IT backdrop of modern business. A good software asset management strategy should be flexible enough to comply with the guidelines set out in the ITIL whilst meeting the changing requirements of the business within which it is actively utilised.
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 suggestions that are built to ensure that SAM is used in such a way as to “satisfy corporate governance requirements”.
The ISO standard should really be adhered to when designing a software asset management strategy for your own business, although the level of detail included within can easily become a daunting challenge. It is important to remember that no matter what guidelines you follow when designing a SAM strategy, whatever you decide to employ needs to help your organisation rather than hinder it. Industry standards cannot simply be copied when it comes to applying them within your business.
Designing a full and comprehensive SAM strategy for your own business might actually never come to fruition. Your strategy must be flexible enough to adapt and grow as your organisation does, and it must allow for modifications to your daily tasks, no matter how small or underlying they might be. This really is the key to a successful software asset management strategy.
Conclusion
It is easy to see that as the scope and importance of computer systems within your organisation grow, so does the requirement for good and effective monitoring of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT department was a luxury that would occasionally progress the business. IT systems are now critical to the modern organisation. Crucial systems need to be controlled to an appropriate level.
As with other branches of any business, a number of separate 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 technological resources within your organisation, but rather one of a number of complimentary policies used to manage 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 infrastructure, or that the possible advantages outlined in this article could manufacture a critical market edge over your competitors, then it would be well worth researching how SAM could be employed within your company. There may be no time to lose.