Overspending awaits the unwary when managing heterogeneous IT environments incorporating on-premise software, cloud apps and software as a service (SaaS), even as software asset management (SAM) continues to adapt, evolving beyond mere inventory audits.
According to Kumaravel Ramakrishnan, IT service management (ITSM) marketing director at ManageEngine, which develops various IT management offerings, SAM remains a “grey area” that requires expertise to solve, even as the siloed SAM of a few years back increasingly integrates with contextual service management and enterprise service management tools.
SAM is often used on-premise to improve real-time monitoring of software deployments, licence use and compliance status. It offers a way to bring information from services that wasn’t previously available to tools that provide change or configuration management.
Monitoring software usage with a SAM tool helps to reduce costs by keeping track of software licensing and usage.
“It’s gone beyond traditional on-premise licence management towards managing SaaS applications where there are very unique licensing models and challenges,” says Ramakrishnan.
Ideally, SaaS subscriptions should be managed by assessing the functionality people require to do their work.
Tools that manage SaaS subscriptions should be able to manage all the SaaS products and add-on functionality an organisation uses in one place, with automated workflows to support licence approval, procurement, deployment, reconciliation or compliance checks.
“That reduces manual intervention and human errors, and you get a better level of management, tracking and management,” says Ramakrishnan. “SAM tools can deploy automated processes for retiring and decommissioning, so when an employee leaves an organisation, there’s a set of processes that cascade automatically.”
Yet hybridised and heterogeneous environments make the landscape “a little tricky”, and process or practice can help “very little” in this regard, he says, adding: “Which products are licensed from the cloud?
Which run as installations in a company’s own environment with their own licences? It’s often unclear which are on-premise, which are in cloud, and what exists in one or more forms.”
Ramakrishnan also highlights the importance of keeping track of the subscription services running on corporate IT infrastructure that are not user-based.
“To a large extent, these [areas] have become complex and diverse,” he says. “If you have the right tools, you should be able to implement AI [artificial intelligence].”
How to approach SAM
Eric Helmer, chief technology officer (CTO) at services provider Rimini Street, says avoiding SAM overspending hinges on ensuring that changes match desired business outcomes. In turn, any guidance sought should pertain to specific use cases.
“Many vendors incentivise as much change as possible, perhaps moving off on-premise software assets and reimplementing it all as SaaS,” he says.
“Then you realise that you only took one year of data with you and still have 20 years of data on the old system. It can get completely out of hand.”
Are you relying on a traditional asset purchasing model, depreciating that asset over its lifespan and then retiring it through some sort of policy? What happens to that asset when or if you move to a leased model?
What happens with operating expenditure versus capital expenditure? What about tax implications, data localisation and compliance considerations in software deployments?
“There are many considerations,” says Helmer. “People seek agnostic advice, but the big systems integrators and conglomerates are often keen on those bigger projects, which you might not need or want.”
Start with existing assets. Can your business outcomes be achieved with the software you have today? Maybe you don’t need a year-long $50m disruption. Perhaps you don’t need to implement a big package that will continue to bleed support and maintenance costs.
Business enablement may not entail a new implementation or purchase as organisations may not realise the full capabilities or potential of assets they already have.
“Many people are only using a fraction of the features or functionality they’re entitled to, that they’ve purchased,” says Helmer. “Oracle and SAP [offer] some of the most extensible, customisable software packages on the planet.”
Helmer points to the VMware-Broadcom acquisition as an example of how supplier lock-in can force organisations into pricier subscriptions. A single provider might offer the traditional “one throat to choke” when things go wrong, but not having flexibility or agility can prove more costly.
“Gartner calls this a composable strategy,” says Helmer. “The options out there mean you can find best-fit solutions. Many people move HR to Workday or customer relationship management to Salesforce.”
Understand your objectives
Gartner analysts Jaswant Kalay and Yolanda Harris agree that sufficient thought and planning are needed to reduce potential overspending. Despite SAM tools evolving, it can be a mistake to assume they can work “out of the box”, integrating seamlessly or requiring little manual intervention.
Understand your short-, medium- and long-term objectives – what you want ...
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