Nasty surprise with default installs

On the whole I’m a big fan of Microsoft KMS, which were introduced by Microsoft as a more efficient way of activating all of the computers on a local network without each individual computer needing to connect to Microsoft directly.

The system works on a client-server topology, with KMS Client Keys residing in each computer being activated when they locate a KMS host.

While being able to activate so many products across the volume licence at once is really efficient, the hardcoded nature of KMS Client Keys should be treated with caution, especially when installing Microsoft Visio. This is because the KMS Client Key within Visio automatically defaults to Visio Premium if no alternative key is given at the time of installation. This is irrespective of the licence agreement purchased.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the official line from the Microsoft TechNet blog:

“Visio is a unique product in the volume license space in that Visio can install as Visio Standard, Visio Professional, or Visio Premium based upon the key that is input. By default, Visio 2010 uses this Visio Premium 2010 KMS client key, which enables all the features that are available for Visio Premium 2010. If you are licensed to use Visio Standard 2010 or Visio Professional 2010, you must install the appropriate KMS client key.”

Source: Microsoft TechNet Blog: Volume License editions of Visio 2010 install Premium edition by default

This is an issue that has caught many of our clients out come audit time, as unless some eagle-eyed employee notices that they have access to features they shouldn’t, the Premium edition can go unnoticed for years. And without good records of the initial installation or agreement, it is very difficult to argue against Microsoft for software that has clearly been used for so long.

So to be absolutely clear, even if you bought Microsoft Visio 2010 Standard, the installation script will install Visio Premium by default. You have been warned.

As for Visio 2013, while we have yet to test this on a client site, we would expect the same situation to occur, albeit with Visio Professional being installed by default rather than Premium, since Premium was discontinued after 2010. For more information on the numerous issues that this discontinuation has on SA users, go to http://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/licensing/30-licensing/3985-licensing-changes-for-visio-2013.html. For now I’ll focus on the KMS challenge.

The solution

The best way to avoid this issue is to install the correct edition at the start. To do this Microsoft requires you to modify the config.xml (in the visio.ww folder) in advance to include the generic KMS client key for the appropriate edition that you want to be installed. See here for the correct KMS client keys to use. If you are planning to install Visio any time soon, be sure to amend the KMS before you begin.

If you are reading this and think it might apply to you for editions already installed, there is a way to downgrade Visio post-installation. But be careful. First off, you will need to change the installed KMS client key to the generic PRO, or STD key using a script that calls ospp.vbs, or by using VAMT. After the key is changed it will automatically activate against the KMS’s host server, provided the KMS host is healthy and reachable.

However, ensuring that the installed edition aligns to the licence purchased is not the end of the potential problems when amending the Visio edition post-installation. The default to Premium can also cause problems with inventory, as any post modification of the MSK might be the cause of two different editions showing up on the same machine – doubling your licence exposure! Be sure to review your inventory after this process to clear up any anomalies. Phew.

So why has Microsoft done this? According to the TechNet blog, different features or applications within Visio are made available depending on the kind of key that is installed – Standard, Professional or Premium. The appropriate key simply unlocks the relevant features that are already installed, thus making it easier to upgrade/downgrade the software without having to deploy a different version of the product. While not having to deploy a different edition is helpful in theory, I don’t know many companies that have ever needed to switch to a different edition of Visio during the same version cycle. And why default to the most expensive edition at all, why not the Standard edition? I’ll let you draw your own conclusions on that one…

Use your ITAM knowledge to become a trusted decision influencer.

As IT organizations diversify, Asset Managers must broaden their focus.

It’s a great opportunity to build influence, but those who ignore the change risk their role becoming less relevant.

For many years, though, ITSM and ITAM sat rather awkwardly together.  The first two versions of ITIL paid little attention to ITAM: Their heavy focus on the CMDB was relevant and important, but much of the role of the operational IT Asset Manager was essentially excluded.

Many organizations evolved two completely different streams of activity: an ITSM discipline, configuation-minded, governed by Change Management, and an ITAM function, logistically and financially focused.

To some extent, the two were often involved at different phases of the equipment lifecycle:  Asset Management handled the procurement, received the arriving goods, provisioned them, and delivered them to the ITSM function, who took control of their active life.  After a few years, it arrived back in the hands of Asset Management for redeployment or disposal.

This is a scenario which The ITAM Review’s 2011 Survey showed to be very common:  In over half of responding organizations, ITAM was completely separate from the broader IT Service Management discipline.

In a modern IT organization, this disparity isn’t sustainable.   Corporate IT is changing hugely and rapidly. The IT function has evolved from a monopolistic sole-provider of technology, into a more flexible “broker of services”, typically managing a portfolio of internal resources and external suppliers.  Having previously been the only option available to its customers, IT can now easily be bypassed altogether by anyone with a company credit card and an Amazon web services account.

The change is happening both in the datacenter and the frontline.   Datacenter technology has shifted dramatically, through virtualization to cloud.   IT’s customers now spend more on their personal IT equipment than their companies spend equipping them, which inevitably changes expectations and brings consumer equipment into all but the most rigid of workplaces.

And what of ITIL?  It has, at last, begun to catch up.  It hasn’t done so from the bottom-up:  Asset Management operations are still not its concern.  But there has been, in American Football terms, something of an “end-around“.  Version 2 of ITIL modelled Assets in a highly simplistic way, regarding them in simple financial terms as “things that are owned”.  With version 3 arrived a much, much broader definition – The “Service Asset”:

• “Service Asset”: any Capability or Resource of a Service Provider.
• “Capability”: The ability of an Organization, person, Process, Application, Configuration Item or IT Service to carry out an Activity. Capabilities are intangible Assets of an Organization.”
• “Resource”: A generic term that includes IT Infrastructure, people, money or anything else that might help to deliver an IT Service. Resources are considered to be Assets of an Organization

This change substantially increases the significance of Asset Management within the framework.  Effectively, ITIL is telling us: “You are not just a custodian of spreadsheets. You are responsible for managing all of the building blocks of your IT service organization!”.  It’s a big change, and it needs a well planned and considered response.  If this is done well, it gives IT Asset Managers the opportunity to establish themselves as highly important contributors to the IT organization.

These six steps are a solid way to approach this challenge:

Understand your CIO’s objectives and business plan

No CIO is ever handed a bigger pot of money at the start of a year and told to “do the same as you’ve been doing”. Each IT organization is typically being asked to demonstrate real and increasing value to the business.  IT’s role as a monopoly supplier is long-gone, now that anybody can provision services, applications or infrastructure with a company credit card.  Budgets may be being cut, or deliverables increased. With – typically – 60% of IT’s budget spent with suppliers, the department’s challenges are hughly relevant to the Asset Manager.  Hopefully, your CIO has already done a good job of communciating these to the business. If they haven’t, you may have to go asking.

Keep abreast of trends and technologies

While an Asset Manager is not expected to be an expert in multiple technical disciplines, a broad and well-informed knowledge of the trends emerging in the industry is invaluable. Executive-focused websites such as CIO.com provide a great overview of the technologies and services being pitched to IT executives.  Analysts often provide valuable insight too, in articles such as Gartner’s 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2013.  Today’s emergent technology will be the basis of tomorrow’s massive disruption within IT departments.  This will drive where IT spends its money, and hence the nature of those Capabilities and Resources that make up its Service Assets.

Work cross-functionally

The IT Asset Manager is in a position which allows them to place themselves at the centre of an internal social-network, working with specialist teams to understand the technology and services which they depend on.  This provides a pretty unique insight within the department, with a high-level view across different technologies, at different stages of the lifecycle.  One very important task should be to establish an strong and clearly-defined relationship with the IT Configuration Manager:  The roles remain distinct, but effective work in the somewhat grey area between the two disciplines can create real value.

Find creative alternatives and options

A medical research charity I spoke with last year had cleverly extended the life of some storage hardware. In this specialist sector, storage requirements are ever growing, and frontline equipment typically has a lifecycle of no more than three years.  However, rather than disposing of the retired equipment, the charity was able to repurpose it for less-critical storage such as PC backups. With premium vendor support no longer required, some clever research identified a much cheaper third-party option. The result?  An expensive purchase of new backup storage hardware was completely avoided.  This is the IT Asset Manager’s broad insight at work, enabling technology to be repurposed, suppliers to be aligned, and money to be saved.

Spot compliance risks, and provide early warning

All too often, technology decisions are made in a degree of isolation, without consideration to their wider impact.  There are few areas where this is more apparent, and damaging, than in the area of compliance.  As an Asset Management practitioner, on more than one occasion, I was called into an organization where significant datacenter or desktop virtualization had already taken place with no consideration of software license terms.  In one example, a simple failure to read the licensing terms on a single product had increased the company’s exposure from the 50 licenses to thousands (specifically, every thin-client desktop in their entire organization).  Often, vendor licenses are very poorly defined in terms of new technology (I blogged about this lag effect here:http://evolvingitsm.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/painted-into-a-corner/).  Even if the vendors make it impossible for you to bridge this gap alone, you can play a very important role in warning about it.

Use all of this knowledge to become a trusted decision influencer.

By following the above steps, the IT Asset Manager can become a highly valuable source of information and decision support to the CIO and their financial controller, providing a unique insight into internal opportunities, external options, supplier performance, compliance questions, and much more.  With the rapid marginalization of the “traditional” technologies that previously provided the bulk of our managed IT assets, is there any alternative?

“It is important to prioritise your efforts, as the chances are that upwards of 80% of the annual software spend goes on software from just a handful of vendors.”

Tina Fruhauf, Practice Leader at Computacenter peels back the covers and explains what factors should be considered when prioritising vendors when starting a SAM program.

I often get asked, ‘Where do I start?’, when customers want to embark on a journey to a mature Software Asset Management practice.

In my experience customers often find that determining what vendors to enrol in the SAM program, is more difficult than first expected. There are typically lots of different evaluation factors;

• Annual spend
• Perceived audit risk
• Proliferation
• Ability to control
• Importance to the business
• Enterprise wide agreements

It is important to prioritise your efforts, as the chances are that upwards of 80% of the annual software spend goes on software from just a handful of vendors. Spend per year must be considered, but should not be the only driver.

The current vendor audit trend is unlikely to change. It is more likely than ever that an organisation will be approached by a vendor, who is looking for confirmation of your license position. The chances of a vendor ‘re-auditing’ are also increased as agreements come to the point of renewal. Therefore, perceived risk of audit has to be another key consideration. Vendors tend to look at the anniversary/renewal dates as a catalyst for SAM activity, so having a view on this timeline is helpful.

If your organisation has the means by which to determine how prolific an application is within the estate, such as data analysis and cleansing of the inventory tool/s, these can be worthy considerations. However there is limited return in focusing on a product that is used by a handful of users (unless the license and maintenance costs are significant).

The less centralised control an organisation has over the purchase negotiations and/or the deployment of software, the more likely is the case that compliance gaps will arise. However when starting out on a SAM program it is important to show the effectiveness and control that the SAM owners have over their IT assets. This enables them enforce any recommendation or remediation actions that are key to establish the necessary processes. So whilst it might seem at odds with the logic, I would not recommend including vendors which are not within the sphere of control, from the outset.

It is also important that an organisation defines how important an application or piece of infrastructure software is to the business. There are many applications that are key to ensuring the on-going availability of a business service, that are not necessarily expensive or required to be bought in significant volumes, but the criticality of such applications or infrastructure software should be a key factor in determining which vendors should be prioritised.

The last factor for consideration is the licensing agreements that have been established. For example enterprise wide agreements offer a simplified vehicle for consumption, but without the contractual detail being understood, these agreements can sometime be seen as an all you can eat buffet. If an organisation does not have the ability to properly manage and report on deployment, these agreements can result in significant true up costs and increased annual maintenance fees.

If it’s determined that the organisation’s software is spread over a lot of vendors that all have the same or a very similar weighting, I suggest “start simple”, as licensing is complex. Thankfully though, some licensing schemes are simpler to administer and manage than others. So rather than diving in at the deep end, sometimes it’s better to cut your teeth on the more simple desktop applications and work up to more complex server licensing challenges.

Image Credit

He questions the validity of the organisation’s latest figures, which claim that legal software delivers “significantly more economic benefits” than pirated software.

The BSA states that a one percent increase in the use of licensed software would generate an estimated £2 billion in national production, compared to £470 million from a similar increase in pirated software — meaning properly licensed software would deliver £1.6 billion in additional economic value.

“Using properly licensed software reduces risk and creates operating efficiencies that go direct to the bottom line for business,” said Julian Swan, director of compliance marketing, BSA EMEA.

Swan further comments in light of a recent piece of research, “This study confirms that licensed software is not just good for business — it is an important driver of national economic growth. Government, law enforcement and industry should take every opportunity to reap these potential gains by reducing piracy and promoting use of properly licensed software.”

BSA “failing to articulate”

Fisher on the other hand accuses the BSA of missing the target here “yet again”. He says that the organisation is “failing to articulate” a message that will actually cut piracy.

“Haven’t the BSA realised their messaging isn’t resonating yet? Making highfalutin claims as to the economic benefits of non-pirated software will do very little to cut piracy. It is firms, not abstract ‘economies’ that need to be shown the value of software since they’re the ones that actually use it,” said Fisher.

His argument extends to claim that the statistics themselves also warrant some heavy scrutiny.

“I think anyone would question the validity of a claim that licenced software offers more economic value than pirated – and frankly, who cares?  Economists might, but do software managers? Probably not.”

In summary, Fisher claims that this looks like “more of the same” from the BSA. He says that the organisation continues to miss opportunities to strike a chord with its target audience.

Meanwhile and despite this criticism, Eduardo Rodriguez-Montemayor, senior research fellow at INSEAD eLab has said that previous studies have shown that value-added services delivered with properly licensed software help firms to reduce costs and increase their productivity.

“This report goes one step further to ascertain the impact of software use on national production,” said Rodriguez-Montemayor. “The results make it clear that licensed software is beneficial for business and national economies — and that licensed software has a greater economic impact than pirated software across all countries included in the study. Governments and enterprises wanting to embrace the economic opportunity presented by licensed software use should take action.”

The BSA recommends action in the following areas:

• Establish strong and modern intellectual property laws that protect software and other copyrighted materials on PCs, mobile devices, and in the cloud.
• Step up enforcement of intellectual property rights with dedicated resources.
• Raise public awareness about the risks of software piracy.
• Lead by example by using only fully licensed software and implementing software asset management programs.

View a reprint here.

In case my link sets off the Gartner intellectual property fire alarm (as it appears to have done in previous years) you can also view a reprint via this blog post from Jon Hall at BMC).

The analysis is split into two parts: an industry synopsis followed by a broad-brush overview of Gartner’s opinion on the key tools in the space.

As with previous reports, Patricia does an excellent job of portraying current market trends, well worth a read.

I wish I could say the same about the tools overview, the words ‘Palaeontology’ and ‘Nostalgia’ spring to mind.

Watching the Watchmen?

I have, for my sins, been blogging on this site since 2008. In that time Gartner have released two previous editions of this report that I remember so I thought it might be useful to track scores over time.

Gartner assign a score from ‘Strong Negative’ to ‘Strong Positive’ for each vendor. I’ve applied a crude numerical score against each of these rating as follows:

KEY

• Strong Negative (-2)
• Caution (-1)
• Promising (1)
• Positive (2)
• Strong Positive (3)

I’ve applied these numbers to the three last Marketscopes in the image below. Note that there was no report in 2012 and ServiceNow and VMware first entered in 2011 (hence zeros).  Click on the image to enlarge it. 

Click to enlarge

Observations

From 2011 to 2013 only ServiceNow improved. The rest either held their ground or got worse.

Aggregate scores for all tools each year are contracting. 2010 = 15, 2011 = 10, 2013 = 8. So perhaps either a) tools are getting worse or b) the assessment criteria are improving. Jon Hall (BMC) argues that this is because ‘the bar is being raised’. I would argue it is because the big G is tracking the wrong tools and / or the wrong market.

Gartner are hinting at this in the market synopsis:

“IT asset management tools are continuing to show modest growth, although the pressure from software license entitlement tools is taking away revenue”

Patricia Adams April 2013

As I mentioned after attending the Gartner EMEA conference back in October:

“Disconnect in ITAM Tools Coverage: I felt there was a bit of a disconnect in Gartner tool coverage. 90% of the content from the summit and exhibitors were focussed on SAM, yet Patricia Adams provided a 90′s view of Asset Repositories. She referred to SAM tools as an ‘emerging’ category which I felt was a bit of an insult to the tools and partners in the exhibitors hall and not an accurate reflection of the market. Gartner have no SAM tool analysis on the horizon and when asked, Patricia Adams stated some Gartner company spiel about category size. Big enough a category for two international conferences but not for tool analysis? An opportunity missed.”

My fear is that Gartner will, based on these spiralling scores, withdrawal their ‘MarketScope’ citing insufficient interest which would be inaccurate and send the wrong signals to the market. You could argue they did they same by taking their eye off the ball with the withdrawal of ITSM tools and subsequent ‘lipstick on a pig’ ITSSM rehash.

I also believe it is a case of misguided marketing. This is flagship promotional marketing content for Gartner which is sending the message they focus on big ole Asset Repositories when the focus of their events, clients enquiries and research focus on audit defence, contract negotiation and licensing.

As far as I can tell the Big G is the only analyst firm producing any decent content in this area (Forrester were threatening a SAM tools wave but just lost their talent to ServiceNow). They have the ear of large corporates making decisions and have a duty of care to inform their audience of what the broad market is doing rather than providing a ‘Big4 watch’. They are missing the most exciting and innovative part of the market.

(For a piercingly accurate view of mid-market innovation versus conglomerates stagnating I strongly  recommend reading this article.)

View a reprint of the 2013 MarketScope here.

What do you think? 

Your GPS won’t work with one satellite source; it typically needs four different satellite signals in order to provide a confident judgment of your location.

Each satellite in the sky transmits a message, which includes its current position and the time of transmission.

From this data the GPS can use its smart little onboard computer to crunch the navigation sums (How far away each satellite is and when the message was sent) and work out your location. Only when it has four data sources can it validate your location.

Trustworthy Data

How many signals are you listening to for your asset data? How do you verify that your data is in fact accurate?

Let’s say you have 20,000 assets under management and you are using SCCM for inventory and then utilize some form of license management system to harness SCCM data. Let’s say that through hard work and perseverance you’ve managed to reach a compliance position of 100% (give or take 5%) for your most important software publishers. How accurate is that 100%?

What if your SCCM data is only 80% accurate? After all, an SCCM specialist will tell you that 90% coverage whilst deploying a new package is a job well done (Agents fail, deployments fail, systems go missing or hide under desks). Based on our figure of 20,000 machines – we have potentially 4,000 devices unaccounted for, with inaccurate or out of date records. Your 100% compliance rate is suddenly looking less rosy. Not to mention all that hardware unaccounted for – are they encrypted?

I say this not to spread FUD or undermine your work. I say this because this is how auditor’s work and this is the level of verification you need in your ongoing SAM practice. Ultimately you need to deliver your compliance figure or asset metrics – with an accompanying confidence measure.

Multiple Verification Points

What other satellites can you collect data from to verify your results? “We’re compliant based on what we can see right now” might not be good enough.

ITAM tools and CMDB’s store a lot of this data already and should be doing more to help you. I think it would really add to the business value of an ITAM tool if it could calculate the health of your data sources by passing it past other sources.

For example:

• 30% of your Altiris data is over 6 months old
• 40% of your accounts in AD are dormant
• SCCM is only working on 80% of your estate
• There are 20% more inventory records than exist within AD
• And so on

A hole existing in your asset data is a fact of life. I’m not saying, as an Asset Manager, you need to solve them all. But knowing they exist will increase your awareness of risk and strengthen the value of your information and strengthen your arguments for change.

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We’ve been busy building since then. I’m pleased to share with you that since January we have:

• Created a legal entity (not-for-profit limited by guarantee)
• Written a manifesto (Thanks to Kylie Fowler, Rory Canavan and Martin Chalkley for their support with this)
• Built a website www.clearlicensing.org
• And perhaps most importantly – received the support of some significant software buyers to support us

This new regulator aims to add much-needed transparency to an overly complex and unfair market, levelling the playing field between giant software vendors and the end-user.

Our mandate is to promote adherence to a new code of conduct and highlight foul play publicly.

Mission:

The Campaign for Clear Licensing will work with software publishers, end users and the reseller community to reduce the indirect costs of using commercial software by improving the clarity and usability of software license terms and conditions and developing a code of conduct for use by the industry when resolving disputes, including during audits.

The ‘Campaign for Clear Licensing’ website is here:

http://www.clearlicensing.org

We would really appreciate your feedback. This is an industry effort and requires your support to succeed. Please download the manifesto and provide your critique (Publicly, privately or anonymously).

Thanks, Martin

Cloud or bust?

At this week’s MAX conference – Adobe revealed more information about their plans to move their products, and their customers, to the cloud.

They started their journey last year with their Creative Cloud for Individuals and took the next step in early 2013, with the introduction of Creative Cloud for Teams (CCfT) on VIP licensing. The announcements this week have moved Adobe, their users and the industry, at least a couple of steps further:

Creative Suite is no more.

There will be no CS7. The “CS” (Creative Suite) suffix has been replaced by “CC” (Creative Cloud) giving us PhotoShop CC, InDesign CC etc. & new editions of Adobe products will not be made available outside of the Creative Cloud.

For now, the current CS6 products will still be available for purchase via TLP and CLP licensing for the foreseeable future but, from Adobe’s blog:

“there are no plans for future releases of Creative Suite or other CS products”

So anyone wanting the new editions, which are expected to be available from June 15th 2013, will need to make the leap to the cloud & VIP licensing.

What is Creative Cloud?

Creative Cloud is a new way to obtain & license Adobe software as well as the introduction of new cloud based applications and services. It’s content is similar to Master Collection and includes:

• Photoshop
• Illustrator
• InDesign
• Dreamweaver
• After Effects
• Premier Pro
• Muse
• Acrobat XI Pro
• Audition
• Bridge
• Encore
• Fireworks
• Flash Builder Premium
• Flash Pro
• InCopy
• Lightroom
• Media Encoder
• Prelude
• SpeedGrade

It also includes a range of “Edge Tools” which are aimed at creating mobile ready content and apps. These include:

• Edge Animate
• Edge Inspect
• Edge Web Fonts
• PhoneGap Build
• Edge Code
• Edge Reflow
• Typekit

Some of these apps, such as Muse, are exclusive to Creative Cloud and around 15 new cloud exclusive apps are expected to be introduced with the new release.

There are also a range of additional features and services available – one of the most interesting being cloud storage:

• Creative Cloud for Individuals = 20GB per user
• Creative Cloud for Teams = 100GB per user

This makes it much easier for remote teams to work together, as it gives a central point for them store, review and comment on files.

Additionally, each user gets 2 “Adobe Expert Calls” each year. This gives them 2 one-on-one sessions with an Adobe expert to help them learn new skills, uncover new features within existing apps or even start to learn a completely new application.

A full breakdown of the included apps and benefits can be found here:

http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/creativecloud/tools-and-services.html

Creative Cloud Evolution

Adobe have not finished their move to the Cloud and as such, the 2^nd half of 2013 will see a number of additions to their Creative Cloud strategy including:

Point Products

Currently only the Creative Cloud suite is available but later this year will see the introduction of point products such as PhotoShop CC, InDesign CC etc. They will be priced between 50% – 66% of the current offering, making the bundle a more cost effective option for anyone looking at 2 or more products.

Creative Cloud for Enterprise

2 common concerns for corporate customers around CCfT (Creative Cloud for Teams) are:

1. Each CCfT user requires an Adobe ID
2. The cloud storage element is hosted by Adobe and doesn’t necessarily comply with data regulations for certain companies/industries.

Both of these are expected to be resolved with a new addition to the Creative Cloud family “Creative Cloud for Enterprise” – again, this is expected in the 2^nd half of 2013.

Deployment

One of the first things that comes to the mind of an IT admin/SAM professional when they hear about Creative Cloud is:

“Can I deploy it centrally?”

And the answer is

“Yes”.

From Adobe’s help site:

“Adobe Creative Cloud Packager makes it easy for you to create packages that contain Creative Cloud products and updates. These packages can then be deployed to the client machines of the members who are part of Creative Cloud for Teams in your organization.

Essentially, you log in as an administrator to the Creative Cloud portal and download Creative Cloud Packager. Using Creative Cloud Packager, you create Windows and/or Mac OS packages (MSI or PKG files)”

And this is the part that will elicit a sigh of relief from many:

“and then using any third-party deployment tool that supports the deployment of native installers (for instance Microsoft SCCM, Apple ARD, or JAMF Casper Suite) deploy them to client machines.”

The Creative Cloud Packager is available from the Creative Cloud portal as “CCPLauncher”.

Conclusion

Whether Creative Cloud works for you depends on your strategy around keeping current with new releases of Adobe products.

If you like to keep current, or perhaps have wanted to do so but been prohibited due to cost in the past, this will work very well for you & your organization. It gives you the new versions, the new applications, cloud storage and more – as well as giving lower initial payments, moving costs from Capex to Opex and a steady budget for creative software.

On the other hand, if your company tends to skip a few editions of Adobe CS, say CS3 to CS6, then this will be a big change. It will increase the cost of acquiring Adobe software but it will also increase the value and benefits available to the company.

Editor’s Note:

For small creative companies or departments who are ‘all in’ with Adobe tools this maybe a good way to access the full breadth of Adobe products. Although the price is less palatable and at least 10,000 have signed a petition to end this aggressive bundling as an attempt to raise prices.

“No offense, @Adobe, but this feels like the biggest money grab in the history of software” @strobist

For companies who only use Adobe for the odd tactical product or large enterprises with many users – the benefits seem difficult to justify.

Companies with Cumulative License or Enterprise Agreements need to seriously consider their use of Adobe in their estate and lifetime costs, as the final option at the end of the agreement appears to be Cloud or bust ~ Martin

Image Credit

David Foxen, Software Asset Manager

This article has been contributed by David Foxen, a Software Asset Manager in the UK

Note: For the relevance of the article it is important to note that David is aged 23. 

When a teacher asks their students what they want to be when they grow up, students will usually say footballer, movie star, race car driver. These expectations of what the future holds become more realistic as students get older, but the answer is never ‘I want to work in Software Asset Management’.

SAM and ITAM are currently overlooked within the GCSE/A-Level Business Studies or ICT curriculum in the UK, despite being an important area of a business. This begs the question: Without being made aware of SAM, where is the next breed of SAM Professionals going to come from?

Stumble upon SAM?

The current answer would have to be ‘by accident’.  Before I started working I had never heard of software asset management. I studied Business Studies and IT from the age of 14 at school, but the concept of a computer or the software being an ‘asset’ that needed to be ‘managed’ was never taught to us, let alone the fact you need license to use software! I’m sure the majority of the SAM professionals reading this now didn’t know what SAM was before they started working in a professional environment.

This needs to be addressed. SAM is a fantastic sector to be involved in, with a wide range of career choices available. It’s also an important area for organisations, so should be taught at school level. All I’m asking for is a chapter in a book or a module on the curriculum that is dedicated to ITAM and SAM, just so students interested in Business or IT are made aware that there is more to these subjects than motherboards, graphics cards, profit margins and the marketing mix!

The emergence of SAM is a recent one, I understand that. The importance of SAM is only going to increase over the few years and there are a number of changes afoot with how software will be licensed in the future.  Exam boards are constantly updating their course material to incorporate new business or IT methods, so why not add a section covering ITAM and SAM? A simple chapter in a text book may spark a student’s interest in the subject, and may result in them deciding that a career in SAM is the path they want to follow.

Time to be taken seriously

Another rather obvious point to make is that organisations need to promote SAM more. For an organisation to be in a position to promote SAM to young people they need to understand the importance of SAM and the benefits a solid SAM estate can bring them. The majority or organisations are not in a position to do this, as they don’t take SAM seriously themselves. We can see this is the case simply by looking at the latest software audit news. Organisations are still being found to have a very basic, or non-existent, SAM structure in place. Organisations that do take SAM seriously could look at promoting SAM both internally and externally. Work experience would be a good example of giving a student or young professional the chance to see how SAM works on a day-to-day basis, as well as getting an overall scope of what SAM entails.

It is hard to attract young professionals to SAM. Personally, I haven’t worked with anyone in SAM that is around my age. When I have told people what I do, they seem surprised to see someone my age in the sector. This article is not about me being ageist, it’s simply highlighting the fact that there doesn’t appear to be a new crop of SAM professionals coming through. Saying that, I don’t mind holding down the global fort for young SAM professionals!

A dedicated career path

In conclusion, I think SAM should be touched upon in schools. Young people and young professionals need to be aware that there is this career path to go down. There should be a focus on promoting SAM to young professionals to try and persuade them to consider SAM as the right career choice for them. I go back to my original question. Where will the next breed of SAM professionals come from if SAM is not promoted to young professionals, or taught in schools or colleges? I was lucky. I was told about SAM and found that it was the career path that I wanted to go down.

Once you get to know and understand the fundamentals of SAM, what you can achieve for an organisation and the career progression within the SAM sector, you start to understand that SAM is extremely interesting and cool! Ah, come on! It is! We just need to highlight this fact to the future generation.

This article has been contributed by David Foxen (aged 23) a Software Asset Manager in the UK. 

In this article I hope to demonstrate why organizations utilise SKU catalogues, the difference between SKU catalogues and software recognition and the business value to SAM practitioners.

Shopping for Coca-Cola

Browse any supermarket around the world and you are likely to find a section of the store dedicated to Coca-Cola and its fizzy drink competitors. Coca-Cola is produced in a myriad of flavours (Diet, regular, cherry, zero…) and a variety of sizes (cans, big bottles, little bottles, value packs…) suited to customer requirements. Each of these Coke variants has a SKU or Stock Keeping Unit assigned to it.

Stock Keeping Units allow the supermarket to manage their inventory and manage millions of different product lines. If the store is running low on Cherry Cola cans it has a unique identifier to isolate that product and manage fulfilment throughout the supply chain. The supermarket can order the SKU, the SKU is quoted on the purchase order, and the SKU is quoted on the invoice, printed on the box and so on. Without some form of unique identifier managing inventory at the supermarket would be a logistical nightmare.

Note: A SKU is different from a barcode. A barcode is used to electronically identify a product using an optical machine reader. Barcodes may contain SKU numbers and other data.

Shopping for Symantec Backup Exec

The vast majority software publishers also use a SKU to identify product variants.

If we were to go shopping online for Symantec Backup Exec we might stumble across SKU number ‘MLDZWZC1-EI1AS’ (Referred to in this instance as the manufacturers part number by CDW in image below).

It is important to note that MLDZWZC1-EI1AS refers to a very specific way of purchasing Symantec Backup Exec.

• It is for Windows
• It is an upgrade rather than a full license and therefore only valid if accompanied by the underlying base license
• It is an Academic license
• It is within a specific buying program – Level S
• It includes one-year support
• It relates to their V2012 V-Ray Edition
• It is in English
• It has technical licensing constraints (1 CPU 2-6 Cores)

These elements are known as product use rights (sometimes abbreviated to PUR). Some product use rights are made explicit by the manufacturer (this is for one CPU server with up to 6 cores), some product use rights are not made clear on purchase (can I use Backup Exec on VMware with VMotion enabled?). Worse still, some product use rights change on a monthly basis on the whims of the manufacturer.

As you can see the SKU has unique licensing characteristics associated with it. The license would be absolutely worthless if aligned to a French version of Backup Exec installed on a 2CPU server in a non-academic company.

Note: Good practice (and good business) from suppliers is to include the manufacturer’s part number for unique identification as well as the suppliers part number for easy re-ordering on all documentation and invoices (in this instance CDW 2616143). SKU numbers are also usually included in your software vendor license statements and online portals.

Hopefully you can see the business value of a unique identifier in managing an accurate inventory – but how does this apply to license management?

Enter the SKU Catalogue!

If your procurement process is tracking manufacturer part numbers for your software purchases you are, theoretically at least, already in a strong position in determining what software you are entitled to. We just need to marry up your procurement history with what is in use and installed within your environment. Unfortunately it is easier said than done.

Common sense would say that, just like the supermarket, every product in the shop should have a bar code on it so everyone knows how to identify it. In an ideal world we would whizz around your network with a software bar code reader and tally up all of your installs.

Unfortunately, although software manufacturers use SKUs internally, on their packaging and within their supply chain it is commonly missing from the actual install.

The ISO standard for SAM is doing work to rectify this, by developing an XML software tag which installs alongside every software installation storing the SKU and other meta data in a universally recognised format like a barcode (See Steve Klos over at TagVault for more information on ISO/IEC 19770-2). Although the Standard is making good progress, including Microsoft adding tags to Windows 8, we are a few years away from widespread adoption.

Software Recognition vs. SKU Catalogues

Software recognition is not the same as a SKU Catalogue. A SKU Catalogue typically includes software recognition and normalisation.

Software recognition is the process of recognising and normalising technical configuration management technical jargon into recognisable product names and product families. SKU catalogues also perform software recognition but strengthen the license management process by also normalising procurement data and linking it with installed software data to ensure software is being used in accordance with the product use rights.

When you attempt to marry the worlds of technical configuration management and procurement the challenge is to find a common denominator between the two sets of data – the SKU is that unique identifier. Installed software has technical characteristics that can be aligned to a SKU and in turn the SKU can be married to the correct procurement record. The SKU catalogue is the lookup table, the meta data and the intelligence behind this process.

Maintaining Accuracy

So how does all of this help with license management accuracy?

The SKU catalogue provides a mechanism for filtering, double-checking and maintaining accuracy in SAM processes.

It forces good practice and accuracy – e.g. it is not possible for a Microsoft Select based SKU installed on your network to be aligned to a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement contract in your procurement system. The incompatibility prevents mistakes and ensures organizations are licensed correctly. The SKU catalogue is the lynchpin and translator between the different complex languages of configuration management, product terminology and procurement.

Justifying Investments in SKU Catalogues

The main business benefits of using a SKU catalogue are:

1. Less reliance on discovery tools – SKU catalogues also perform software recognition and can therefore work with more primitive inventory and multiple systems management sources. Broad network coverage is still required to ensure discovery and inventory data is exhaustive and you’ll need some way of mapping physical to virtual relationships.
2. Time and money saved on expensive license management resource i.e. man-hours
3. Data accuracy (less mistakes, better results, reliable data)

Buyers Guide / What to Look For

1. Organizations with years and years of procurement data might want to prioritize by contract, renewal or vendor to lighten the implementation process with SKU catalogues.
2. Not all vendors use SKUs
3. Some vendors have SKUs but it is not always possible to audit and collect inventory for them – especially for data centre vendors
4. Vendors with SKU catalogues include Aspera, BDNA and Flexera
5. Some SAM tool vendors say ‘We do SKUs’ which means they have field in their SAM tool for manual entry of a SKU number. Having a field for a SKU number in a license management tool is not the same as using a SKU catalogue. The true value of a SKU catalogue is referencing the Meta data associated with it not the storage of the SKU itself. You are using a reference table built from the intelligence of hundreds or thousands of other implementations.
6. Some SKU catalogues link SKU to product use rights but not software recognition – which is kind of like having a very intelligent bar code reader which won’t scan anything.
7. Some SKU catalogues only cover the big volume titles (Adobe, Microsoft, Symantec) and not every single software publisher. No solution on the market is perfect or 100% exhaustive.
8. The proof of the pudding is in the eating – SAM vendors with good SKU based offerings should be able to benchmark your raw procurement data (with SKUs) against raw inventory data to build a picture very quickly.
9. With fear of telling you how to suck eggs – Buy software and services based on a proven working model rather than PowerPoint and contrived demo. If you have not got the time or inclination to complete a robust proof of concept then only buy on a service basis with a concrete SLA.

If you have any questions or can share experiences of using SKU catalogues please leave a comment below. Thanks, Martin