Firms that fail to incorporate software usage and inventory data into their asset management will overbuy licenses for 60% of their portfolio and will be out of compliance on another 30%. That is according to a leading analyst firm and tallies directly with our own experience over recent years.

Managers don’t just need to know everything that they have, by way of hardware and software, but also what is and is not being used, by when and how often.  Here are the type of questions they need to be able to answer so as to most effectively manage IT:

Machines

• What machines are not being utilised?
• What machines require an upgrade?
• What machines are candidates for virtualisation?
• What machines need to be retired?
• What machines are no longer in use, but are still be leased, or supported?
• What are the specifications of different devices?
• What is the processing power of different machines (important for CPU based licensed software such as Oracle)?
• What machines do not have up to date virus software?
• What machines do not have full encryption?
• What machines do not comply with desktop standards?

Software:

• What software is installed?
• What software is being used?
• What software licenses are no longer required?
• What licenses are missing?
• What unsupported software is on the network?
• What software needs to be upgraded?
• What software needs patches?
• What MP3 and other files have been downloaded?

Of course, answering these questions with confidence requires a level of IT intelligence that simply is not available to most managers from their existing IT and SAM systems.

More accurate, detailed and up-to-date information regarding software and hardware in use is required.  This in turn requires more sophisticated network audit, inventory and monitoring tools, such as those from iQuate.