How to control your Software Licenses
Introduction
The extent to which technology has become a part of everyday life and everyday commerce has forced a change in the way management approaches how they manage the finances, the tasks and the assets within a business.
As technology becomes more widely used within a business and takes a more prominent role within the critical processes of that organisation, it is necessary to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is given to this computing. Technological assets that may have previously been ignored are now important elements in the decision making process.
IT departments have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as essential elements of any business. As such, they are allocated grander budgets but must also be able to manage a greater amount of work.
But after you have spent a large amount of money on developing an IT system and seen the needs of your business change, how do you make sure that the technology you are using can keep up with demand?
This is the function by IT management software and procedures.
Every business and every situation will have different specifications and will create different issues. To satisfy these needs there are a range of different technologies and approaches that can be used to help manage the IT network of your organisation.
Software Asset Management
Software Asset Management (SAM) is built to do exactly what it says on the tin – monitoring and controlling the deployment and usage of software programs 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 corporate environment, particularly for businesses operating in the field of IT. 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 an aid for support staff installing software across a large corporate network, but can be a critical tool to help improve performance at multiple levels of a company. The goals of SAM include monitoring costs of the IT infrastructure within a business, negating legal threats associated with incorrect software license usage and maintaining 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 seen as an unnecessary evil due to the abstract 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 carried out. Once existing problems have been highlighted however, the use of software asset management becomes self evident.
Monetary benefits remain the most motivating commercial factor when choosing to operate software asset management technology within an organisation. Every business needs to make money after all and revenue is a very measurable figure. The financial benefits of software asset management do certainly exist however.
An increasingly large proportion of a company’s IT bank roll is spent on software licensing so there is a vital need to invest to correctly monitor this spending. As organisations grow and spread, their software requirements can change greatly and hardware and software can swiftly become outdated. There is no requirement to spend money to maintain the licenses on this outdated software, which is where software asset management really delivers an edge.
software asset management is not restricted to simply the IT department of your company either. As a management operation it will often involve many of the departments within a business, including Finance Human Resources, to make sure that it runs as efficiently as possible. It is a process that does not need to follow regular.
One highly recommend SAM solution say Centennial resellers has to be SAM.Suite; a modern solution to modern IT licensing challenges.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having heard the multiple advantages of deploying a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be correct for your business? Every business is different and has its own unique set of challenges and benefits, so any plan you will use needs to be catered to these specific traits. The benefits of SAM do cover the basic aspects of IT management.
There are more than just financial advantages that can be achieved through the control of licensing and maintenance agreements across a companies IT network. Productivity can be hugely boosted by ensuring that staff have the latest versions of software available under current licenses held, and communication inside the company is aided when support staff know exactly what is installed on every computer under their control. The benefits of software asset management are not confined to the technological hardware of your organisation.
Financial Savings
As discussed before, perhaps the most persuading reason to implement software asset management within your company is the potential financial savings that can be achieved. The profitability of your business is always going to be the bottom line so any system that can help to improve this profitability by reducing costs is one that should be evaluated. Money can be saved in a multitude of ways.
The most direct 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 any longer, it may be too outdated to be of use or it may be duplicated on your system. SAM can be used to remove this unnecessary overhead.
By clearing these items of software that are no longer a help to the running of your organisation you are streamlining a large chunk of your IT system. Paying for unneeded software licenses and support and maintenance contracts means that more finance can be spent on the critical sections of your IT infrastructure.
Mitigate Risk
A surprising amount of software that is actively used in the business 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 very unpredictable. This is becoming an increasingly annoying factor for network managers.
Rogue software programs can be introduced into an uncontrolled 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 access policies in place, users may also be able to load their own software onto the network. 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 recover the situation? Operating 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.
There are a great deal of affordable Centennial distributors specialising in SAM who can create the ideal package for your organisation.
Implementing SAM in your Organisation
As previously mentioned, there are many potential benefits to utilising a good SAM strategy within your business, both financial and otherwise. It is therefore important to consider which parts of SAM you should implement first since some benefits will be achieved more quickly than others.
This discovery process can be viewed as three basic stages that have to be undertaken to really develop an accurate picture of the deployment of software assets within your organisation.
Inventory
Inventory is the most basic stage of the discovery cycle. It is vital that an accurate inventory of IT assets within your organisation is created to aid your IT department to maintain baselines for 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 searched and analysed in a reasonably short period of time. Inventory should be able to identify your software assets regardless of their geographical location or technological characteristics.
Capture
The next step in the discovery cycle is the capture of the software license entitlements that concern the software assets identified in the inventory. The capture process should collect entitlements regarding all of the software that is installed on your system, even if the software is not currently used. Without this step the inventory would be nearly useless.
The factor 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 incredibly efficient at gathering accurate data.
Identification & Validation
The third 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 occurred anywhere from the original invoices for software to the most recent audits undertaken on your IT network.
One crucial factor in the validation stage 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 three steps have been undertaken you will have created an incredibly rich image of how your IT system is serving software packages to its users. It will be a lot simpler to identify particular trouble spots on your system, or sections of software use that are no longer of any particular benefit to your activites.
You can now begin a period of reconciliation upon your system. You can compare the software programs that are actually installed on your network against the licensing and support contracts that you are paying for and close any gaps between the two.
The software spread 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 contracts you have in place. It is therefore a necessity to automate the reconciliation stage, utilising one or more tools to apply smart rules to the process.
As demand for software asset management technology grows, the chance any well known Centennial reseller sees to grow their client base should be taken.
Compliancy and Flexibility with Software Asset Management
Many of the fundamental principles of a modern SAM strategy are based upon the concepts set out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library defines a number of principles and best practices that should be followed for successful control of IT functions.
This library is a dynamic entity and is often updated with new ideas and policies that reflect the constantly changing IT backdrop of modern business. A good SAM strategy should be flexible enough to follow the guidelines laid out in the ITIL whilst meeting the changing requirements of the business within which it is actively used.
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has created a standard that applies directly to SAM practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an exceptionally comprehensive set of suggestions that are designed to ensure that software asset management is utilised in such a way as to “satisfy corporate governance requirements”.
The ISO standard should certainly be followed when planning a SAM strategy for your own organisation, although the level of detail covered within can easily become a daunting challenge. It is vital to remember that no matter what recommendations you follow when creating a SAM strategy, whatever you decide to employ needs to aid your business rather than stifle it.
Designing a full and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own business may actually never come to fruition. Your strategy must be flexible enough to adapt and mature as your organisation 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 successful SAM plan.
Conclusion
It is easy to see that as the scope and importance of IT systems within your organisation grow, so does the requirement for correct and effective monitoring of these systems. Gone are the days when an IT branch was a bonus that would sometimes progress the business. IT systems are now critical to the modern business. Critical systems need to be monitored to an appropriate level.
As with other parts 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 tactic used to manage technological assets within your company, but rather one of a number of complimentary techniques used to manage the system as a unit.
So if you feel that your organisation is currently suffering from a lack of structured monitoring and control over its IT network, or that the potential advantages described 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 company. There may be no time to spare.
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