SAManage IT Management Blog

Today’s modern IT infrastructure is dynamic and rapidly changing, and a typical computer inventory is constantly evolving: new computers are acquired and provisioned, old computers are disposed, employees are hired (need a new computer) or terminated (need to reformat and reassign their old computer) and external parties are granted access to your network. Assets are being sent to repair and maintenance and aging computers are disposed. Even the increasing popularity of virtualization is bringing new complexities to asset management (Virtual Machines are easily created, launched, terminated and disposed, and many customers are debating whether they should track them as part of asset management).

Your IT Asset Management system should be flexible enough and accommodate for your infrastructure changes so that you can stay on top of your inventory and know the status of your assets. That’s why we are introducing a couple of new features that makes it easier to manage your dynamic asset inventory:

Scavenging - provides the ability to remove obsolete duplicate computers from your inventory. Since there is no automatic way to define an obsolete asset we have added a new “duplicate” view under the Workstation Inventory section, and included a number of filters such as “by Mac Address”, “Mac Address & Computer name” and a couple of other to help you seek for scavenging opportunities in your inventory. Simply use the view to go through the duplicate entries listed and remove old assets from the inventory. When you select an asset for removal, the asset status will change to “duplicate” or “disposed” based on your selection.

Disposing - when you dispose old assets or no longer wish to track an existing asset (for example, you no longer wish to track your Virtual Machines or Network Attached Storage), simply mark the asset as “disposed” (under workstation -> asset status change to “dispose”).

When an asset is marked as duplicate or disposed it is excluded from your summary reports, dashboards and your asset counts. SAManage will no longer scan that asset for risks or correlate the software installed on that asset against your licensing records. However, for audit purposes and to provide for an easy way to “undo” your disposals, you can still find all your previously disposed and duplicate assets by going to the Workstation Inventory -> “view by Asset Status” and using a filter to view duplicates or disposed assets.

As always, please let us know what you think and ideas to improve. Happy scavenging.

SAManage Launches New Salesforce.com AppExchange Application for IT Contract Management

Application provides a one-stop solution for managing IT contracts and software licenses within Salesforce.com

SEATTLE, WA, August 28, 2008 – SAManage, a leading provider of on-demand (SaaS) IT Management services, today announced the general availability of SAManage IT Contract Management for users of Salesforce.com. Offered as a free AppExchange application, SAManage IT Contract Management allows companies to incorporate the management of IT contracts, software licenses, and subscriptions into the Salesforce.com environment. Built on Salesforce.com’s Force.com platform, the application provides an easy-to-use, innovative way to organize and track IT contracts, including software licenses, SaaS subscriptions, and ISP and hosting services.

SAManage IT Contract Management for Salesforce.com makes it easy to manage software licenses and IT contracts from within Salesforce.com, allowing users to upload their existing contracts and software licenses, enter the details of contract terms, and track purchases made as part of each contract. Users can also store copies of actual contracts and licenses for future reference, add items and purchase records, and create renewal reminders that generate alerts as contracts become due for renewal. With these capabilities embedded in the Salesforce.com environment, IT departments can better control operational costs, ensure software license compliance, and streamline contract renewals.

Salesforce.com users can use the IT Contract Management for Salesforce.com to organize:

1. Software licenses – track software licenses, titles, quantities, and specific upgrade rights, and ensure all software used is properly licensed
2. SaaS and subscription services – such as their email hosting, remote backup, and their Salesforce.com contract
3. Hardware and equipment leases – including terms and products leased under a master lease schedule
4. Service and repair warranties – track Service Level Agreements (SLA) and support policies

SAManage IT Contract Management for Salesforce.com is available for FREE via Salesforce.com AppExchange. It is the latest addition to a suite of integrated and secured on-demand products provided by SAManage that helps companies better manage their IT assets, lower operational costs, improve user productivity, and ensure compliance and governance. The complete SAManage IT Management suite is available via the SAManage website at www.SAManage.com.

Salesforce.com’s Force.com platform reinvents the traditional development, deployment and distribution of any business application. Developers, customers and partners can use Force.com to easily create and deliver a new generation of Software-as-a-Service applications. Force.com allows applications to be easily shared, exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks via the Force.com AppExchange marketplace, enabling all the innovation that Force.com unleashes to be easily distributed to the entire Software-as-a-Service community.

Undoubtedly, IT Management is changing. Not so long ago, an IT manager’s success was tied to the number of workstations or servers he was managing in his company’s datacenter. They would brag about the size of their network to their peers, on job interviews, and they would use the large and growing number of computers as an excuse for more human resources and an increasing budget. Network management power was equivalent to professional respect. I swear that I’ve heard this line countless times: “You want me to manage what? I am already managing 87 servers 458 pc’s, storage backup and firewalls, in our network! I’ll need three more technicians and another twelve PCs to fulfill your request professionally. Oh – and I can’t guarantee you’ll be satisfied with the results.”

But those were the old days, when the idea of ROI (return on investment) seemed to skip over the IT department budget requirements. Looking back, less than a decade later, such an attitude looks distant and ridiculous. Today, good IT management is judged on its ability to achieve results with as little as possible. With economic and competitive pressures mounting, IT management needs to run efficiently. Even terms such as collocation and web hosting from the ASP era seems to be absolute. Today, the weight has shifted and IT managers boast about the number of applications and services being served to their firm and how they have minimized expenditures.

This IT Management evolution was all made possible due the maturity of SAAS, (Software as a Service), going main stream. Over the last years we have experienced an escalation of applications migrating from the desktop to the Internet. Apparently, the physical conditions of both the Internet and network infrastructure have matured enough and made the economic option of SAAS the obvious solution.

First of all, it’s always about the numbers. Now, organizations can question whether it is sensible to purchase, configure, host, maintain, air condition, and backup. Suddenly, worrying about application software and hardware is optional. Alternatively, for a fraction of the cost, a company can “rent” applications remotely using a PC browser or a cellular browser and they can do this anywhere and any time, 24×7.

An additional key factor elevating SAAS solutions beyond the ASP approach is the advancements in available infrastructure. Grid-like cloud computing is virtually infinite. Now, solution providers can readily follow pioneers such as SalesForce or even Google and “SaaS” their offering. More computing power is available to your company at a moments notice when business prospers and grows. This makes expenses linear and profits more predictable. SaaS has redefined scalability. Therefore, in most SaaS scenarios, pricing to the end consumers makes more sense because it is tied directly to consumption meters such as usage volume and allocated resources per client. In parallel, bandwidth has become cheaper and wider for companies and their roaming employees.

Thirdly, economic mood swings and a competitive business environment have made ROI the new king of the block. The macro-economic implications of this trend can be even far greater than what appears on the surface. As the growth of SaaS is taking off, is it possible that we will see the thin client vision making a comeback? Even desktops can get skinnier if processing is done in the SaaS’s clouds. This could result in a slowdown in the race for processing power and might even challenge Moor’s laws economically.

One of the most interesting up and coming companies positioned to successfully leverage the SaaS computing trends is SAManage, a startup company in the IT Asset Management space. SAManage uses the cloud computing environment to deliver on-demand, SaaS-based, IT Asset Management and inventory tracking to companies around the world. In a recent conversation with the SAManage CEO, Doron Gordon, I asked him about his strategy, given the changing landscape of the traditional IT environment and the new challenges facing IT managers. “It seems, on one hand that IT managers lives are getting easier, but unfortunately that’s a false assumption. Yes, it’s true there will be less hardware to manage, but managing SaaS contracts, licenses and SLA’s smartly and efficiently, while controlling the financial and legal aspects and enforcing usage policy, are the new challenges that the IT manager will be facing.” Doron continues, “With ROI being the holy grail of IT management today, SAManage’s focus is on providing the manager the tools to achieve that.”

Clearly, the new IT Manager needs to make ROI calculations continuously. And guess what — they don’t teach you that in engineering schools! Looking through the clouds, it seems that companies hiring CTOs will be looking for applicants with CFO experience.

Credits to Dror Gliksman, online technology and marketing specialist at Internet Marketing Company webwhile.

Online IT Management Software

Discover how on-demand IT Management software from SAManage can help you gain instant visibility into your assets and improve your service levels. Sign up for a free trial today.