Cost-Effective Network Management
Introduction
The extent to which computing 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 finances, the processes and the systems within an organisation. Computing becoming an important factor in business.
As computing becomes more widespread within an organisation and takes a more prominent vital within the vital processes of that company, it is important to make sure that an appropriate amount of attention is given to this technology.
IT capabilities have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as essential elements of any organisation. As such, they receive grander budgets but must also be able to manage a larger amount of work. There is an eternal race between business needs and IT capabilities.
But once you have spent a large amount of money on developing your IT system and seen the needs of your business 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 procedures.
Every organisation and every situation will have different needs and will present different issues. To meet these requirements there are a number of different technologies and approaches that can be implemented to help manage the IT infrastructure of your business.One of these options 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 company. It is a business process rather than a distinct skill and is becoming a more critical part of the modern corporate environment, particularly for corporations operating in the field of Information Technology. 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 aims of SAM include managing of the IT infrastructure within a organisation, 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 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 business case for using a SAM solution is not always obvious until a full of the software infrastructure of a company has been undertaken. Once existing problems have been highlighted however, the use of SAM becomes self evident.
Economic benefits remain the most driving business factor when deciding to use SAM technology within a business. Every corporation needs to make money after all and revenue is a very measurable metric. The financial benefits of SAM do certainly exist however.
An increasingly large amount of a business’ IT bank roll 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 requirements can change radically and equipment and programs can quickly become out of date. 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.
software asset management is not limited to simply the technology of your business either. As a management cycle it will often include many of the branches within a company, including Finance Human Resources, to make sure that it runs as efficiently as possible.
Anybody who was going to ask Centennial resellers exactly what product stands out would get the simple answer SAM.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having heard the multiple advantages of utilising a software asset management 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 undertake needs to be catered to these specific traits. The benefits of software asset management do cover the basic aspects of IT management.
There are more than just cost benefits that can be made through the control of licensing and maintenance agreements across an organisations IT network. Productivity can be hugely improved by ensuring that staff have the latest versions of software available under current licenses held, and communication within the company is helped when support staff know exactly what is installed on every computer under their control.
Financial Savings
As discussed previously, perhaps the most convincing reason to implement software asset management within your company is the potential cost savings that can be made. The profitability of your business is always going to be the bottom line so any system that can help to increase 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 identifying any software running on your corporate IT system that is no longer necessary. 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. software asset management can help to remove this unnecessary overhead.
By clearing these items of software that are no longer a help to the running of your company you are streamlining a large chunk of your IT infrastructure. Paying for unnecessary software licenses and support and maintenance agreements means that more finance can be spent on the critical sections of your IT infrastructure. Focusing your finances on these critical components will improve the overall performance of your IT department.
Mitigate Risk Factors
A surprising amount of software that is currently used in the corporate environment is either licensed incorrectly or not licensed at all. Running any amount of unmonitored software on your IT system 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 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 load their own software onto the system. Operating a corporate IT system in this wild way will almost certainly lead to trouble.
The risk 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 recover the situation? Operating a complex software system without the appropriate support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can critically inhibit your responsiveness to unforeseen events.
To plan and carry out a successful SAM strategy, keeping Centennial distributors high in your list of priorities will be a key factor.
Implementing SAM in your Organisation
As previously discussed, there are many potential benefits to using a good software asset management strategy within your business, both financial and otherwise. It is vitally important to determine which branches of software asset management you should deploy first since certain benefits will be realised more speedily than others.
The discovery process can be seen as three basic areas that have to be undertaken to truly develop an informative picture of the usage of IT assets within your business. These are:
Inventory
Inventory is the most fundamental function of the discovery cycle. It is crucial that an accurate inventory of IT assets within your organisation is created to help your IT managers to maintain baselines regarding 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 investigated and analysed in a relatively short period. Inventory must be able to identify your IT assets regardless of their physical location or computing characteristics.
Capture
The next step in the discovery process involves the capture of the software license entitlements that cover the software programs discovered 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. Without this information the inventory may be nearly useless.
The element of human error can be avoided by using automatic tools that are specifically created to create a library of license entitlements. Packages that are currently available are very efficient at gathering accurate information.
Identification & Validation
The third step is to match up the software audit to the repository of licensing data that were built 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 system. These errors can now be rectified.
One crucial 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. You want to be as informed as possible in these circumstances.
Once these steps have been performed you will have built an incredibly rich image of how your IT system is serving software programs to its users. It will be a lot easier to identify any trouble areas on your system, or areas of software usage that are no longer of any particular benefit to your activites.
You can now start a period of reconciliation upon your system. You should compare the software programs 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 may be any number of rules that may be associated with the licensing contracts you have in place. It is therefore a necessity to automate the reconciliation period, using one or more tools to apply smart rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your company
To see how SAM can directly help your company use an available Centennial consultant who can plan a software asset management strategy suited to your requirements.
Compliancy and Flexibility with Software Asset Management
Many of the basic practices of a successful SAM strategy are based upon the principles laid out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library defines a number of ideas and best practices that should be followed for successful control of IT operations. The ITIL can be found online.
This library is a changing publication and is often updated with new ideas and techniques that cater to the ever 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 business within which it is actively utilised. This is an essential requirement of successful SAM
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 set of suggestions that are built to ensure that software asset management is used in such a way as to “satisfy corporate governance requirements”. Standards of this kind play an essential role in achieving standardisation across an industry.
The ISO standard should certainly be followed when designing a SAM strategy for your own organisation, although the level of detail covered within can easily become a daunting prospect. It is important to remember that no matter what guidelines you follow when planning a software asset management strategy, whatever plan you decide to employ needs to aid your organisation rather than stifle it.
Designing a complete 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 business does, and it must allow for modifications to your daily tasks, 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 extent and importance of computer systems within your company grow, so does the requirement for good and effective management of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT department was a bonus that would occasionally forward the business. IT networks are now vital to the modern company.
As with other parts of any business, a number of separate plans should be considered and utilised in order to ensure the smooth running of daily tasks. software asset management should not be the only tactic used to manage computing resources within your organisation, but rather one of a multitude of complimentary techniques used to control the system as a unit. SAM can go a long way toward helping your company but should be helped by other techniques.
So if you think that your business is really suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and management over its IT infrastructure, or that the potential benefits outlined in this article could provide a critical market edge over your competitors, then it would be well worth researching how software asset management could be employed within your organisation.