How to control Data Transfer across your Network
Introduction
The degree to which technology has become a part of everyday life and day-to-day commerce has prompted a change in the way management approaches how they manage the money, the tasks and the systems within a business.
As technology becomes more widespread within an organisation and takes a more prominent critical within the vital processes of that organisation, it is important to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is applied to this technology. Technological systems that may have once been overlooked are now important elements in the decision making process.
Technology have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as critical parts of any business. As such, they receive greater budgets but must also be able to handle a larger amount of work. There is an eternal race between business demands and IT capabilities.
But after you have spent a large amount of your budget on developing an IT infrastructure and seen the needs of your organisation change, how do you ensure that the IT you are using can keep up with demand?
This is the function by IT management software and systems.
Every business and every environment will have different specifications and will create different challenges. To meet these requirements there are a range of different solutions and approaches that can be implemented to help control the IT network of your organisation.
Software Asset Management
SAM ( Software Asset Management) is designed to do exactly what it says on the tin – monitoring and controlling 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 critical part of the modern business environment, particularly for businesses 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 a tool for technicians deploying software across a large corporate network, but can be a critical tool to help improve performance at all levels of a company. The goals of SAM include controlling of the IT infrastructure within a business, 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 SAM is often seen as an unnecessary evil due to the intangible nature of what it is designed to deal with, and the commercial case for using a SAM solution is not always obvious until a broad inspection of the software infrastructure of a company has been undertaken.
Economic benefits remain the most driving business factor when deciding to use software asset management technology within a company. Every business needs to make money after all and expenditure is a very measurable figure.
An increasingly large percentage of a company’s IT bank roll is spent on software licensing so there is a real need to invest to correctly handle this spending. As businesses grow and spread, their software needs can change radically and equipment and software 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 advantage.
SAM is not restricted to simply the technology of your company either. As a management operation it will often include many of the departments within a business, including Finance Human Resources, to make sure that it runs as cost-effectively as possible. It is a process that does not need to follow standard.
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Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having heard the various benefits of employing 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 unique set of problems and benefits, so any plan you will use needs to be tailored to these specific traits.
There are more than simply cost advantages 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 newest editions of software permitted under current licenses held, and communication inside the company is aided when support staff know exactly what is deployed on every computer under their control.
Financial Savings
As discussed before, 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 company is always going to be the bottom line so any plan 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 reduce costs is by targeting any software running on your corporate IT system that is no longer needed. The software might not be being used anymore, it may be too outdated to be of use or it may be duplicated on your system. software asset management can be used to remove this unnecessary overhead.
By clearing 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 money can be spent on the critical sections of your IT system. Focusing your attention on these critical components will improve the overall performance of your IT department.
Mitigate Risk Factors
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 network is ill advised, because when left unchecked it can become incredibly 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 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 system.
The risk 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 correct 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 benefits to using a good SAM strategy within your business, both financial and otherwise. It is therefore important to determine which elements of SAM you should implement first since certain benefits will be realised more speedily than others.
The discovery process can be seen as three primary stages that have to be undertaken to really build an accurate picture of the usage of IT assets within your company. These are:
Inventory
Inventory is the most fundamental function of the discovery cycle. It is important that an accurate audit of software assets within your business is created to help your IT managers to maintain baselines for your IT system. This inventory process must be performed before carrying on with discovery.
Fortunately, this process can now be made automatic and even the largest of networks can be searched and analysed in a reasonably short period. Inventory must be able to identify your software assets regardless of their physical location or technological characteristics.
Capture
The next step in the discovery process is the capture of the software license entitlements that concern the software assets identified in the inventory. The capture process should collect entitlements for all of the software that exists on your system, even if 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. Packages that are currently available are very efficient at gathering accurate information. These tools will also maintain databases containing up to date information from software vendors.
Identification & Validation
The next step is to match up your software inventory to the repository of licensing data that were built in the previous two stages. Errors may have been made anywhere from the original invoices for software to the most recent audits undertaken on your IT system.
One crucial factor in the validation stage is the ability to combine the license entitlements on your network to your organisation’s proof of entitlement. This will be essential if any disputes with software resellers arise as a consequence of the discovery process.
After these three steps have been performed you will have created an incredibly rich image of how your IT system is serving software programs 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. This detailed picture can be used for future strategies as well.
You can now start a period of reconciliation on your system. You can compare the software packages that are actually installed on your network against the licensing and support entitlements that you are paying for and bridge any gaps between the two.
The software distribution within your system may include many hundreds or even thousands of individual installations, and there are any number of rules that may be involved with the licensing agreements you have in place. It is therefore a necessity 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 SAM
Many of the basic principles of a successful 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 concepts and best practices that should be followed for successful control of IT operations.
This library is a changing publication and is often updated with new concepts and policies that reflect the constantly changing IT backdrop of modern business. A good software asset management strategy should be fluid enough to comply with the guidelines set out in the ITIL whilst meeting the changing requirements of the business within which it is actively used.
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has published a standard that applies specifically to SAM practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an exceptionally comprehensive collection of suggestions that are designed to ensure that SAM is utilised in such a way as to “satisfy corporate governance requirements”. Standards of this kind play an important role in realising standardisation across an industry.
The ISO standard should really be adhered to when planning a SAM strategy for your own business, although the level of detail covered within can easily become a daunting prospect. It is vital to remember that no matter what recommendations you follow when planning a software asset management strategy, whatever you decide to employ needs to aid your business rather than stifle it. Industry standards cannot simply be copied when it comes to applying them to your business.
Creating a full and comprehensive SAM strategy for your own company might actually never come to fruition. Your strategy must be flexible to change and mature as your organisation does, and it must allow for modifications to your daily activities, no matter how small or fundamental they might be.
Conclusion
It is easy to see that as the scope and importance of IT systems within your company grow, so does the requirement for correct and efficient management of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT branch was a bonus that would sometimes forward the business. IT networks are now critical to the modern organisation.
As with other parts of any organisation, a number of different plans should be evaluated and used in order to ensure the efficient running of daily tasks. SAM should not be the only tool used to manage technological assets within your organisation, but rather one of a multitude of complimentary techniques used to control the system as a whole.
So if you think that your organisation is really suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and management over its IT infrastructure, or that the possible benefits described in this article could manufacture a critical market edge over your competitors, then it would be well worth investigating how SAM could be used within your business.
