SAManage IT Management Blog

Enterprise Management Associates, a leading IT Management research and consulting firm has published their traditional “IT Trends to watch in 2008” and identified Software Asset Management and SAAS as two of the key trends in 2008:

“Next-Generation Asset Management (NGAM) — In 2008, enterprise IT organizations will be faced with increasing demands to run IT like a business. EMA anticipates that this pressure will drive convergence between traditional lifecycle asset management and other IT management disciplines, such as service planning and service portfolio management, chargeback and demand profiling, change and configurationmanagement and capacity planning from a cost perspective.

Software as a Service (SaaS) — In 2008, EMA analysts see the SaaS model continuing to gain momentum as a delivery option for companiesof all sizes. SaaS is forcing companies to re-think their IT goals and objectives to identify utility versus business-enhancing activities,and to make strategic decisions regarding delivery options for each. In this climate, SaaS will become an increasingly attractive optionand EMA expects significant growth in the SaaS marketplace throughout 2008.

Learn more about Software Asset Management and SAManage SaaS IT Asset Management service.

When building an on-demand service such as SAManage, one of the key decisions is where to host your servers and customer data, and how secure that service provider is. At SAManage, we were looking for a hosting partner that has a world class operation, could scale us quickly, and could demonstrate that he has superior security practices in place.

One of our requirements was that the hosting partner we’ll choose could provide a SAS70 report. SAS70 is an auditing standard designed to allow an independent auditor to audit the service organization’s controls, and can then be used to share the auditor’s finding with the service provider’s customers, their auditors, and their customers. Officially labeled “Independent Service Audit Report”, SAS70 is a great way to understand the control environment of service provider, and provides a verification that controls are in place.

If you are worried about security of your data, as many of our customers are, you should inquire if your hosting partner or on-demand provider has a recent SAS70 report. We ended up choosing EngineYard, a great hosting provider with a superior technical team, and yes, they were happy to share their SAS70 report with us.

We are happy to announce that we have launched our new website (www.SAManage.com). The website is packed with information about Software Asset Management and our on-demand service, including a product tour with some of the features that makes SAManage so exciting. Visit the website to learn more.