The extent to which computing has become a part of everyday life and day-to-day commerce has seen a change in the way business approaches how they manage the money, the processes and the assets within a business. IT is becoming an increasing factor in business.
As technology becomes more widely used within a business and takes a more prominent vital within the vital functions of that company, it is necessary to make sure that an appropriate amount of attention is given to this computing.
IT departments have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as critical parts of any business. As such, they receive larger budgets but must also be able to manage a larger amount of work. There is an eternal race between corporate demands and IT capabilities.
But after you have spent a substantial amount of your budget on developing an IT network and seen the needs 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 company and every environment will have different needs and will present unique problems. To satisfy these requirements there are a number of different technologies and approaches that can be used to help control the IT infrastructure of your company.
Software Asset Management
Software Asset Management (SAM) is built to do exactly what it says on the tin – monitoring and maintaining the deployment and usage of software packages within your company. It is a business process rather than a distinct area of expertise and is becoming a more essential part of the modern commercial 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 rolling out software across a large corporate network, but can be a crucial tool to help improve performance at multiple levels of a organisation. The aims of SAM include monitoring expenses of the IT infrastructure within a organisation, negating legal risks associated with incorrect software license usage and preserving 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 employing a SAM solution is not always obvious until a complete 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 are still the most motivating business factor when deciding to employ SAM software within a business. Every business needs to make money after all and revenue is a very measurable metric.
An increasingly large proportion of a company’s IT bank roll is spent on software licensing so there is a critical need to invest to correctly handle this spending. As businesses grow and spread, their software needs can change radically and equipment and programs can quickly become outdated. 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.
SAM is not limited to simply the technology of your company either. As a management cycle it will often involve many of the branches within a business, including Finance Human Resources, to ensure that it runs as efficiently as possible. It is a process that does not need to follow regular.
When choosing an accomplished provider of a software asset management solution for your network virtualization must be a product that is considered amongst others.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having seen the multiple benefits of utilising a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be appropriate for your company? Each company is different and has its own separate set of problems and advantages, so any plan you will undertake needs to be tailored to these specific characteristics.
There are more than simply monetary benefits that can be achieved through the control of licensing and maintenance agreements across a companies IT system. Productivity can be vastly by ensuring that employees have the latest versions of software available under current licenses held, and communication inside the business is helped when support staff know exactly what is in use 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 before, perhaps the most convincing reason to utilise software asset management within your company is the potential cost savings that can be achieved. The profitability of your business is always going to be the bottom line so any plan that can help to increase this profitability by lowering costs is one that should be evaluated. Money can be saved in a multitude 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 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.
By removing these items of software that are no longer a help to the operation of your company you are streamlining a large portion of your IT network. Paying for unneeded software licenses and support and maintenance contracts means that more money can be spent on the vital sections of your IT infrastructure.
Mitigate Risk
A surprising percentage 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 system is not advised, because when left unchecked it can become very unpredictable. This is becoming an increasingly annoying factor for IT managers.
Unlicensed software programs can be introduced into an unmonitored IT environment in a number of ways. Software may have been bundled when your IT hardware was first bought although the original software licenses may have expired. Without the correct security policies in place, users may also be able to install 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 system is clear. When something goes wrong with the hardware or software platform supporting your critical processes, how do you handle the situation? Running a complicated software system without the proper support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can seriously limit your responsiveness to unpredictable events.
Even in a stagnating and unknown market www.softcat.com still see that software asset management is a technology in demand from other businesses.
Implementing SAM in your Organisation
As previously discussed, there are numerous potential advantages to using a good software asset management strategy within your company, both financial and otherwise. It is therefore important to determine which elements of software asset management you should implement first since some benefits will be realised more speedily than others.
This discovery process can be seen as three primary phases that have to be performed to truly build an accurate picture of the deployment of IT assets within your business.
Inventory
Inventory is the most fundamental function of the discovery process. It is important that an accurate audit of software assets within your organisation is created to help your IT managers to maintain baselines for your IT network. Thankfully, this process can now be made automatic and even the grandest of networks can be searched and analysed in a relatively short period of time. Inventory must be able to identify your software assets regardless of their geographical location or technological characteristics. Modern inventory processes are capable of this.
Capture
The second step in the discovery process is the capture of the license entitlements that manage the software programs discovered in the inventory. The capture stage should gather entitlements regarding all of the software that exists on your network, even when the software is not currently used. Without this step the inventory would 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. Tools that are currently employed are very efficient at capturing accurate data.
Identification & Validation
The next step is to match up the software inventory to the repository of licensing data that were created in the previous two stages. Errors may have been made anywhere from the original invoices for software to the latest audits undertaken on your IT system.
One crucial factor in the validation stage is the ability to combine the license entitlements within your network to your organisation’s proof of entitlement. This will be essential if any disputes with software vendors arise as a consequence of the discovery process.
Once these three steps have been performed you will have built an incredibly detailed image of how your IT network is delivering software packages to its users. It will be much easier to identify any trouble spots on your network, or sections of software usage that are no longer of any particular benefit to your operations. This detailed picture can be used for future reference as well.
You can now start a period of reconciliation on your network. You can compare the software programs that are actually employed on your system against the licensing and support contracts that you are paying for and close any divides between the two.
The software spread within your system may include many hundreds or perhaps thousands of individual installations, and there may be any number of rules that may be involved with the licensing contracts you have in place. It is therefore essential to automate the reconciliation process, utilising one or more programs to apply intelligent rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your organisation.
If you are able to find a certain Centennial reseller informed about your particular business you will reap the benefits, one such specialist is Softcat, click here to view their website.
Compliancy and Flexibility with SAM
Many of the fundamental practices of a successful SAM strategy are based upon the principles laid out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library details a number of concepts and best practices that should be adopted for successful control of IT functions. The ITIL can be found online.
This library is a changing publication and is often updated with new concepts and policies that reflect the ever changing IT environment of modern business. A good software asset management strategy should be flexible enough to comply with the guidelines laid out in the ITIL whilst matching the changing requirements of the business within which it is actively utilised.
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has created a standard that applies directly to software asset management practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an exceptionally 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 part in achieving standardisation across an industry.
The ISO standard should certainly be adhered to when designing a SAM strategy for your own company, although the level of detail included within can quickly become a daunting challenge. It is important to remember that no matter what recommendations you follow when planning a SAM strategy, whatever you decide to employ must help your organisation rather than stifle it.
Creating a full and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own organisation might actually never come to fruition. Your plan must be flexible to change and mature 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 worthwhile software asset management strategy.
Conclusion
It is clear to see that as the scope and importance of computer systems within your company grow, so does the requirement 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. Computer systems are now critical to the modern company. Critical systems need to be controlled to an appropriate level.
As with other branches of any organisation, a number of different strategies should be evaluated and used in order to ensure the efficient running of daily activities. SAM should not be the only tactic used to manage technological assets within your organisation, but rather one of a multitude of complimentary policies used to manage the system as a whole.
So if you feel that your business is currently suffering from a lack of structured monitoring and control over its IT network, or that the possible benefits outlined in this article could provide a critical market advantage over your competitors, then it would be worth researching how SAM could be used within your company.
How to control Data Transfer across a Corporate Network
Introduction
The extent to which computing has become a part of everyday life and day-to-day commerce has seen a change in the way business approaches how they manage the money, the processes and the assets within a business. IT is becoming an increasing factor in business.
As technology becomes more widely used within a business and takes a more prominent vital within the vital functions of that company, it is necessary to make sure that an appropriate amount of attention is given to this computing.
IT departments have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as critical parts of any business. As such, they receive larger budgets but must also be able to manage a larger amount of work. There is an eternal race between corporate demands and IT capabilities.
But after you have spent a substantial amount of your budget on developing an IT network and seen the needs 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 company and every environment will have different needs and will present unique problems. To satisfy these requirements there are a number of different technologies and approaches that can be used to help control the IT infrastructure of your company.
Software Asset Management
Software Asset Management (SAM) is built to do exactly what it says on the tin – monitoring and maintaining the deployment and usage of software packages within your company. It is a business process rather than a distinct area of expertise and is becoming a more essential part of the modern commercial 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 rolling out software across a large corporate network, but can be a crucial tool to help improve performance at multiple levels of a organisation. The aims of SAM include monitoring expenses of the IT infrastructure within a organisation, negating legal risks associated with incorrect software license usage and preserving 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 employing a SAM solution is not always obvious until a complete 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 are still the most motivating business factor when deciding to employ SAM software within a business. Every business needs to make money after all and revenue is a very measurable metric.
An increasingly large proportion of a company’s IT bank roll is spent on software licensing so there is a critical need to invest to correctly handle this spending. As businesses grow and spread, their software needs can change radically and equipment and programs can quickly become outdated. 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.
SAM is not limited to simply the technology of your company either. As a management cycle it will often involve many of the branches within a business, including Finance Human Resources, to ensure that it runs as efficiently as possible. It is a process that does not need to follow regular.
When choosing an accomplished provider of a software asset management solution for your network virtualization must be a product that is considered amongst others.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having seen the multiple benefits of utilising a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be appropriate for your company? Each company is different and has its own separate set of problems and advantages, so any plan you will undertake needs to be tailored to these specific characteristics.
There are more than simply monetary benefits that can be achieved through the control of licensing and maintenance agreements across a companies IT system. Productivity can be vastly by ensuring that employees have the latest versions of software available under current licenses held, and communication inside the business is helped when support staff know exactly what is in use 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 before, perhaps the most convincing reason to utilise software asset management within your company is the potential cost savings that can be achieved. The profitability of your business is always going to be the bottom line so any plan that can help to increase this profitability by lowering costs is one that should be evaluated. Money can be saved in a multitude 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 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.
By removing these items of software that are no longer a help to the operation of your company you are streamlining a large portion of your IT network. Paying for unneeded software licenses and support and maintenance contracts means that more money can be spent on the vital sections of your IT infrastructure.
Mitigate Risk
A surprising percentage 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 system is not advised, because when left unchecked it can become very unpredictable. This is becoming an increasingly annoying factor for IT managers.
Unlicensed software programs can be introduced into an unmonitored IT environment in a number of ways. Software may have been bundled when your IT hardware was first bought although the original software licenses may have expired. Without the correct security policies in place, users may also be able to install 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 system is clear. When something goes wrong with the hardware or software platform supporting your critical processes, how do you handle the situation? Running a complicated software system without the proper support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can seriously limit your responsiveness to unpredictable events.
Even in a stagnating and unknown market www.softcat.com still see that software asset management is a technology in demand from other businesses.
Implementing SAM in your Organisation
As previously discussed, there are numerous potential advantages to using a good software asset management strategy within your company, both financial and otherwise. It is therefore important to determine which elements of software asset management you should implement first since some benefits will be realised more speedily than others.
This discovery process can be seen as three primary phases that have to be performed to truly build an accurate picture of the deployment of IT assets within your business.
Inventory
Inventory is the most fundamental function of the discovery process. It is important that an accurate audit of software assets within your organisation is created to help your IT managers to maintain baselines for your IT network.
Thankfully, this process can now be made automatic and even the grandest of networks can be searched and analysed in a relatively short period of time. Inventory must be able to identify your software assets regardless of their geographical location or technological characteristics. Modern inventory processes are capable of this.
Capture
The second step in the discovery process is the capture of the license entitlements that manage the software programs discovered in the inventory. The capture stage should gather entitlements regarding all of the software that exists on your network, even when the software is not currently used. Without this step the inventory would 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. Tools that are currently employed are very efficient at capturing accurate data.
Identification & Validation
The next step is to match up the software inventory to the repository of licensing data that were created in the previous two stages. Errors may have been made anywhere from the original invoices for software to the latest audits undertaken on your IT system.
One crucial factor in the validation stage is the ability to combine the license entitlements within your network to your organisation’s proof of entitlement. This will be essential if any disputes with software vendors arise as a consequence of the discovery process.
Once these three steps have been performed you will have built an incredibly detailed image of how your IT network is delivering software packages to its users. It will be much easier to identify any trouble spots on your network, or sections of software usage that are no longer of any particular benefit to your operations. This detailed picture can be used for future reference as well.
You can now start a period of reconciliation on your network. You can compare the software programs that are actually employed on your system against the licensing and support contracts that you are paying for and close any divides between the two.
The software spread within your system may include many hundreds or perhaps thousands of individual installations, and there may be any number of rules that may be involved with the licensing contracts you have in place. It is therefore essential to automate the reconciliation process, utilising one or more programs to apply intelligent rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your organisation.
If you are able to find a certain Centennial reseller informed about your particular business you will reap the benefits, one such specialist is Softcat, click here to view their website.
Compliancy and Flexibility with SAM
Many of the fundamental practices of a successful SAM strategy are based upon the principles laid out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library details a number of concepts and best practices that should be adopted for successful control of IT functions. The ITIL can be found online.
This library is a changing publication and is often updated with new concepts and policies that reflect the ever changing IT environment of modern business. A good software asset management strategy should be flexible enough to comply with the guidelines laid out in the ITIL whilst matching the changing requirements of the business within which it is actively utilised.
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has created a standard that applies directly to software asset management practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an exceptionally 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 part in achieving standardisation across an industry.
The ISO standard should certainly be adhered to when designing a SAM strategy for your own company, although the level of detail included within can quickly become a daunting challenge. It is important to remember that no matter what recommendations you follow when planning a SAM strategy, whatever you decide to employ must help your organisation rather than stifle it.
Creating a full and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own organisation might actually never come to fruition. Your plan must be flexible to change and mature 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 worthwhile software asset management strategy.
Conclusion
It is clear to see that as the scope and importance of computer systems within your company grow, so does the requirement 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. Computer systems are now critical to the modern company. Critical systems need to be controlled to an appropriate level.
As with other branches of any organisation, a number of different strategies should be evaluated and used in order to ensure the efficient running of daily activities. SAM should not be the only tactic used to manage technological assets within your organisation, but rather one of a multitude of complimentary policies used to manage the system as a whole.
So if you feel that your business is currently suffering from a lack of structured monitoring and control over its IT network, or that the possible benefits outlined in this article could provide a critical market advantage over your competitors, then it would be worth researching how SAM could be used within your company.
JEWELRYBOARDS.INFO
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