So: if your point on the SAM\/ ITAM maturity curve cannot account for the rate of change in your IT estate, then you need to climb that maturity curve until it can (Top tip for a business case seeking further funding\/ resources etc.)<\/p>\n
Returning to our misty-eyed view at the beginning of the article: Can your SAM solution accommodate the cloud?<\/p>\n
First off, we need to examine what should take place:<\/strong><\/h2>\nWhat activities require us to recycle software?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n- Joiners, Movers and Leavers (IT interacting with the HR lifecycle)<\/li>\n
- Software Recycling (non-use of software after xx number of days)<\/li>\n
- The standing up and standing down of development environments<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
I\u2019m sure you can think of others \u2013 and as a sidebar; let\u2019s highlight the subtle distinction between recycling and removal.\u00a0 While the act of uninstalling\/ removing access to software is the same for both activities, removal implies that we are doing something more strategic \u2013 i.e. archiving the supporting entitlement, removing installation packages, updating the supported software catalog and generally informing the business that a particular software title is no longer on offer to our employees<\/em>.<\/p>\nWhen do those activities occur?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n- When staff move jobs, or when they leave<\/li>\n
- When non-use of software mandates that software is recycled<\/li>\n
- When development instances are not required to be stood up<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
What triggers these activities?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n- HR informs the IT department of a job change or a staff change<\/li>\n
- We have an inventory system in place that informs IT of software non-use<\/li>\n
- Developers tell us when they don\u2019t need the software anymore (yeah, right!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
On-site software recycling can be automated – just be careful that if you have applications that protect against the integrity of configuration footprints, that one system doesn\u2019t remove software for non-use, and then another one adds the software back on because a \u201ccritical\u201d change has been detected after the recycling activity.<\/p>\n
Where this can get tricky though, is the cloud.\u00a0 As mentioned before, in the good old days and as it is with Citrix, adding or removing users won\u2019t be enough.\u00a0 This is great for access control, but as far as Microsoft or Salesforce are concerned the service on offer is still \u201cavailable\u201d \u2013 and perhaps just as importantly, still billable.<\/p>\n
We need to turn off that financial \u201cleaking tap\u201d \u2013 not least because if someone comes into to replace the person that left, I can pretty much guarantee an ITIL-inspired\/ feedforward IT provisioning system will be happy to raise replacement instances of services and software for a new staff member, without giving any thought to closing the former services\/ cloud instances.<\/p>\n
The particular issue at hand is that we could greatly benefit from a central repository\/ control point from which recycling can occur.\u00a0 And this could be viewed as an \u201corder qualifier\u201d for any as-a-service title you choose:\u00a0 Can an as-a-service product interact with other SaaS management products to allow for a central recycling process?\u00a0 Some won\u2019t.<\/p>\n
A primary takeaway from this article should be that we are required to engage with our HR function \u2013 inventory systems will not know that staff have changed job roles or left the company altogether.\u00a0 You could do this via Service Management, or the responsibility could be placed within the handbook of line managers.\u00a0 There is no one right method as to how SAM is informed of such changes, the point is that they are told and can act on such information.<\/p>\n
Summary<\/strong><\/h2>\nFor those who have been operating in the ITAM space for any length of time, you\u2019ll know that complexity comes with the territory.\u00a0 The trick with recycling is to conduct a cost-benefit analysis to arrive at the benefits that could come from automating recycling in the cloud:<\/p>\n
How much change do you have to manage?
\nAre you being given the accurate data you need to make informed decisions?
\nWhat does that manual load look like?
\nDo you have the tools to achieve recycling?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"Rory](\"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Rory-300x300.jpg\")
<\/h3>\nAbout the Guest Blogger: Rory Canavan<\/strong><\/h3>\nWith a technical background in business and systems analysis, Rory has a wide range of first-hand experience advising numerous companies and organisations on the best practices and principles pertaining to software and IT asset management.\u00a0 This experience has been gained in both military and civil organisations, including the Royal Navy, Compaq, HP and Flexera.<\/p>\n
Rory is the CEO of SAM Charter, a Software Asset Management (SAM) consulting practice that is focused on recognising your primary business drivers and ensuring all IT assets are in sync with business strategy and operations. All SAM Charter services are ISO\/IEC 19770-1:2017 aligned, reflecting IT industry best practices.<\/p>\n
Tel:\u00a0 +44 (0) 7512 176143
\nEmail:\u00a0 rory.canavan@samcharter.com<\/a>
\nWebsite:\u00a0 www.samcharter.com<\/a>
\nLinkedIn:\u00a0 https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/rorycanavan\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Do you remember the good old days?\u00a0 When recycling software involved nothing more than removing a user\u2019s name from an AD group and all was ok(ish) with the world?\u00a0 (That\u2019s if recycling ever took place!)\u00a0 And while the compliance drive to \u201ctrim our IT sails\u201d was echoed in the halls of IT best practice, the … Continue reading Software Recycling in the SaaS world<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101011,"featured_media":3849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28],"tags":[184,72,78,209,99,107],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101011"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3845"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3850,"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845\/revisions\/3850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- \n
- Joiners, Movers and Leavers (IT interacting with the HR lifecycle)<\/li>\n
- Software Recycling (non-use of software after xx number of days)<\/li>\n
- The standing up and standing down of development environments<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
I\u2019m sure you can think of others \u2013 and as a sidebar; let\u2019s highlight the subtle distinction between recycling and removal.\u00a0 While the act of uninstalling\/ removing access to software is the same for both activities, removal implies that we are doing something more strategic \u2013 i.e. archiving the supporting entitlement, removing installation packages, updating the supported software catalog and generally informing the business that a particular software title is no longer on offer to our employees<\/em>.<\/p>\n
When do those activities occur?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
- \n
- When staff move jobs, or when they leave<\/li>\n
- When non-use of software mandates that software is recycled<\/li>\n
- When development instances are not required to be stood up<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
What triggers these activities?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
- \n
- HR informs the IT department of a job change or a staff change<\/li>\n
- We have an inventory system in place that informs IT of software non-use<\/li>\n
- Developers tell us when they don\u2019t need the software anymore (yeah, right!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
On-site software recycling can be automated – just be careful that if you have applications that protect against the integrity of configuration footprints, that one system doesn\u2019t remove software for non-use, and then another one adds the software back on because a \u201ccritical\u201d change has been detected after the recycling activity.<\/p>\n
Where this can get tricky though, is the cloud.\u00a0 As mentioned before, in the good old days and as it is with Citrix, adding or removing users won\u2019t be enough.\u00a0 This is great for access control, but as far as Microsoft or Salesforce are concerned the service on offer is still \u201cavailable\u201d \u2013 and perhaps just as importantly, still billable.<\/p>\n
We need to turn off that financial \u201cleaking tap\u201d \u2013 not least because if someone comes into to replace the person that left, I can pretty much guarantee an ITIL-inspired\/ feedforward IT provisioning system will be happy to raise replacement instances of services and software for a new staff member, without giving any thought to closing the former services\/ cloud instances.<\/p>\n
The particular issue at hand is that we could greatly benefit from a central repository\/ control point from which recycling can occur.\u00a0 And this could be viewed as an \u201corder qualifier\u201d for any as-a-service title you choose:\u00a0 Can an as-a-service product interact with other SaaS management products to allow for a central recycling process?\u00a0 Some won\u2019t.<\/p>\n
A primary takeaway from this article should be that we are required to engage with our HR function \u2013 inventory systems will not know that staff have changed job roles or left the company altogether.\u00a0 You could do this via Service Management, or the responsibility could be placed within the handbook of line managers.\u00a0 There is no one right method as to how SAM is informed of such changes, the point is that they are told and can act on such information.<\/p>\n
Summary<\/strong><\/h2>\n
For those who have been operating in the ITAM space for any length of time, you\u2019ll know that complexity comes with the territory.\u00a0 The trick with recycling is to conduct a cost-benefit analysis to arrive at the benefits that could come from automating recycling in the cloud:<\/p>\n
How much change do you have to manage?
\nAre you being given the accurate data you need to make informed decisions?
\nWhat does that manual load look like?
\nDo you have the tools to achieve recycling?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/h3>\nAbout the Guest Blogger: Rory Canavan<\/strong><\/h3>\n
With a technical background in business and systems analysis, Rory has a wide range of first-hand experience advising numerous companies and organisations on the best practices and principles pertaining to software and IT asset management.\u00a0 This experience has been gained in both military and civil organisations, including the Royal Navy, Compaq, HP and Flexera.<\/p>\n
Rory is the CEO of SAM Charter, a Software Asset Management (SAM) consulting practice that is focused on recognising your primary business drivers and ensuring all IT assets are in sync with business strategy and operations. All SAM Charter services are ISO\/IEC 19770-1:2017 aligned, reflecting IT industry best practices.<\/p>\n
Tel:\u00a0 +44 (0) 7512 176143
\nEmail:\u00a0 rory.canavan@samcharter.com<\/a>
\nWebsite:\u00a0 www.samcharter.com<\/a>
\nLinkedIn:\u00a0 https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/rorycanavan\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Do you remember the good old days?\u00a0 When recycling software involved nothing more than removing a user\u2019s name from an AD group and all was ok(ish) with the world?\u00a0 (That\u2019s if recycling ever took place!)\u00a0 And while the compliance drive to \u201ctrim our IT sails\u201d was echoed in the halls of IT best practice, the … Continue reading Software Recycling in the SaaS world<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101011,"featured_media":3849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28],"tags":[184,72,78,209,99,107],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101011"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3845"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3850,"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845\/revisions\/3850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vizor.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}