ITAM is an acronym for IT Asset Management. It represents a framework for the governance and operation of an organization which includes a set of best practices and processes for managing IT assets. Here are two common descriptions of ITAM… From Gartner: “IT asset management (ITAM) provides an accurate account of technology asset lifecycle costs and … Continue reading Back to Basics: What is IT Asset Management (ITAM)?
By now, you have likely heard a lot of talk about the cloud, and different solutions that exist in it. The cloud computing industry is growing rapidly: worldwide cloud service spend is projected to reach $14 billion by 2019, up from $70 billion in 2015. That’s more than double in just 4 years. In fact, … Continue reading Back to Basics: What is the Cloud?
Shadow IT is getting more attention with the steady rise of cloud services within organizations. You might be wondering what exactly shadow IT is, and how to best prevent it. For this Back to Basics post, we will cover the general concept of shadow IT, but stay tuned for an upcoming post that goes deeper … Continue reading Back to Basics: What is Shadow IT?
Being “compliant” is something that we hear often in discussions of software licensing and software asset management. But what exactly does it mean to be compliant, and how can this be achieved? We think it’s useful to explain this critical topic in simple terms. When it comes to software assets, the term compliance holds several … Continue reading Back to Basics: What is Software Compliance?
The process of software optimization involves a proactive approach to ensuring your organization has the optimal amount of licenses. As Software Compliance is ensuring you have enough licenses, Software Optimization can be seen as ensuring you do not have too many. There are four different concepts at play that form optimization: requirements, license ownership, inventory and usage. … Continue reading Back to Basics: What is Software Optimization?
For our third Back to Basics installment, let’s move on to the tasks & processes of Software Asset Management that are taken care of by the IT (or SAM) manager. Here’s a quick breakdown: 1. Manage the SAM tool used by their firm. Yes, that’s right: effective SAM starts with the right system. This SAM … Continue reading Back to Basics: Role of the Software Asset Manager
Have you heard of ELP, or Effective License Position? The term was coined by Microsoft and serves as an important step in the software asset management process. The basic premise of forming an ELP involves comparing your entitlements with your deployments. Establishing an effective license position means taking full inventory of software assets and comparing them … Continue reading Back to Basics: What is Effective License Position (ELP)?
This post is the first in our “Back to Basics” series, where we will break important elementary ideas down into the simplest terms possible. The more these topics are understood in a straightforward way, the better your organization will be at crucial IT practices. Let’s get Back to Basics! If you are the IT manager … Continue reading Back to Basics: What is SAM (Software Asset Management)?