As experts in the field of IT Asset Management (if we do say so ourselves…), we have come across numerous ideas, through research and practice, of what the “best practices” should be. We have compiled a concise list of what we believe to be the top 7 best practices for ITAM that every IT pro … Continue reading Seven Best Practices for IT Asset Management
I’ve just read through an article on this topic posted today by Tony Lock of Freeform Dynamics. It does a good job of highlighting areas that need to be considered by anyone already involved in, or contemplating, moving ahead with either server or desktop virtualization. In particular he points to the ease with which VMs … Continue reading Software Licensing and Virtualization
Just a quick note to encourage anyone who has had an unfortunate experience with a software license compliance audit in the last two years to complete the online survey posted by Forrester. They promise to share their results, which will include measures taken to deal with out-of-compliance situations. I hope they’ll make it available to a larger … Continue reading Forrester Survey on Software License Audits
One of the analysts who I have an alert set for has today issued a research note looking at the increasing acceptance of IT Asset Management in the corporate market. This is great news for ITAM vendors like us, but it does leave me very puzzled as to why it has taken so long. At … Continue reading IT Asset Management now mainstream says Gartner
I found this thread this morning, started by Uttam Kumar at KPMG in India. The thread takes the lid off the situations Uttam regularly uncovers, with very variable attention given the demands of full software asset management. One contributor to the thread talks about the realities of achieving comprehensive software identification, and the importance of … Continue reading Very useful thread on realities and challenges of SAM
For a long time, Vector has promoted the idea of Software Asset Optimization as a best practice approach to managing software assets. Our view is that management of software assets is never properly ‘joined-up’ until equal weight is given to the four elements of Quantifying what your organization really needs. So often, this is largely overlooked … Continue reading Software Asset Optimization – right for today
It’s been encouraging to hear that our Software Compliance and Optimization solution recently enabled another customer to respond comprehensively to the demands of a Microsoft license audit. With over 2,000+ PCs highly dispersed across the US, it was necessary to provide evidence of reliable and recent identification of every deployment of Windows, Office and other … Continue reading Microsoft Audit: A Complete Response
I read, with interest, this blog post which claims many business are finding BSA and SIIA audits costing them thousands because of settlement claims. The post says expectations of some companies as to the settlement figure is far too low, resulting in “unpleasant surprises”. These can be avoid though, as can audits in the first … Continue reading “Unpleasant surprises” can be avoided, saving thousands
I heard last week about an organization that had been asked by a major software supplier to cooperate with an audit. Some time later, the organization produced a tally of the total copies installed of each of the supplier’s applications. Turns out, that’s never going to be enough. Unless maintenance is totally up to date … Continue reading Counting installs is not enough for software license audit
In a recent press release, Robert J. Scott of Scott & Scott, LLP highlighted what his organization feels to be some common mistakes that companies make when presented with an audit request from BSA, SIIA or a software vendor. He lists – Failure to compile and produce accurate installation information. Relying on internal IT staff to … Continue reading Avoiding audit hassles with license optimization