For asset managers and IT teams, it's important to identify the status of software and cloud assets by performing effective software asset management. With the right software management tools in place, businesses can gain visibility of ownership and usage of their software licenses. But, without software asset management processes in place, licensing costs can begin to spiral out of control - among other challenges. That’s why finding and deploying the best Software Asset Management Software is crucial for IT organisations that rely heavily on their software and cloud assets.
What Is Software Asset Management (SAM)?
Software asset management (SAM) is the process of managing, tracking, and monitoring a business’s entire repository of both cloud and on-premise software assets. By taking control of procurement, usage, and software license deployment, IT asset managers can gain greater visibility into how they manage their software assets.
Essentially, three key factors drive the need for engaging in software asset management; compliance, life cycle optimisation, and reducing licensing costs.
There are several advantages for businesses wanting to improve the efficiency of their software management processes with SAM, including:
- Gaining complete visibility of all software assets
- Reducing audit and compliance risks
- Optimising software license usage and costs
- Making informed decisions regarding license renewals
- Reduce the threat of shadow IT
Although the basis of software asset management is straightforward, IT organisations should be aware that there are many different definitions of SAM. These include definitions from ITIL, Microsoft, IAITAM, SAM Charter, and BCS. It’s important to know these differences in case one organisation chooses to follow a standard that is different to another organisation.
What Does Software Asset Management Software Do?
Software Asset Management Software is a digitised system that provides the necessary tools to gain visibility into an organisation’s use of its IT assets. In particular, its purchasing and consumption of software.
One major benefit of deploying software asset management tools is having the ability to automate otherwise manual tasks and quickly gather data in one single-architecture program. This includes the tracking of software and cloud services - whether on-premise, cloud, or mobile.
By enabling asset managers and IT teams to track data regarding software procurement, consumption, license entitlements, compliance, and risk, businesses are therefore able to control and reduce their software spending. For most IT enterprises, a major contributor to excessive software spending is the cost of unused software licenses. Unused licenses make up 38% of technology waste for companies without the use of SAM tools to provide visibility into their IT expenditure.
Although the focus of SAM software is primarily on tracking and monitoring software usage, the majority of software asset management tools also provide features to manage devices and hardware - similar to IT asset management (ITAM).
By automating IT tasks regarding the use of assets such as software licenses and hardware, SAM tools provide a wide range of benefits. Including:
- Tracking and monitoring all software licences in one single-architecture program
- Effectively performing SaaS and software license management
- Gaining insights into unexpected costs and expenditures
- Staying compliant and avoiding unexpected software compliance fees
- Understanding the life cycle of software content
- Identifying all IT inventory from software assets, hardware, devices, to cloud services
Software Asset Management Features Needed to Meet IT Goals
Although software asset management systems can be purposely built with an organisation’s specific IT goals in mind, there are several features and capabilities that are prominent in most SAM tools.
Software License Management
Software license management (SLM) is key to reducing the overall costs of an organisation’s IT spending. Effective SLM means companies can track, monitor, and maintain all software licenses being used in one centralised system. IT asset managers are also able to provide employees with new software as requested through business cases.
Software Configuration
Replacing a configuration management database (CMDB), software configurations look at the settings established for operating applications. These include machines that host applications, users, and related IP addresses.
Software Inventory Management
Software inventory management ensures that all details regarding a businesses entire repository of software products are visible. This includes data such as what applications are available, their cost, size, type, vendor, and consumption.
Application Discovery
Application discovery enables asset managers to perform a scan on a business’s network to see what applications are installed and used. This is a great tool for preventing shadow IT practices that pose many risks from a security and audit perspective.
Purchasing and Contract Management
Software asset management tools can forecast future software usage and suggest the best licenses for a business’s needs. They can also help offer transparency with current agreements.
Compliance and Governance
Powerful reporting and control over licenses assignments allow IT asset managers to manage risks and enforce policies. Without this type of governance and compliance, IT organisations risk being handed heft fines that can impact a business’s bottom line.
Software Lifecycle Management
From provisioning to decommissioning, Software Asset Management Software offers visibility over an application’s full life cycle software deployment. Remotely controlling the distribution of applications across a network.
Usage Reporting
Detailed usage reports allow businesses to see how licenses and applications are being used. This is a key element for optimising the software estate and for driving efficiency.
The Short-Term and Long-Term Objectives of Software Asset Management
When deploying a software asset management system, it’s important for IT teams and stakeholders to understand both the short-term and long-term objectives. Typical objectives for IT enterprises include:
Employee Onboarding and Offboarding
When employees join the company, they will need access to a business’s software assets. This includes both general software, such as MS Office Suite, and role-specific applications such as Salesforce. The challenge with onboarding is to ensure that access can be granted as soon as the employee starts. Also, managing the number of available licenses is crucial. Off-boarding entails the revoking of user access when the employee leaves the company for security purposes.
License Assignment
IT asset managers need to have the ability to remotely assign licenses to users. Likewise, they should be able to revoke access remotely. Two-way communication between users and IT managers is mandatory. The most efficient communication channel is an online IT portal similar to that found in a help desk. Users can place new software requests directly to asset managers. As such, the IT department can push new software or updates to individual users.
Software Usage Monitoring
Understating what and how software is being used in the organisation can help managers to make intelligent decisions. Underusing or misusing applications result in unnecessary business costs. Whereas gaining visibility of usage builds a strong foundation for cost optimisation.
Audit Reporting
Vendor audits are, unfortunately, inevitable. But, keeping an accurate record of software licenses and usage data will help businesses pass audits unscathed. Thus avoiding any unexpected and costly non-compliance fees.
Software Life Cycle Management
Knowing the life cycle of software assets can help to accurately forecast a business’s short and long-term objectives. A typical software life cycle has five stages:
- Procurement: Software asset managers provide employees with new software as requested through business cases.
- Deployment: Installing new software on the relevant servers and machines. After, access should be distributed to all users.
- Support: Providing technical and operational assistance to the software’s users.
- Upgrades and Patching: Ensuring the software is compliant from a security perspective.
- Decommissioning: Old software to be disposed of and data migrated to new systems.
IT asset managers have two choices when it comes to license management; to save costs by under-licensing and therefore risking audit failures or to over-license and stray clear of audit risks by spending unnecessarily on unused licenses.
However, neither of these choices are viable in the long term.
Software management tools are specifically designed to help optimise software licenses. The added visibility and easier management help to reduce software waste and protect against audits with powerful reporting.
SAM tools are just one piece of the puzzle for audit management. IT managers will need to strategically use the tools at their disposal to ensure the best ratio between licensing and risk management.
Using SAM Tools to Optimise Enterprise IT Workflows
Effective Software Asset Management can help businesses with optimisation by offering visibility, control, application, and risk management. Here are five key benefits that a typical SAM tool provides:
Audit Management and Compliance
Vendor audits are extremely costly and can result in huge fines should contract terms be breached. The aggressive behaviours of vendors such as Oracle and Adobe require businesses to be on top of their licensing processes.
Deploying a capable software asset management tool is the best way of protecting against audits. SAM software allows users to:
- Store information regarding licenses and their usage
- Hold an inventory of current contracts to have all clauses at-hand
- Provide accurate and up-to-date reports
- Notify asset managers of risks and compliance issues
If undergoing a vendor software audit, software management systems help build a business’s case. After all, a black-on-white report containing usage and license distribution is hard to contest.
IT Cost Optimisation
Some software management tools have the capability of capturing how often applications are used. This enables businesses to determine if a piece of software is used frequently, occasionally, or seldom. IT asset managers then have the opportunity of decommissioning unused software as an easy cost-saving method.
Likewise, asset managers can launch an investigation to discover software that is used occasionally. If some features from the software are missing or employees are not happy with the tool, the software can be replaced with a more advanced application. This would therefore increase productivity while also keeping costs at a similar level.
Reporting and KPIs
Software Asset Management Software tools can highlight potential savings and overall improvements for employed software. Reporting goes up the ladder to higher management. KPI ambitions get passed down from the senior level to the specialists.
In a broader context, software asset management is crucial for an IT team to regularly hit their financial targets. Both high-level and low-level reporting are mandatory for optimisation. Understanding the number of licenses used versus the number available is a key metric for negotiating better contracts.
Here are some reporting metrics that SAM tools can use:
- Total Licensing Costs
- Percentage of License Spending Not in Use
- Number of Vendors out of Compliance
- Number of Products out of Compliance
- Potential Savings
- Top Products by True-up Cost
- Top Products by Potential Savings
- Risks Requiring Attention
- Spend on over-licensing
- Number of Vendors over-licensed
- Number of products over-licensed
Improving Process Efficiency
Software asset management can help onboarding and off-boarding processes to handle large intakes without invoking downtime. This ensures a smooth experience for all parties including IT, HR, and new employees. Likewise, quick and accurate reporting reduces the time spent by the finance and IT teams for assessing quarterly and yearly costs.
Integrating a software management system in the wider IT processes is even better. For example, using data from SAM tools to automate product life cycles can cut down on the time and manpower required to bring in new products and retire old ones.
SAM tools can also automatically manage the provisioning and retiring of applications. This can either be a simple notification to the IT team or a trigger for purchasing software. With all the information stored, software asset management tools can help in circumstances such as:
- Large intake of employees
- Organisational restructure
- Expired and renewed contracts
- Vendor swapping
- Cloud migrations
Transformation and Migration
The process of provisioning and decommissioning can require a lot of resources, especially in large organisations with thousands of software products. Non-automated processes can even lead to major blockers.
But software asset management tools help IT transformation and migration processes considerably. The end of year-long contracts can leave a business at an impasse. Software asset management can take off the pressure by:
- Automatically revoking access to employees on a specific date
- Giving mass access to the new software before the old one is decommissioned
- Ensuring teams and employees are given the correct permissions
- Minimising the overlap of both software tools being live at the same time
Finding Software Asset Management Software that is right for your IT processes depends on how you plan to utilise your SAM tool and your IT enterprise goals.
When starting your journey to finding the right SAM software, it's important to understand your current IT estate. Ask yourself: What type of IT estate do you have? What size is it? How do you manage it? For example, a Fintech startup with ten employees might use infrastructure from AWS to run its servers. A large manufacturing company with on-premise hardware may require dozens of applications so that all departments operate successfully.
The following questions will help you understand the landscape of your software and hardware assets. You can also add or modify these questions to suit your requirements:
- Is your infrastructure hosted on-premise or in the cloud? (from a SAM perspective, this aspect is essential to determine your licensing responsibilities)
- Is the cloud provider offering managed services including OS? If you are hosting your servers, you are responsible for OS licenses.
- Are your applications hosted on-premise or in the cloud? Similarly, different licensing models apply to cloud-based software.
- Do you currently have a hybrid cloud model? Hybrid clouds are hard to manage as they combine the complexity of private and public clouds.
- What size is your organisation? Simply put – the larger the organisation, the harder to manage, the more resources you need to invest in SAM tools.
- How many different teams do you have? Each department or line of business requires different types of software. The more varied and diverse your teams are, the more vendors and applications you have to manage.
- Do you have a central IT team or does each operation centre handle its estate? Large organisations might prefer decentralised IT departments.
Identifying all of your current hardware and software assets can require a lot of time and resources. Here are four key points that may ease the process:
Identify Your Available Software
Identifying all your software assets can take a lot of time. But, the time put into this process can have its advantages. IT Asset Managers have two ways of identifying software:
- Using purchase orders and databases: Most companies that adopt ITIL principles have pre-established procedures for managing assets. These can be stored in CMDBs, databases, or spreadsheets. Using such a method might require referring to multiple sources of truth. After compiling information, asset managers will have a good understanding of what software is available.
- Using application and software discovery tools: Asset managers can automate the application discovery process using a set of specialised tools. These tools scan through devices connected to the network and retrieve a list of installed applications. Details include operating systems and network applications.
Review Your Current Software Licensing Models
Licensing models can come in many different forms that depend on the type of software and hosted environment. Licensing is a crucial part of commercially available software. It is also the central factor for software asset management tools. The most common types of licensing models are:
- Device (perpetual): A license is assigned to an individual machine.
- User (perpetual): A license is assigned to a named user that is required to log in using credentials to validate the license usage.
- Networked (WAN & LAN): Applies to all machines that are on the same network infrastructure.
- Subscription-based: A license assigned to either a user or a machine that requires monthly or annual payments.
- General Public License (GPL) and Freeware: Licenses and software that are available for free (GPL and Freeware have different legal metrics).
- Client Access License: Allows users to connect to the provider’s server to use applications.
- Capacity Based License: Based on the capacity of the CPU, Hard Drive, or the number of cores.
- Node-locked: A license that can only be used by one user at a time, but multiple users can use at subsequent times.
- Floating: A license pool that is available to a large number of users. Upon login, a licensing system assigns the user a license which is claimed back at the end of the session.
Don't Forget Shelfware, Underused, and Duplicate Software
Shelfware is a type of software that you have purchased but not yet used. Underused licenses are those that are assigned to and used by employees but at low frequency. Duplicate software is applications that provide the same services as others, such as two-word processing applications.
Fixing issues such as shelfware, underused, and duplicate software can be a quick win. For instance, eliminating shelfware is an instantaneous cost reduction. But, reducing the number of underused and duplicate software can prove more difficult. However, it can lower the workload of IT asset managers and indirectly contribute to improving team performance.
Review Current and Historic Cloud Migrations
Cloud migrations can be highly disruptive for businesses. Therefore, any ongoing migration projects must be approached with caution. The change from on-premise equipment and operations to off-premise managed services comes with the following changes:
- Licensing schemes and models: As infrastructure is no longer hosted on-premise, but is abstracted and provided by cloud providers, licensing now has to reflect that. The most considerable change is going from device-based licenses to capacity-based.
- Application migrations and replacements: Some applications are not supported on cloud platforms. These need to be fully replaced by alternative solutions. Other software has a cloud-specific version that will replace the on-premise one. Either way, a transfer of users and data will have to take place.
- Hardware and software reconfigurations: New architecture models mean that each component will have to be reconfigured to reflect new changes.
- Changes in asset lifecycles: New provisioning, assigning, and decommissioning processes must be put in place.
To make sure you choose the best software asset management solution for your business, we’ve listed seven-points that a typical SAM tool should offer:
1. The Ability to Easily and Quickly Import Data From Current Systems
Your chosen SAM software is going to need some existing data so that you have a starting point in understanding your software assets. This data may exist in your accounting software (from where you can import information on licenses bought), SCCM, or your current SAM tool. So we recommend you fully understand how your chosen SAM software imports data from current sources.
The key factor to understand is not whether a SAM tool imports data, as almost all do, but how easy it is to import the data. Some systems require extreme knowledge of excel or need inputs from support and professional service teams. Ideally, you should develop a detailed understanding of data import conditions and scenarios before you consider purchasing SAM software.
2. Auto-Discovery Using Agent and Agent-Less Methods to Identify On-Premise Software Tools
The ability to discover software assets automatically on your network with precision is a fundamental feature of a software and license management system. The speed and precision of discovery are vital to building your software management cadence. There are some well-known agent and agent-less methods to discover software assets on a network.
But, scanning and finding software assets is only part of the discovery feature. Your SAM tool should have an inbuilt library of asset information to precisely understand software assets on your network.
3. Understanding the Usage of and Access to Cloud-Based Software Apps
Modern workplaces are now cloud-based. From accounting software to visitor management, almost all aspects of a workplace have cloud-based applications. Defence and classified industries continue to use on-premise tools, but the trend is changing there too.
Understanding the usage of cloud-based software apps can be difficult. It varies based on how the software vendor has set up its cloud infrastructure. In some cases, software applications cross over from cloud-based access to on-premise data, which adds to the complexity. Developing a clear understanding of how cloud assets are discovered and monitored is vital to your software management goals.
4. Software Usage, Metering, and Optimisation
Interlinked with the above points, we highly recommend understanding how your SAM tool is going to understand software usage and relate it to your budget and projects. This could be by users, location, or even technology.
You should also know how it is going to help you to optimise your usage, spend, and workforce productivity.
Monitoring usage, metering, and optimisation can help you to understand the parameters of your compliance levels as well as optimise costs on your software spend.
5. Software Patch Management and Updates
One of the most effective ways to drive cyber safety is to ensure your software is updated and patched. How your SAM software will enable you to mass update and mass patch your assets is vital to staying safe in fast-changing cyber environments.
6. Reporting
Software tools collect data and report converts into insight. Good IT managers then use that insight to take actionable decisions. We highly recommend that you understand the reports you need to drive your software management before purchasing a SAM tool.
Capable SAM software will have the ability to inform and alert you to:
- Compliance gaps and trends
- Usage by users, location, and projects
- Planned vs actual spend
- Status of software updates
- Discovery of assets on your on-premise and cloud infrastructure
7. Vendor Compatibility
Knowing that your SAM software vendor can provide the right capabilities and knowledge is essential. It’s also important that they are easily approachable. Getting to know the support team and the professional services team of your supplier before you purchase your tool helps to know if you will be looked after.
