How to control Data Transfer across a Corporate Network
Last Updated on Sunday, 28 February 2010 02:24 Written by tateskate Sunday, 28 February 2010 02:24
Introduction
The degree to which technology has become a part of normal 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 an organisation.
As technology becomes more widely used within a company and takes a more prominent vital within the vital processes of that business, it is important to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is given to this technology.
Technology have come a long way during the past few years and are now seen as essential elements of any organisation. As such, they are allocated larger budgets but must also be able to deal with a larger amount of responsibility. There is an eternal race between corporate needs and IT capabilities.
But after you have spent a substantial amount of your budget on developing your IT network and seen the requirements of your company change, how do you make sure that the IT you are using can keep up with demand?
This is the role carried out by IT management software and systems.
Every organisation and every situation will have different needs and will offer unique issues. To meet these needs there are a number of different solutions and approaches that can be implemented to help control the IT assets of your business.One of these approaches is discussed below.
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 organisation. It is a business process rather than a distinct skill and is becoming a more critical part of the modern business environment, particularly for companies operating in the field of IT.
SAM is not simply an aid for technicians rolling out software across a large company network, but can be a crucial tool to help improve performance at many levels of a organisation. The objectives 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 financial case for using a SAM solution is not always obvious until a broad audit of the software infrastructure of a company has been done.
Financial benefits are still the most driving business factor when deciding to use software asset management technology within an organisation. Every company needs to make money after all and profitability is a very measurable metric.
An increasingly large percentage of a organisation’s IT bank roll is spent on software licensing so there is a vital need to invest to correctly monitor this spending. As companies grow and spread, their software requirements can change greatly and equipment and software can swiftly 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.
SAM is not limited to simply the technology of your organisation either. As a management process it will often include many of the departments within a organisation, including Finance Human Resources, to make sure that it runs as efficiently as possible.
SAM can easily be achieved within your business through a operable Centennial Discovery solution that is tailored to your specific needs.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having seen the multiple benefits of deploying a software asset management solution, how do you know that it would be correct for your organisation? Each company is different and has its own separate set of challenges and advantages, so any strategy you will undertake needs to be tailored to these specific traits. The benefits of SAM do cover the fundamental aspects of software management.
There are more than simply cost advantages that can be made through the management of licensing and maintenance agreements across a companies IT network. Productivity can be hugely improved by ensuring that staff have the latest editions of software permitted under current licenses held, and communication inside the corporation is aided when support staff know exactly what is deployed on every computer under their control. The benefits of SAM are not confined to the technological hardware of your business.
Financial Savings
As discussed before, perhaps the most convincing reason to implement SAM within your business is the potential financial savings that can be achieved. The profitability of your company is always going to be the bottom line so any plan that can help to increase this profitability by lowering expenses is one that should be evaluated.
The most direct way that software asset management can help to lower costs is by targeting any software running on your corporate network 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.
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 system. Paying for unneeded software licenses and support and maintenance contracts means that more finance can be spent on the vital parts of your IT infrastructure.
Mitigate Risk
A surprising proportion 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 network is ill advised, because when left unchecked it can become very unpredictable.
Rogue software applications can be introduced into an unmonitored IT system in a number of ways. Software may have been included when your IT hardware was first purchased although the initial 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. Operating a corporate IT system in this unmanaged way will almost certainly lead to trouble.
The risk of running unlicensed software on your system is clear. When something goes wrong with the hardware or software platform behind your critical processes, how do you recover the situation? Running a complex software system without the appropriate support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can seriously limit your responsiveness to unpredictable events. The cost of recovery will forever outweigh the cost of prevention when it comes to IT systems.
Many companies have reported increases in efficiency after Centennial consultants planned alongside their current IT support staff.
Implementing SAM in your Organisation
As previously mentioned, there are many potential benefits to utilising a good software asset management strategy within your company, both financial and otherwise. It is therefore important to determine which elements of SAM you should deploy first since certain benefits will be achieved more quickly than others. Some may take a period of years to be fully felt.
This discovery process can be viewed as three fundamental stages that have to be performed to truly develop an informative picture of the usage of software assets within your organisation.
Inventory
Inventory is the most basic stage of the discovery cycle. It is crucial that an accurate audit of IT assets within your organisation is created to help your IT department to maintain baselines regarding your IT system. This inventory process must be performed before carrying on with discovery.
Thankfully, this process can now be automated and even the largest of networks can be investigated and analysed in a reasonably 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 cycle is the capture of the license entitlements that manage the software assets identified in the inventory. The capture stage should collect entitlements for 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 mitigated by using automated tools that are specifically created to create a library of license entitlements. Tools that are currently employed are incredibly efficient at gathering accurate information. These tools will also maintain databases containing up to date information from software vendors.
Identification & Validation
The third process is to match up the software inventory to the repository of licensing information that were created in the last two stages. Errors may have occurred anywhere from the original paperwork for software to the most recent audits performed on your IT network.
One crucial factor in the validation step is the ability to link the license entitlements on your system to your company’s proof of entitlement. This will be vital if any disputes with software vendors arise as a consequence of the discovery cycle.
After these three steps have been performed you will have built an incredibly rich image of how your IT network is serving software assets to its users. It will be much easier to identify any trouble spots on your network, or areas of software usage that are no longer of any practical benefit to your activites. This detailed picture can be used for future reference as well.
You can now start a period of reconciliation upon your system. You can compare the software packages that are actually used on your network against the licensing and support contracts that you are paying for and close any gaps between the two. This is when the financial benefits of software asset management start to take effect.
The software distribution in your network may include many hundreds or perhaps thousands of individual instances, and there are any number of rules that may be involved with the licensing agreements you have in place. It is therefore essential to automate the reconciliation stage, using one or more tools to apply intelligent rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your company
As demand for software asset management technology grows, the opportunity a well known Centennial reseller sees to grow their client base should be taken.
Compliancy and Flexibility with Software Asset Management
Many of the fundamental practices of a successful SAM strategy are based upon the concepts set out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library details a number of concepts and best practices that should be followed for successful control of IT operations. The ITIL can be found online.
This library is a changing entity and is often updated with new ideas and policies that cater to the ever changing IT backdrop of modern business. A good software asset management strategy should be flexible enough to follow the guidelines laid out in the ITIL whilst matching the changing requirements of the company within which it is actively used. This is an essential requirement of successful software asset management
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has created a standard that applies specifically to software asset management practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an exceptionally comprehensive collection 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 part in achieving standardisation across an industry.
The ISO standard should certainly be adhered to when planning a SAM strategy for your own company, although the level of detail covered within can easily become a daunting prospect. It is important to remember that no matter what recommendations you follow when creating a SAM strategy, whatever you decide to implement needs to help your organisation rather than hinder 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 enough to adapt and grow as your business does, and it should allow for updates to your daily activities, 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 extent and importance of computer systems within your organisation grow, so does the requirement for correct and effective management of these systems. Gone are the days when an IT department was a bonus that would occasionally progress the business. Computer systems are now critical to the modern organisation. Critical systems need to be monitored to an appropriate level.
As with other parts of any business, a number of separate strategies should be evaluated and used in order to ensure the smooth running of daily tasks. SAM should not be the only tool used to manage technological resources within your company, but rather one of a multitude of complimentary policies used to manage the system as a unit.
So if you think that your organisation is currently suffering from a lack of structured monitoring and control over its IT network, or that the possible advantages outlined in this article could manufacture a crucial market advantage over your competitors, then it would be worth researching how software asset management could be used within your company. There may be no time to spare.