IT Infrastructure Monitoring
Introduction
The extent to which computing has become a part of everyday life and everyday commerce has forced a change in the way management approaches how they manage the finances, the tasks and the assets within an organisation. IT is fast becoming an increasing factor in business.
As computing becomes more widespread within a company and takes a more prominent role within the critical functions of that organisation, it is necessary to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is applied to this technology. Technological systems that may have once been overlooked are now key in the decision making process.
Technology have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as critical elements of any organisation. As such, they receive larger budgets but must also be able to manage a greater amount of work. There is an eternal race between corporate demands and computing capabilities.
But once you have spent a large amount of your budget 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?
This is the role carried out by IT management software and procedures.
Every business and every situation will have different needs and will create unique issues. To satisfy these requirements there are a range of different solutions and approaches that can be used to help manage the IT network of your business.
Software Asset Management
Software Asset Management (SAM) is built to do exactly what it says on the tin – monitoring and controlling the deployment and usage of software programs within your company. It is a business process rather than a distinct discipline and is becoming a more essential part of the modern commercial environment, particularly for businesses operating in the field of IT.
SAM is not simply a tool for support staff rolling out 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 controlling of the IT infrastructure within a business, negating legal threats 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. As IT usage in a company 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 intangible nature of what it is designed to deal with, and the commercial case for going with a SAM solution is not always obvious until a full of the software infrastructure of a company has been undertaken.
Monetary benefits remain the most driving business factor when deciding to employ SAM technology within a company. Every company needs to make money after all and expenditure is a very measurable figure.
An increasingly large percentage of a organisation’s IT budget is spent on software licensing so there is a critical need to invest to correctly handle this spending. As companies expand and spread, their software needs can change greatly and hardware and programs can quickly 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 advantage.
software asset management is not limited to simply the technology of your business either. As a management operation it will often involve many of the branches within a organisation, including Finance Human Resources, to make sure that it runs as cost-effectively as possible.
When choosing an accomplished provider of a software asset management solution for your system Centennial Discovery should be a solution that is considered amongst many.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having heard the multiple advantages of utilising a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be appropriate for your business? Each business is different and has its own separate set of challenges and advantages, so any strategy you will undertake needs to be catered to these specific traits. The benefits of SAM do cover the fundamental aspects of IT management.
There are more than just monetary benefits that can be made through the management of licensing and maintenance agreements across a companies IT network. Productivity can be greatly by ensuring that staff have the newest editions of software available under current licenses held, and communication within the company is helped when support staff know exactly what is deployed on every workstation under their control.
Cost Savings
As discussed before, perhaps the most persuading 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 system that can help to improve this profitability by lowering costs is one that should be evaluated.
The most immediate way that SAM can help to lower costs is by targeting any software 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.
By removing these items of software that are no longer a help to the running of your organisation you are streamlining a large portion of your IT system. Paying for unneeded software licenses and maintenance contracts means that more money can be spent on the critical sections of your IT system. Focusing your finances on these critical components will improve the overall performance of your IT department.
Mitigate Risk
A surprising proportion of software that is currently used in the corporate environment is either licensed incorrectly or not licensed at all. Having any amount of uncontrolled software on your IT system is not advised, because when left unchecked it can become very unpredictable.
Rogue software programs can be introduced into an uncontrolled IT environment in a number of ways. Software may have been bundled when your IT hardware was first bought although the initial software licenses may have expired. Without the correct access policies in place, users may also be able to install their own software onto the system. Operating 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 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 critically inhibit your responsiveness to unforeseen events.
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Implementing SAM in your Organisation
As previously mentioned, there are numerous potential advantages to employing a good software asset management strategy within your company, both financial and otherwise. It is vitally important to consider which elements of SAM you should implement first since some benefits will be achieved more quickly than others. Some may take a period of years to be fully felt.
The discovery process can be seen as three fundamental stages that have to be performed to really develop an informative picture of the usage of software assets within your company. These are:
Inventory
Inventory is the most basic stage of the discovery process. It is important that an accurate audit of IT assets within your organisation is created to aid your IT managers to maintain baselines for your IT system.
Thankfully, this process can now be automated and even the largest of networks can be investigated and analysed in a relatively short period of time. Inventory must be able to identify your software assets regardless of their geographical location or computing characteristics. Modern inventory processes are capable of this.
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 collect entitlements regarding all of the software that is installed on your system, even when the software is not currently used.
The element of human error can be mitigated by using automatic tools that are specifically designed to create a library of license entitlements. Tools that are currently available are very efficient at capturing accurate data.
Identification & Validation
The third step is to match up your software audit to the repository of licensing data that were created in the last two stages. Errors may have been made anywhere from the original invoices for software to the latest audits undertaken on your IT network. These errors can now be rectified.
One crucial factor in the validation stage is the ability to link the license entitlements on your system to your company’s proof of entitlement. This will be vital if any arguments with software vendors arise as a consequence of the discovery process. You want to be as informed as possible in these circumstances.
Once these steps have been undertaken you will have built an incredibly rich image of how your IT system is serving software assets to its users. It will be much simpler to identify any trouble spots on your network, or areas of software use that are no longer of any particular benefit to your activites. This detailed picture can be used for future strategies as well.
You can now commence a period of reconciliation upon your network. You should compare the software programs that are actually used on your system against the licensing and support entitlements that you are paying for and bridge any gaps between the two.
The software distribution within your network may include many hundreds or perhaps 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 programs to apply smart rules to the process.
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Compliancy and Flexibility with Software Asset Management
Many of the basic practices of a modern SAM strategy are based upon the concepts set out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library defines a number of principles and best practices that should be followed for successful management of IT operations. The ITIL can be found online.
This library is a dynamic publication and is often updated with new ideas and policies that cater to the constantly changing IT backdrop of modern business. A good SAM strategy should be fluid enough to comply with the guidelines laid out in the ITIL whilst meeting the changing requirements of the company within which it is actively utilised. This is an essential requirement of effective SAM
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has published a standard that applies specifically to software asset management practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an exceptionally comprehensive set of guidelines that are built to ensure that software asset management is utilised in such a way as to “satisfy corporate governance requirements”.
The ISO standard should really 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 recommendations you follow when designing a SAM strategy, whatever you decide to employ must help your business rather than hinder it.
Creating a full and comprehensive SAM strategy for your own business might actually never come to fruition. Your plan must be flexible to adapt and mature as your organisation does, and it should allow for updates to your daily activities, no matter how small or underlying they might be. This really is the key to a successful SAM strategy.
Conclusion
It is clear to see that as the scope and importance of computer systems within your organisation grow, so does the need for correct and efficient management of these systems. Gone are the days when an IT branch was a luxury that would occasionally forward the business. Computer systems are now vital to the modern business. Critical systems need to be maintained to an appropriate standard.
As with other branches of any business, a number of different strategies should be considered and utilised in order to ensure the efficient running of daily tasks. SAM should not be the only tool used to manage technological resources within your company, but rather one of a number of complimentary policies used to manage the system as a unit. SAM can go a long way toward helping your company but should be supported by other strategies.
So if you think that your organisation is really suffering from a lack of structured monitoring and control over its IT network, or that the potential benefits outlined in this article could provide a crucial market edge over your competitors, then it would be well worth researching how software asset management could be used within your business.