How to control your Software Licenses

Introduction

The degree to which technology has become a part of normal life and everyday business has prompted a change in the way management approaches how they manage the money, the tasks and the assets within a business.

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

Technology have come a long way during the past few years and are now seen as vital parts of any organisation. As such, they are allocated grander 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 after you have spent a large amount of money on developing your IT system and seen the requirements of your company change, how do you ensure that the IT you are using can keep up with demand? Moreover, how can you achieve this without spending a large amount of money?

This is the role carried out by IT management software and systems.

Every organisation and every situation will have different requirements and will present different problems. To satisfy these requirements there are a number of different technologies and approaches that can be used to help manage the IT network of your business.One of these solutions is discussed below.

Software Asset Management

SAM ( Software Asset Management) 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 discipline and is becoming a more critical part of the modern commercial 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 technicians deploying software across a large company network, but can be a crucial tool to help improve performance at all levels of a organisation. The goals of SAM include controlling of the IT infrastructure within a company, 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. As IT usage in a business 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 abstract nature of what it is designed to deal with, and the financial case for using a SAM solution is not always obvious until a full of the software infrastructure of a company has been carried out. Once existing problems have been highlighted however, the use of SAM becomes self evident.

Monetary benefits remain the most motivating commercial factor when choosing to employ software asset management technology within a business. Every corporation needs to make money after all and revenue is a very measurable figure.

An increasingly large proportion of a business’ IT budget is spent on software licensing so there is a critical need to invest to correctly manage this spending. As companies grow and diversify, 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 limited to simply the IT department of your organisation either. As a management operation it will often include many of the departments within a company, including Finance Human Resources, to make sure that it runs as cost-effectively as possible.

Some of the most experienced SAM technicians work for Centennial specialists where their skills are put to good use.

Why follow a SAM Strategy?

Having heard the many benefits of deploying a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be appropriate for your business? Every business is different and has its own unique set of problems and benefits, so any strategy you will use needs to be tailored to these specific characteristics.

There are more than simply cost advantages that can be gained through the control of licensing and maintenance agreements across an organisations IT network. Productivity can be greatly by ensuring that employees have the newest versions of software available under current licenses held, and communication inside the business is aided when support staff know exactly what is in use 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 utilise SAM within your business is the potential financial 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 improve this profitability by reducing costs is one that should be considered.

The most immediate way that software asset management can help to lower costs is by targeting any applications 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 benefit 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 finance can be spent on the critical sections of your IT system.

Mitigate Risk Factors

A surprising proportion 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. This is becoming an increasingly frustrating factor for network managers.

Rogue software applications can be introduced into an uncontrolled IT system in a number of ways. Software may have been bundled when your IT hardware was originally bought although the initial software licenses may have expired. Without the correct control policies in place, users may also be able to load their own software onto the system. Operating a corporate IT system in this unmanaged 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 behind your vital processes, how do you manage the situation? Running a complicated software system without the proper support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can critically limit your responsiveness to unpredictable events. The cost of recovery will forever outweigh the cost of prevention when it comes to IT systems.

The business case for working alongside a full-time Centennial vendor throughout your IT audit process has never been stronger.

Implementing SAM in your Organisation

As previously discussed, there are many potential advantages to employing a good SAM strategy within your business, both financial and otherwise. It is vitally important to consider which elements of SAM you should deploy first since certain benefits will be realised more quickly than others.

The discovery process can be viewed as three basic stages that have to be undertaken to really build an accurate picture of the usage of IT assets within your organisation. These are:

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 help your IT managers to maintain baselines regarding your IT network.
Fortunately, this process can now be made automatic and even the grandest of infrastructures can be searched and analysed in a relatively short period of time. Inventory must be able to identify your IT assets regardless of their geographical location or technological characteristics. Modern inventory processes are capable of this.

Capture

The next step in the discovery process is the capture of the license entitlements that concern the software assets identified in the inventory. The capture stage should collect entitlements for all of the software that is installed on your system, even if the software is not currently used.

The risk of human error can be avoided by using automatic tools that are specifically designed to create a library of license entitlements. Tools that are currently available are incredibly efficient at capturing accurate information.

Identification & Validation

The next process is to match up the software audit to the repository of licensing data that were built 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 crucial factor in the validation step is the ability to associate the license entitlements on your network to your company’s proof of entitlement. This will be essential if any disputes with software resellers arise as a consequence of the discovery process. You want to be as informed as possible in these circumstances.

Once these three steps have been undertaken you will have built an incredibly detailed picture of how your IT network is serving software packages to its users. It will be a lot simpler to identify particular trouble spots on your system, or areas of software use that are no longer of any particular benefit to your operations.

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

The software spread in your system may include many hundreds or perhaps thousands of individual installations, and there are any number of rules that may be associated with the licensing agreements you have in place. It is therefore essential to automate the reconciliation period, utilising one or more programs to apply intelligent rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your company

The computing industry is in vital need for many Centennial vendors who will supply the right IT management products.

Compliancy and Flexibility with Software Asset Management

Many of the basic principles of a successful SAM strategy are based upon the concepts laid 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 management of IT operations.

This library is a changing 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 fluid enough to follow the guidelines laid out in the ITIL whilst matching the changing requirements 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 set of guidelines that are designed to ensure that SAM is used in such a way as to “satisfy corporate governance requirements”. Standards of this kind play an important role in realising standardisation across an industry.

The ISO standard should certainly be followed when planning a software asset management 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 planning a software asset management strategy, whatever you decide to implement must help your organisation rather than stifle it.

Designing a complete and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own company might actually never come to fruition. Your plan must be flexible to change and mature as your organisation does, and it should 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 strategy.

Conclusion

It is easy to see that as the extent and importance of IT systems within your organisation grow, so does the need for correct and effective management of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT department was a bonus that would sometimes progress the business. IT networks are now vital to the modern organisation. Crucial systems need to be monitored to an appropriate level.

As with other branches of any business, a number of different strategies should be evaluated and used in order to ensure the efficient 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. software asset management can go a long way toward helping your business but should be helped by other strategies.

So if you think that your business is really suffering from a lack of structured monitoring and control over its IT infrastructure, or that the possible benefits described in this article could manufacture a crucial market advantage over your competitors, then it would be worth investigating how SAM could be used within your business. There may be no time to spare.