Executive Summary:
Software asset management (SAM) tools are coming of age, as businesses seek to avoid licensing audits and better manage hardware and software purchases and usage in their organizations. A number of SAM solutions are available, including full-spectrum products that perform software and hardware discovery and usage metering and build a licensing repository. Increasingly, SAM vendors are working to integrate their products into configuration management databases (CMDBs), so that the SAM products can be part of broader management solutions, such as network management.
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Many IT managers would fail tests on knowing
what software assets are on their systems,
how many copies are installed, and
what their license requirements are. Often, internal
audits or receipt of a dreaded Business Software Alliance
(BSA) or Microsoft auditing letter will reveal many more
unlicensed programs on the organization’s PCs, servers,
mobile assets, or other devices than the IT department
was aware of. Proactive software asset management
(SAM)—an organized process for tracking and managing
licenses and software usage in an organization—
offers a way to avoid unpleasant auditing surprises. To
better understand how a SAM strategy might benefit
your organization, it’s helpful to know the components
of SAM—particularly its usefulness in license management,
get acquainted with SAM products that can help
you manage software and other IT assets, and become
familiar with SAM trends, such as the use of configuration
management databases (CMDBs) in SAM implementations.
SAM and Licensing Compliance
SAM encompasses a number of components, technologies,
departments, and processes to manage an organization’s
software assets, including
- procurement and licensing
- deployment and patching
- discovery, metering, and license management
A SAM strategy could include the use of asset-discovery
tools, application metering, and license repositories,
all of which can help you get a grip on what’s in your
software library and determine whether you’re in compliance
with licensing requirements.
The license-compliance aspect of SAM involves
different departments, including purchasing, accounting,
and IT. These departments often use dissimilar
processes and programs to track assets, contracts, and
licenses. Getting all concerned parties to use a consistent
set of license management procedures might be
the biggest hurdle to an effective SAM plan. Contracts
and licenses could still be on paper and not entered in
an electronic repository. Accurate procurement records
might be stashed in a filing cabinet in the basement in
no particular order. Assets may have succumbed to “PC
drift” (i.e., the undocumented movement of PCs from
one area or user to another) and could be impossible to
track down.
The SAM standards issue is garnering so much
interest that the ISO and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) developed ISO/IEC 19770-1:2006,
a standard that organizations can use to plan and
implement SAM. (You can download a copy of the
standard, for a fee, at www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail?csnumber=33908.)
SAM for Audit Preparation
The importance of having a SAM strategy in your organization
becomes evident when you face the prospect
of an audit. Say you receive a letter from an industry
association or software publisher notifying you of a
vendor audit, generally within 14 to 60 days of the letter
date. The auditor will bring a software asset-discovery
tool and search your network devices, PCs, and mobile
devices for applications. Then the auditor will ask you
to provide proof of licensing compliance for all software
assets. Gulp! Time to cram. If you’ve been notified about
an audit and are scrambling to prepare for it, here’s what
you need to do:
- Use a discovery tool to find all your software assets
on PCs, servers, other network devices, and mobile
devices.
- Meter usage of the assets to
determine how each is used
and how often.
- Build your license repository
to compare it with your assets
for compliance.
The best way to complete all
these steps is to get a SAM solution
that will automatically plug
into your network, find the
assets, meter usage, and compare
the license repository with
the asset information. Alternatively,
you could opt for a tool
that performs a particular SAM
task (e.g., creating an inventory
of assets).
SAM Products
Ideally, you’ll be looking for a
SAM product well before you
receive any type of compliance
request. Then you can set up a
SAM lifecycle solution that will
not only make sure you’re prepared
when the auditor walks
in the door but also help you get a handle on your software assets for
better organization, budgeting, and legal
compliance. The following partial list of SAM
products can give you an idea of the types of
features such solutions provide. (Also see the
sidebar “Guidelines for Evaluating SAM Solutions,”
page 25, for a list of questions to ask
SAM vendors when you’re looking at products,
and the Web-exclusive sidebar “SAM
Vendors and Resources,” www.windowsitpro.com, InstantDoc ID 98247, for contact information
for the SAM resources mentioned in
this article.)
CA Unicenter Asset Portfolio Management
This comprehensive asset management
solution aims to facilitate the collection and
sharing of information among IT, accounting,
and purchasing to give you a clear picture of
your organization’s software assets, including
licensing. IT might have a firm grasp of
its network and software assets, but without
licensing information, a compliance assessment
is worthless. If you add purchasing and
deployment to the mix to determine whether
too many or too few licenses are procured
and how the assets are deployed, gaining a
comprehensive understanding of the entire
process could be a nightmare. Asset Portfolio
Management not only can give IT administrators
and business managers the full view
of IT assets and license compliance, it might
also unearth options for better procurement
and deployment efficiencies, cost management,
and streamlined processes.
HP OpenView AssetCenter
This solution
is designed to manage your IT asset management
lifecycle from procurement to management
and retirement. AssetCenter lets you
compare business goals and the software
tools necessary to accomplish those goals
with what’s in your software asset library.
This comparison capability could save you
from having to buy additional products and
licenses if you already have the assets on
hand. Then you’ll need to monitor changes in
the IT infrastructure so that assets aren’t lost
when new employees are assigned new assets
or existing assets are reassigned. AssetCenter
consolidates IT asset information in a CMDB
repository, including user information (more
about CMDBs a little later). It also includes a
license repository for ongoing monitoring of
asset procurement and usage.
LANDesk Management Suite
LANDesk’s asset lifecycle solution provides discovery,
metering, and license-compliance features. The LANDesk Management Suite also lets
administrators set policies to stop use of
unauthorized or unlicensed software. An IT
admin can set policies for unauthorized programs
or types of programs, such as games
and audio and video players. AssetCenter’s
remote control module lets administrators
delete unauthorized programs from users’
computers, even if the users are off the LAN
and working remotely.
Absolute Software’s Computrace
Computrace is geared toward organizations whose
asset management concerns are mainly about
security or PC drift. Since most discovery tools
provide only an asset snapshot, assets that
move around might easily get lost. Computrace
enables asset tracking, policy setting,
and remote control, but its differentiator is the
client agent. The agent proactively reports to a monitoring center the asset’s MAC address,
any configuration changes made to the asset,
and policy violations. Computrace also
includes a LoJack for Laptops option, a theftprotection
service that tracks, locates, and
recovers stolen computers. Computrace can
be embedded in a computer’s BIOS firmware
at the OEM factory or installed on a computer’s
hard drive. When embedded in the
BIOS, Computrace will survive OS reinstallation,
hard-drive reformatting, and even harddrive
replacement. Computrace is supported
on 32-bit versions of Windows Server 2003,
Windows XP, and Windows 2000 and 32-bit
and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista as well
as on Mac OS X.
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