Even though IT budgets are on the rebound, most organizations are still under pressure to further reduce operational costs. You may have already taken steps to consolidate and rationalize your IT assets, but chances are there are still savings to be found by improving the way you manage those assets(Sony Vaio VGN-FZ battery). According to Forrester Research, an enterprise’s IT estate can often account for 50 percent of the total enterprise asset base and sometimes as much as 80 percent of capital expenditure.
Despite that big chunk of change spent on IT assets, most organizations are not doing all they can to streamline those costs(Sony VGP-BPS8 battery). In fact, Gartner estimates that as much as 20 percent of software licensing and hardware maintenance charges are incurred for assets that are no longer in use [Gartner, "Don't Overlook Opportunities to Save Costs on ITAM," March 2008]. While most organizations have some IT asset management (ITAM) procedures and tools in place, there is typically more that can be done to improve asset management and lower costs(Sony VGP-BPL9 battery). IT departments need to adopt integrated automation solutions that not only give them a total picture of their asset and service lifecycles, but also reduce the cost and complexity of managing those lifecycles(Sony VGP-BPL11 battery).
With the right tools, IT can easily take control of resource-intensive ITAM challenges — such as discovering, tracking, auditing and managing — to turn a situation of chaos into one of true value for the company. However, not all ITAM tools are created equal. For organizations to cut costs and improve asset management practices, IT organizations should keep these 10 things in mind(Sony VGP-BPL15 battery).
1: See clearly now
Accounting for each of your IT assets is the first step to maximizing your investment in your current hardware and software. IT departments must know the location, configuration, and usage history of every single asset to optimize their IT estate(Sony VGN-FZ460E battery). With this information in hand, they can then determine the true value of each asset and eliminate those that eat up costs without giving a lot back to the business.
Unless you only have a handful of assets — or an IT team with a lot of spare time — the only way to quickly paint a picture of your entire IT asset landscape is through an automated discovery tool. The solution should not only discover what hardware, software, and non-OS device assets are in your network, but also how, when, and by whom your hardware and software is being used(SONY VAIO VGN-FZ4000 Battery). This will allow you to easily identify assets that may be retired, redeployed, or reused and reallocate their costs accordingly. It will also allow you to automate routines to gather updated views and monitor changes(Sony VGP-BPS13 battery).
2: Process, process, process
Whether small or large, organizations need a standard set of ITAM processes that align with the business and that are both measurable and consistent. While there are a lot of best practice frameworks to pull from, be careful not to try to jam a “square” process into a “round” organization. If the new process doesn’t make your team’s lives easier or demonstrate measurable benefits, people are just going to revert to the old way of doing things( Sony VGP-BPS3 battery).
Accordingly, your ITAM solution needs to be flexible enough to support your unique processes without a lot of expensive configuration programming or consulting. It should also be so easy to use that it guides users through automating these new processes without causing them a lot of frustration over complexity(Sony Vaio VGN-FZ21M battery ), getting the process into live production and day-to-day administration. Clearly defined processes, which are automatically tracked and measured, will help ensure you have control over and can report on every IT asset within your network(Sony VGN-FZ150E battery).
3: Compliance is key
Software license compliance is crucial; especially since vendor auditing is on the rise. According to a July 2009 report from Gartner, more than 50 percent of organizations had been audited by at least one software vendor in the last 12 months(Sony VGN-FZ15 battery).
For this reason, you need to be constantly aware of any software that is overused or retired to ensure you’re not operating outside of the terms of your agreements and putting your organization in a vulnerable position. This will allow you to meet vendor license obligations and avoid hefty fines and penalties(Sony VGN-FZ15L battery). You can stay on top of this by implementing an ITAM solution that defines policies, continuously monitors your environment for disparities, and provides auditors with records of your software compliance levels(Sony Vaio VGN-FZ18M battery).
4: Be green — it’s easy
Wasted energy is wasted money. Despite this, most computers are in use less than 20% of the time, as companies struggle to define, implement, and enforce power management policies across a distributed infrastructure. Most computers today have extensive power management capabilities, but IT often lacks the resources or automation to exploit these features to manage CO2 footprints and expenses throughout the day(Sony VGN-FZ15T battery).
An effective power management tool will allow you to report on cost and energy savings to demonstrate the value to management. In addition, a power management tool will enable you to easily configure and deploy detailed power management policies tailored to your users’ specific work patterns and needs around the clock(Sony VGN-FZ480E battery). It should also have “wake-up” capabilities, so that IT technicians can still run updates, patches, and other maintenance functions after hours without having to leave all the machines on. Taking control of your power management is a win-win: Reducing energy consumption is good for the environment, and reducing costs is good for your bottom line(Sony VGN-FZ61B battery).
5: Prevent unauthorized software and device usage
Data leakage or privacy breaches can cripple an organization. Yet many companies focus on external threats while forgetting to protect against internal risks, such as those that arise from the proliferation of removable devices(Sony VGN-FZ31E battery). The loss of sensitive information (e.g., corporate financial data and customer data) is expensive to recover. An effective device management solution will allow you to define policies and automatically lock down unauthorized devices to ensure that confidential information doesn’t go outside your walls(Sony VGN-FZ340E battery).
6: Be proactive about patch management
It’s important to constantly detect and analyze potential risks to your IT assets, such as missing security patches. Ensuring that systems are properly patched and up to date can seem daunting and time consuming; however, with 90% of attacks coming from security holes for which patches have already been issued, missteps and delays in the patch process could be extremely costly to the business(Sony VGN-FZ180E battery). For this reason, it’s imperative to implement a comprehensive patch management solution that can automatically identify missing patches and critical fixes, even to devices only periodically connected to the network or whose location is unknown. This will not only help alleviate the hassle typically associated with the patch management process, but greatly reduce security risks and unplanned downtime(Sony VGN-FZ18E battery).
7: Don’t be vulnerable
As is the case with patch management, it’s essential for organizations to be proactive about mitigating potential IT asset vulnerabilities, such as abnormal usage, brute force attacks, or denial of service and Trojan horses. Bad vulnerability management practices can be expensive and seriously disruptive to productivity(Sony VGP-BPL4 battery). To avoid this, look for a solution that can automatically and continually scan network assets to identify, assess, and automatically remediate vulnerable or non-secure configurations. This will allow you to quickly determine the impact of vulnerabilities across the business and instantly fix the problem, which ultimately makes the organization more secure at a much lower cost(Sony VGN-FZ160E battery).
8: Solve problems remotely
Productivity and money are often wasted when someone from the IT staff needs to stop by a user’s desk to resolve an issue. Implementing a remote desktop software solution allows technicians to resolve user issues from where they are and deliver direct fixes. This reduces service expenses, user downtime, and demands on the IT staff. Faster resolution means better service, lower costs, and more satisfied customers(Sony VGN-FZ15M battery).
9: Streamline software deployments
Evolving business needs and constantly changing technology makes it difficult and expensive to keep software and systems up-to-date and configured correctly. Organizations can reduce cost, risk, and labor typically associated with configuration changes by implementing a software solution that automatically distributes and installs application and operating system packages across the network(Sony Vaio VGN-FZ18G battery).
10: Implement an ITAM solution that can grow with you
Finding the right solution for your organization’s ITAM needs can be complicated and costly, and ultimately it may not be realistic to implement all of the above best practices at once. To avoid having to pay an exorbitant amount of money up front, organizations should look for a single(Sony VGN-FZ11L battery), unified ITAM solution that provides a centralized view of multiple IT operations for your business and that can grow with the needs of the business, rather than combinations of segregated products that will create knowledge gaps and lack the ability to provide correlated information. An integrated solution will allow you to pick and choose the combinations of solutions that your organization needs now and add products down the line to keep up with the ever-changing needs of your business(Sony Vaio VGN-FZ38M battery).
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