Software Asset Management (SAM) Blog

According to a recent report from Gartner (”Gartner Polls & Surveys Show an Increase in Software License Audits”, 31 July 2009), more than 50 percent of organizations it talked to say they have been audited by at least one software vendor in the last 12 months. In research undertaken between February and June 2009, 56 percent of respondents said they had been audited, compared with 30-35 percent for the same study in 2008.

When filtering the results to show only EMEA-based organizations, the result is even higher, with 63 percent of respondents reporting at least one audit request.

According to a variety of sources from both the software vendor and Software Asset Management (SAM) communities, the overall rise in audits is largely not due to an increased level of activity from vendors that already had active compliance programs in place, but instead due to a number of other vendors introducing compliance programs for the first time.

While Adobe, Microsoft, Oracle and IBM were cited as the most ‘prolific’ auditors, survey respondents also reported audit requests from no fewer than 18 other software vendors, including BMC, CA, HP, SAP and Symantec.

As the report states, “On-site audits aren’t pleasant”, and Gartner instead strongly advises that end user organizations adopt Software Asset Management and License Management practices and technologies well in advance of any audit, so that the company is better prepared to react in a timely fashion and without causing major disruption to normal business activities.

This blog is primarily concerned with managing software, but it’s worth remembering that Software Asset Management (SAM) is inextricably linked with other areas of IT operations, not the least the help desk or service desk.

Why? Because as we all know, creating an accurate software inventory is a critical part of SAM. And while you’re creating the software audit, any Discovery tool worth its salt should also be delivering a complete configuration audit of all PCs, servers and workstations on the network.

For ‘pure’ SAM, this hardware information might seem like redundant information. But it can actually deliver significant savings to in your service management efforts. According to Gartner and other industry analysts, the average help desk call lasts around 14-17 minutes. Approximately 42 percent of this time is spent assessing the current location, configuration, user details and software audit of the PC in question.

By having the full PC audit information automatically available to your helpdesk user – either as a fully integrated solution (like Centennial Discovery within FrontRange HEAT or FrontRange ITSM, for example) or automatically queried from the asset repository, organizations can dramatically reduce the length of individual helpdesk calls, leading to significant ITSM improvements.

So don’t view SAM in isolation, always remember that the efforts that go into managing software more effectively can also provide significant benefits in other areas of IT operations.

With around 20 percent of the enterprise IT budget being spent on software, Gartner has identified license optimization as a key area in which businesses can make significant savings. Gartner recommends building a framework to continually manage and improve the SAM process - mapping how to take efforts from the discovery of software assets and recording of software licenses through to a strategic approach to vendor management and license analysis.

The report identifies five levels of maturity, from ‘Nonexistent’ to ‘Optimzed’. The stages are not hugely dissimilar to those used by Microsoft in its ‘SAM Optimization Model‘ - although Microsoft refers to four, rather than five stages of maturity.

The Gartner research can be purchased online at Gartner.com