THE PHOENIX TOOLKIT

Licence Dashboard™
Licence Dashboard™ has now become the leading Software Licence Management tool within Europe, facilitating and driving more Software Asset Management programmes than any other application in today's market.

 

Dashboard Discovery™
Dashboard Discovery™ is designed to find hardware and installed software deployed across an organisation's network and is primarily used during the verification and compliance stages of a SAM programme. It connects seamlessly with Licence Dashboard - together these products provide the complete Software Asset Management solution.

 

LIME Software
LIME for Oracle is a software licence audit tool for Oracle Environments. Enabling you to see what Oracle software is installed and being used. Designed to help save your organisation time and money.

 

AppSense
Application Manager
AppSense Application Manager is endorsed by Microsoft to enforce software licences by controlling application usage on a per device basis. Passive mode enables monitoring, auditing and reporting to detail application access across the user and device base.

 

VMware vCenter
Lifecycle Manager
VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager implements a consistent, automated process for managing the lifecycle of virtual machines in the data centre, from provisioning to operation and retirement. VMware Lifecycle Manager automates the virtualisation workflow to improve efficiency and productivity, and ensure compliance with company policies.

The Right Foundations ...

With so many tools on the market, it is essential that you lay the right foundations for your Software Asset Management programme

Over the last 10 years, nearly every aspect of managing an IT environment has increased in complexity. From desktops, laptops, PDAs and servers to software, contracts and maintenance agreements, the task of managing the thousands of IT assets spread across an organisation has become an extremely difficult one.

By implementing an effective technology solution, however, along with appropriate business processes, you can quickly and efficiently manage your IT investments and leverage better control of costs related to compliance, procurement, budgeting and forecasting.

MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICE
When it comes to choosing the right tools for your Software Asset Management (SAM) programme, surely all you have to do is to select the cheapest one, or one which integrates best with your existing infrastructure? Wrong! Unfortunately, when it comes to software, there is one snag - licensing!

Licence Reconciliation
Most organisations find themselves managing multiple software licence agreements and, within these agreements, there are many different licence constraints and dependencies that need to be observed. For example, many licences are governed by a licence metric, such as Device, User, Concurrency, Site, Client Access Licence, CPU, Named User, Value Unit, IP Address etc. In addition, all of these licences will have a defined licence model, such as Perpetual, Non-Perpetual, Upgrade or Maintenance.

It is essential, therefore, that you select a tool which can measure this type of usage - if it can't then your organisation will not be able to deliver an effective SAM solution and you will be subject to increased resource costs and operational risks before you even begin.

When selecting an appropriate asset management or discovery tool it is important to remember that, during your evaluation, you must first understand what you need to measure. Without this knowledge, your project will never deliver the correct results and the technology will have to be supported by a multitude of other costly solutions.

So, the answer is to first complete a comprehensive licence reconciliation, identifying what licences you have and what measurement must be invoked to ensure that your organisation remains compliant.

Once this has been completed, you can then add these requirements to your business needs and thereby evaluate and select the correct solution. If your preferred technology does not deliver all of the desired results you can then look to other complementary systems that may assist - such as VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager to take control of your virtual machines or AppSense Application Manager for control of thin client environments. A word of caution, however - if you have too many of these types of tools you will end up with multiple interfaces which will become cumbersome when you try to manage your compliance.

Bells & Whistles
Another consideration you must make, prior to selecting your tools, is what additional functionality is required to manage your SAM programme effectively.

Software Asset Management is not just about keeping inventories - it's also about controlling and supporting the distribution and usage of software. If the IT department is evaluating a tool that only discovers what hardware and software has been deployed, then when it comes to supporting or deploying software to those discovered devices, your organisation will become disappointed in its lack of functionality.

Here comes the next problem - most asset management tools fail to address the basic requirements of effective licence management. Licensing has become the most important element of IT - it is, however, probably the most under resourced function within the department.

It is essential that all licence evidence (boxed products, certificates, contracts etc) is correctly archived in an inventory and that the associated entitlement is managed and controlled on a day-to-day basis. If this element is not managed effectively, your organisation will be subjecting itself to unnecessary risk and spend.

When evaluating the tools, it is imperative that the licensing functionality is fully evaluated and that this is done in partnership with your procurement team. If the chosen tools do not provide the correct management information for this department, then the application is doomed from the start and the procurement team will continue to make ill-informed decisions based on incomprehensive data.

Although many vendors proclaim that their asset management solutions manage the full lifecycle of
a licence, it is advised that you thoroughly test this declaration and ensure that all associated licence dependencies can be maintained and managed. In our experience, this is generally not the case and probably explains why our tool has become the leading licence management solution in Europe - we have had to integrate with hundreds of different tools that have failed to deliver this requirement.

THE PHOENIX TOOLKIT
Over the past six years, Phoenix Software has emerged as Europe's leading practitioner of Software Asset Management and has successfully completed more than 600 projects. Our unique software tools and services have enabled many organisations successfully to establish a Software Asset Management programme and achieve software licence compliance in order to improve operational effectiveness and reduce IT costs.

Licence Dashboard™
A key component of our toolkit is Licence Dashboard™ - the industry's premier software licence management tool, facilitating and driving more SAM programmes than any other application in today's market.

With Licence Dashboard, organisations can effectively and automatically control the entire lifecycle of their software assets from purchase, to upgrade and beyond. With its easy-to-use interface, authorised users can take full control of software and licence inventories, combining all licence entitlement and software inventory information into a single reporting tool.

This application can interface with some of the most comprehensive asset management tools, such as IBM Tivoli, HP AssetCenter, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) and many more. The main business driver of this application is to extend the licensing functionality of asset management tools and enable effective control of an organisation's compliance and software procurement lifecycle - ultimately reducing illegal and financial exposure.

With its comprehensive reporting functionality, organisations are continually alerted to their licence terms and conditions and to the associated licence liabilities. Although this information is primarily used to help an organisation make more informed purchasing decisions, initially it can be used to ensure that the correct discovery or asset management tools are acquired.

Using Licence Dashboard, the IT and procurement teams can administrate your organisation's licence entitlement and compliance status from a single user interface - for example, Licence Dashboard can be integrated with a metering tool called LIME for Oracle. This software interrogates an Oracle environment, providing usage information and licensable options on the Database or Application Server tier. This information, in addition to the data collected by the organisation's asset management tool, is then imported into Licence Dashboard where the licence liability is identified and the correct licence entitlement is automatically allocated, thereby providing a compliance position for Oracle and all other vendors. This includes managing usage information associated to Terminal Services, Citrix, VMware, Midrange and Mainframe systems.

THE PHOENIX SOLUTION
Clearly, therefore, it is essential that you understand exactly what you need to measure before laying the foundations for your SAM programme. As this usually relates to software licence usage, rather than the physical or virtual device, it is imperative that your organisation completes a comprehensive software audit before selection. You do not want to return six months later, only to have to inform the CEO that the current tool set does not meet all your requirements and that other supporting tools are needed to manage your software compliance.

With this in mind, Phoenix Software can assist with not only a software audit, but we can also provide a user interface that enables effective on-going management of your organisation's licence liabilities.
In addition, Licence Dashboard can work with most asset management tools and can be integrated with multiple instances of these tools on one network, thereby providing a single interface for managing all your organisation's compliance obligations. Once this has been implemented, the real business benefits can be achieved and resource costs controlled.

NEXT STEPS
To see for yourself the rich functionality of Licence Dashboard Small Business Edition, why not request a 60-day evaluation CD?

Alternatively, for further information on our full range of ITAM and SAM services, contact your Phoenix Account Manager on 0845 265 1265 or email info@phoenixs.co.uk