How to control your IT Infrastructure
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010
Introduction
The extent to which technology has become a part of normal life and everyday business has forced a change in the way management approaches how they manage the finances, the tasks and the systems within an organisation. IT is fast becoming an increasing factor in business.
As computing becomes more widely used within a company and takes a more prominent role within the vital functions of that business, it is necessary to make sure that an appropriate amount of attention is applied to this technology.
IT departments have come a long way during the past few years and are now seen as essential parts of any organisation. As such, they are allocated greater budgets but must also be able to manage a greater amount of responsibility.
But after you have spent a substantial amount of money on developing your IT infrastructure and seen the requirements of your company 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 procedures.
Every business and every situation will have different specifications and will present unique challenges. To meet these needs there are a range of different technologies and approaches that can be used to help control the IT assets of your business.One of these solutions is discussed below.
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 business. It is a business process rather than a distinct skill and is becoming a more essential part of the modern business environment, particularly for businesses operating in the field of IT.
SAM is not simply a program for technicians deploying software across a large corporate network, but can be a crucial tool to help improve performance at many levels of a business. 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 an organisation grows, so do the potential benefits of SAM.
The practice of software asset management is often seen as an unnecessary evil due to the intangible nature of what it is designed to deal with, and the financial case for going with a SAM solution is not always obvious until a complete of the software infrastructure of a company has been done.
Monetary benefits remain the most driving commercial factor when deciding to operate SAM software within a business. Every corporation needs to make profit after all and profitability is a very measurable figure.
An increasingly large proportion of a organisation’s IT budget is spent on software licensing so there is a vital need to invest to correctly manage this spending. As companies expand and diversify, their software requirements can change greatly and hardware and software can swiftly become outdated. There is no need to spend money to maintain the licenses on this outdated software, which is where SAM 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 include many of the departments within a company, including Finance Human Resources, to ensure that it runs as efficiently as possible.
IT service professionals working for my company called softcat provide a range of IT management solutions including software asset management tools.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having seen the various advantages of employing a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be correct for your organisation? Every business is different and has its own separate set of problems and benefits, so any strategy you will undertake needs to be catered to these specific traits.
There are more than just monetary benefits that can be made through the control of licensing and maintenance agreements across a companies IT network. Productivity can be greatly 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 deployed on every workstation under their control. The benefits of software asset management are not confined to the technological hardware of your business.
Financial Savings
As discussed previously, perhaps the most convincing reason to utilise SAM 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 strategy that can help to increase this profitability by descreasing costs is one that should be considered. Money can be saved in a multitude of ways.
The most immediate way that software asset management can help to lower costs is by targeting any software running on your corporate IT system that is no longer needed. The software might not be being used any longer, it may be very outdated to be of use or it may be duplicated on your system. SAM can help to remove this unnecessary overhead.
By removing these items of software that are no longer a benefit to the operation of your business you are streamlining a large chunk of your IT infrastructure. Paying for unneeded software licenses and support and maintenance agreements means that more money can be spent on the critical parts of your IT infrastructure.
Mitigate Risk
A surprising proportion of software that is currently used in the business environment is either licensed incorrectly or not licensed at all. Running any amount of unmonitored software on your IT network is not advised, because when left unchecked it can become incredibly unpredictable. This is becoming an increasingly frustrating factor for network managers.
Rogue software applications can be introduced into an unmonitored 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 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 supporting your critical processes, how do you manage the situation? Operating a complicated software system without the proper support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can seriously inhibit your responsiveness to unforeseen events.
The financial case for working with a part-time buying solutions CITHS throughout your IT review process has never been stronger.
Implementing Software Asset Management in your Organisation
As previously discussed, there are many potential benefits to employing a good SAM strategy within your company, both monetary and otherwise. It is vitally important to determine which parts of SAM you should implement first since certain benefits will be achieved more speedily than others. Some may take a period of years to be fully felt.
The discovery process can be seen as three fundamental areas that have to be undertaken to really develop an accurate picture of the usage of IT assets within your business. These are:
Inventory
Inventory is the most fundamental stage of the discovery cycle. It is important that an accurate audit of IT assets within your organisation is created to aid your IT department to maintain baselines regarding your IT network.
Thankfully, this process can now be made automatic and even the largest of infrastructures can be searched and analysed in a relatively short period. Inventory should be able to identify your IT assets regardless of their geographical location or technological characteristics.
Capture
The second step in the discovery process involves the capture of the license entitlements that cover the software programs identified in the inventory. The capture stage should collect entitlements regarding all of the software that exists on your system, even when the software is not currently in use.
The factor of human error can be avoided by using automated tools that are specifically designed to create a library of license entitlements. Packages that are currently employed are very efficient at gathering accurate information. These tools will also maintain databases containing up to date information from software vendors.
Identification & Validation
The third step is to match up the software audit to the repository of licensing data that were created in the previous two stages. Errors may have occurred anywhere from the original paperwork for software to the latest audits undertaken on your IT network.
One crucial factor in the validation step is the ability to associate the license entitlements within your system to your company’s proof of entitlement. This will be vital 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 performed you will have built an incredibly detailed picture of how your IT network is delivering software packages to its users. It will be a lot simpler to identify particular trouble areas on your network, or areas of software usage that are no longer of any practical benefit to your operations.
You can now begin a period of reconciliation on your network. 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 bridge any divides between the two. This is when the financial benefits of software asset management start to take effect.
The software distribution in your system may include many hundreds or even thousands of individual instances, and there may be any number of restrictions that may be involved with the licensing contracts you have in place. It is therefore essential to automate the reconciliation stage, using one or more tools to apply smart rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your organisation.
More information about utilising SAM in your business can be learned through a Centennial reseller or researching on the Internet.
Compliancy and Flexibility with SAM
Many of the fundamental practices of a modern software asset management strategy are based upon the principles laid out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library defines a number of principles and best practices that should be adopted for successful control of IT functions.
This library is a dynamic publication and is often updated with new concepts and techniques that cater to the ever changing IT environment of modern business. A good SAM strategy should be flexible enough to follow the guidelines laid out in the ITIL whilst meeting the changing needs of the company within which it is actively used. This is an essential requirement of effective software asset management
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 suggestions that are built to ensure that software asset management is used in such a way as to “satisfy corporate governance requirements”.
The ISO standard should certainly be followed when planning a software asset management strategy for your own company, although the level of detail included within can quickly become a daunting prospect. It is important to remember that no matter what guidelines you follow when creating a SAM strategy, whatever plan you decide to implement must help your business rather than hinder it.
Creating a complete and comprehensive SAM strategy for your own organisation may actually never come to fruition. Your plan must be flexible to adapt and grow as your business does, and it must allow for modifications to your daily tasks, no matter how trivial or underlying they might be. This really is the key to a successful software asset management plan.
Conclusion
It is clear to see that as the scope and importance of computer systems within your organisation grow, so does the requirement for good and efficient monitoring of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT branch was a luxury that would sometimes forward the business. IT systems are now critical to the modern company.
As with other branches of any company, a number of different strategies should be considered and used in order to ensure the smooth running of daily tasks. software asset management should not be the only tool used to manage technological resources within your organisation, but rather one of a multitude of complimentary techniques used to control the system as a unit. software asset management can go a long way toward helping your company but should be supported by other techniques.
So if you think that your company is really suffering from a lack of structured monitoring and control over its IT infrastructure, or that the possible benefits outlined in this article could provide a critical market advantage over your competitors, then it would be well worth researching how SAM could be employed within your company. There may be no time to spare.