How to control Data Transfer across your Network

Introduction

The extent 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 processes and the assets within a business. Technology fast becoming an important factor in business.

As computing becomes more widely used within an organisation and takes a more prominent critical within the vital processes of that organisation, it is necessary to make sure that an appropriate amount of attention is applied to this technology. Technological assets that may have once been overlooked are now key in the decision making process.

IT capabilities have come a long way during the past few years and are now seen as vital parts of any organisation. As such, they receive greater budgets but must also be able to deal with a larger amount of work. There is an eternal race between corporate needs and IT capabilities.

But once you have spent a large amount of money on developing an IT system and seen the circumstances of your business change, how do you ensure that the technology you are using can keep up with demand? Moreover, how can you achieve this without spending a large amount of money?

This is the function by IT management software and procedures.

Every company and every environment will have different specifications and will present unique challenges. To meet these needs there are a number of different technologies and approaches that can be implemented to help manage the IT assets of your company.

Software Asset Management

Software Asset Management (SAM) is built to do exactly what it says on the tin – monitoring and managing the deployment and usage of software suites within your business. It is a business process rather than a distinct skill and is becoming a more essential part of the modern commercial environment, particularly for companies operating in the field of Information Technology.

SAM is not simply an aid for technicians installing software across a large company network, but can be a critical tool to help improve performance at many levels of a company. The objectives of SAM include controlling of the IT infrastructure within a business, negating legal threats associated with incorrect software license usage and maintaining 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 viewed as an unnecessary evil due to the abstract nature of what it is designed to deal with, and the business case for using a SAM solution is not always obvious until a full of the software infrastructure of a company has been carried out. Once existing problems have been identified however, the use of SAM becomes self evident.

Financial benefits are still the most motivating business factor when deciding to employ SAM technology within a company. Every business needs to make profit after all and expenditure is a very measurable metric. The financial benefits of SAM do certainly exist however.

An increasingly large amount of a company’s IT budget is spent on software licensing so there is a critical need to invest to correctly monitor this spending. As organisations expand and diversify, their software requirements can change greatly and equipment and software can quickly become out of date. 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 departments within a company, including Finance Human Resources, to ensure that it runs as efficiently as possible.

Anybody who was going to ask Softcat which package stands out would get the simple answer software asset management SAM.

Why follow a SAM Strategy?

Having seen the many benefits of deploying a software asset management solution, how do you know that it would be correct for your company? 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 characteristics.

There are more than simply cost advantages that can be gained through the control of licensing and maintenance agreements across a companies IT system. Productivity can be greatly by ensuring that users have the newest versions of software permitted under current licenses held, and communication within the company is aided when support staff know exactly what is in use on every computer under their control.

Cost Savings

As discussed before, perhaps the most persuading reason to utilise SAM within your company 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 improve this profitability by reducing costs is one that should be considered. Money can be saved in a number of ways.

The most direct way that software asset management can help to reduce costs is by identifying any software running on your corporate network 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.

By clearing these items of software that are no longer a benefit to the operation of your company you are streamlining a large chunk of your IT infrastructure. Paying for unnecessary software licenses and support and maintenance contracts means that more money can be spent on the critical parts of your IT infrastructure. Focusing your finances on these vital components will improve the overall performance of your IT department.

Mitigate Risk

A surprising percentage of software that is currently used in the corporate environment is either licensed incorrectly or not licensed at all. Running any amount of unmonitored 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 original software licenses may have expired. Without the correct access policies in place, users may also be able to load their own software onto the system. Running a corporate IT system in this unmanaged 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 behind your critical processes, how do you recover the situation? Operating a complex software system without the correct 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 always outweigh the cost of prevention when it comes to data systems.

Many companies have reported increases in efficiency since Centennial consultants planned alongside their current IT support staff.

Implementing SAM in your Organisation

As previously mentioned, there are many potential benefits to employing a good SAM strategy within your organisation, both monetary and otherwise. It is vitally important to consider which branches of software asset management you should implement first since certain benefits will be realised more speedily than others.

The discovery process can be viewed as three basic phases that have to be undertaken to really build an accurate picture of the deployment of software assets within your business.

Inventory

Inventory is the most fundamental stage 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 automated and even the grandest of infrastructures can be investigated and analysed in a reasonably short period of time. Inventory should be able to identify your software assets regardless of their physical location or computing characteristics. Modern inventory processes are capable of this.

Capture

The next step in the discovery cycle involves the capture of the license entitlements that cover the software assets identified in the inventory. The capture stage should gather entitlements for all of the software that exists on your system, even when the software is not currently used.

The risk of human error can be avoided by using automated tools that are specifically created to build a library of license entitlements. Tools that are currently available are incredibly efficient at gathering accurate information.

Identification & Validation

The third step is to match up the software audit to the repository of licensing information that were built 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. These errors can now be rectified.

One crucial factor in the validation stage is the ability to associate the license entitlements within your system to your company’s proof of entitlement. This will be essential if any disputes with software vendors arise as a consequence of the discovery process.

After these steps have been undertaken you will have built an incredibly detailed picture of how your IT network is serving software programs to its users. It will be much simpler to identify particular trouble spots on your system, or sections of software usage that are no longer of any particular benefit to your operations. This detailed image 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 network against the licensing and support contracts that you are paying for and bridge 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 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 process, using one or more programs to apply smart rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your company

The use SAM within your company is a very specific process which should be strategised by a capable company who will have extra information.

Compliancy and Flexibility with SAM

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 principles and best practices that should be followed for successful control of IT operations.

This library is a dynamic entity and is often updated with new concepts and techniques that cater to the constantly changing IT environment of modern business. A good software asset management strategy should be flexible enough to follow 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 directly to SAM practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an exceptionally comprehensive set of guidelines 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 easily become a daunting challenge. It is important to remember that no matter what guidelines you follow when creating a SAM strategy, whatever you decide to implement must 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 software asset management strategy for your own organisation may actually never come to fruition. Your plan must be flexible to change and mature as your organisation does, and it should allow for updates to your daily activities, no matter how small or fundamental they might be.

Conclusion

It is clear to see that as the scope and importance of computer systems within your organisation grow, so does the need for good and effective monitoring of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT branch was a luxury that would sometimes progress the business. IT systems are now vital to the modern organisation. Crucial systems need to be monitored to an appropriate level.

As with other parts of any organisation, a number of separate plans should be considered and used in order to ensure the efficient running of daily tasks. software asset management 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 manage the system as a whole. software asset management can go a long way toward aiding your company but should be helped by other techniques.

So if you think that your business is currently suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and management over its IT network, or that the possible advantages outlined in this article could manufacture a crucial market edge over your competitors, then it would be well worth investigating how software asset management could be employed within your business. There may be no time to spare.

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