How to control your Software Licenses

Introduction

The degree to which technology has become a part of everyday life and everyday commerce has prompted a change in the way management approaches how they manage the money, the processes and the systems within a business. Technology becoming an increasing factor in business.

As technology becomes more widespread within an organisation and takes a more prominent critical within the critical processes of that organisation, it is necessary to make sure that an appropriate amount of attention is given to this computing.

IT capabilities have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as essential elements of any company. As such, they are allocated larger budgets but must also be able to deal with a larger amount of work. There is an eternal race between corporate demands and IT capabilities.

But once you have spent a large amount of money on developing your IT infrastructure and seen the circumstances of your organisation change, how do you ensure that the systems you are using can keep up with demand? Moreover, how can you achieve this without spending a prohibitive amount of money?

This is the function by IT management software and systems.

Every business and every environment will have different needs and will create different problems. To satisfy these needs there are a number of different technologies and approaches that can be used to help manage the IT infrastructure of your company.One of these approaches is discussed below.

Software Asset Management

SAM ( Software Asset Management) is built to do exactly what it says on the tin – monitoring and maintaining 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 commercial environment, particularly for companies 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 a program for support staff deploying software across a large company network, but can be a crucial tool to help improve performance at many levels of a company. The aims of SAM include monitoring costs of the IT infrastructure within a business, 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.

The practice of SAM 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 employing a SAM solution is not always obvious until a complete of the software infrastructure of a company has been carried out.

Monetary benefits remain the most driving commercial factor when deciding to use software asset management technology within a company. Every company needs to make profit after all and expenditure is a very measurable figure.

An increasingly large percentage of a company’s IT budget is spent on software licensing so there is a critical need to invest to correctly monitor this spending. As organisations expand and spread, their software needs can change radically and equipment and software can swiftly become out of date. There is no requirement to spend money to maintain the licenses on this outdated software, which is where SAM really delivers an advantage.

software asset management is not limited to simply the technology of your company either. As a management cycle it will often include many of the departments within a organisation, including Finance Human Resources, to ensure that it runs as efficiently as possible. It is a process that does not need to follow regular.

IT managers and staff with decision making authority should discuss Centennial Discovery  at meetings regarding the implementation of IT resource management.

Why follow a SAM Strategy?

Having seen the various benefits of employing a software asset management solution, how do you know that it would be correct for your organisation? Every company is different and has its own unique set of problems and advantages, so any plan you will undertake needs to be tailored to these specific traits. The benefits of software asset management do cover the fundamental aspects of IT management.

There are more than simply financial advantages that can be made through the management of licensing and maintenance agreements across a businesses IT network. Productivity can be hugely improved by ensuring that staff have the newest versions of software permitted under current licenses held, and communication within the business is helped when support staff know exactly what is deployed on every computer under their control.

Cost Savings

As discussed before, perhaps the most convincing reason to implement 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 strategy that can help to improve this profitability by reducing costs is one that should be considered. Money can be saved in a number of ways.

The most immediate way that SAM can help to reduce costs is by identifying any applications running on your corporate network that is no longer needed. 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 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 infrastructure. Paying for unneeded software licenses and maintenance contracts means that more finance can be spent on the essential sections of your IT system.

Mitigate Risk

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 system is not advised, because when left unchecked it can become incredibly unpredictable. This is becoming an increasingly annoying factor for IT managers.

Rogue software applications can be introduced into an unmonitored IT environment in a number of ways. Software may have been included when your IT hardware was first bought although the original software licenses may have expired. Without the correct control policies in place, users may also be able to install their own software onto the network.

The danger of running unlicensed software on your network is clear. When something goes wrong with the hardware or software platform behind your vital processes, how do you handle the situation? Running a complex 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. The cost of recovery will always outweigh the cost of mitigation when it comes to data systems.

If you are willing to do business with the best Centennial distributoryour company will be well placed to achieve the maximum potential from software asset management.

Implementing Software Asset Management in your Organisation

As previously discussed, there are numerous potential advantages to using a good SAM strategy within your company, both financial and otherwise. It is vitally important to determine which elements of SAM you should implement first since certain benefits will be realised more quickly than others. Some may take a period of years to be fully felt.

The discovery process can be seen as three fundamental phases that have to be performed to really build an accurate picture of the usage of software assets within your business.

Inventory

Inventory is the most fundamental stage of the discovery process. It is crucial that an accurate inventory of IT assets within your business is created to help 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 largest of infrastructures can be searched and analysed in a relatively short period of time. Inventory should be able to identify your IT assets regardless of their geographical location or computing characteristics.

Capture

The second step in the discovery cycle involves the capture of the software license entitlements that manage the software programs identified in the inventory. The capture process should gather entitlements regarding all of the software that exists on your network, even if the software is not currently used.

The factor of human error can be avoided by using automated tools that are specifically created to build a library of license entitlements. Tools that are currently available are very efficient at capturing accurate information.

Identification & Validation

The third process is to match up the software audit to the repository of licensing data that were created in the last two stages. Errors may have occurred anywhere from the original paperwork for software to the latest audits performed on your IT system. These errors can now be rectified.

One crucial factor in the validation stage is the ability to associate the license entitlements within your system to your organisation’s proof of entitlement. This will be vital if any disputes with software resellers arise as a consequence of the discovery cycle.

After these steps have been undertaken you will have built an incredibly rich 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 network, or sections of software usage that are no longer of any particular benefit to your operations.

You can now start a period of reconciliation upon your system. You can compare the software packages that are actually used on your network against the licensing and support contracts that you are paying for and close any gaps between the two.

The software distribution within your network may include many hundreds or perhaps thousands of individual instances, 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 process, utilising one or more tools to apply smart rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your organisation.

The use software asset management within your organisation is a very specific cycle which can be planned by a good Centennial reseller as they will have extra information.

Compliancy and Flexibility with Software Asset Management

Many of the fundamental principles of a modern SAM strategy are based upon the principles set out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library defines a number of concepts and best practices that should be followed for successful control of IT operations.

This library is a dynamic publication and is often updated with new concepts and techniques that cater to the constantly changing IT backdrop of modern business. A good SAM strategy should be flexible enough to follow the guidelines set out in the ITIL whilst matching the changing needs of the business 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 guidelines 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 designing a SAM strategy for your own company, although the level of detail covered within can easily become a daunting challenge. It is vital to remember that no matter what guidelines you follow when designing a SAM strategy, whatever you decide to implement needs to aid your business rather than hinder it. Industry standards cannot simply be copied when it comes to applying them within your business.

Creating a full and comprehensive SAM strategy for your own business may actually never come to fruition. Your strategy must be flexible to adapt and grow as your organisation does, and it must allow for modifications to your daily activities, no matter how small or underlying they might be.

Conclusion

It is clear to see that as the extent and importance of computer systems within your company grow, so does the need for good and effective management of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT branch was a bonus that would occasionally progress the business. IT systems are now critical to the modern organisation.

As with other branches of any organisation, a number of separate plans should be considered and utilised in order to ensure the smooth running of day to day tasks. SAM should not be the only tactic used to manage computing assets within your organisation, but rather one of a multitude of complimentary policies used to manage the system as a whole. SAM can go a long way toward aiding your business but should be helped by other strategies.

So if you think that your company is really suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and control over its IT infrastructure, or that the possible advantages described in this article could manufacture a crucial market edge over your competitors, then it would be worth researching how SAM could be employed within your business.

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