|
|
What is Asset Management, really?
Asset Management is becoming a modern buzz word – whether
it applies to the co-ordination of a multi-million Euro portfolio
of stocks, a programme designed to allow football managers to
retain their star players, or to provide the proper administration
and management of an IT network.
Among the latest incarnations are Digital Asset Management
– the centralised management of digitised images and
sound; and Digital Rights Management (DRM) – referring
to the protection of licensing and authoring rights for multimedia
such as music and video.
In the IT world, asset management refers to compiling and maintaining
a record of a company’s complete IT infrastructure –
from floppy disk drives in desktop PCs through to servers and
storage.
Today, this process can be automated for any piece of hardware
or software that is connected to a network, with a variety of
commercial tools available to provide information from the serial
numbers of hard drives, through to the version number of the
software driver for a network printer.
Some asset management solutions deliver their information to
business operation applications such as SAP, and can provide
help-desks with on-demand configuration information, to help
solve end-user problems.
Other applications, such as LOGINventory, combine this functionality
with advanced license and system management data, providing
information such as an overview of which users still need to
install software service packs, and also tracking which users
run software packages – and how often.
An increasing number of users are leveraging this business information
in asset management, not only to ensure license compliance,
but also to highlight potential cost savings, by reducing instances
of over-licensing.
In fact, companies deploying LOGINventory have found, on average,
that they can reduce software ownership costs by up to 30 per
cent – simply by paying only for the number of licenses
they actually need, rather than maintaining costly and unnecessary
site licenses.
These figures are supported by research from the Gartner Group,
which states that through proper asset management, companies
can save up to 30 per cent of IT costs, through measures that
include the avoidance of over- and under-licensing.
Some asset management software, such as LOGINventory, also automates
the process of collecting more obscure information about both
software and hardware, such as highlighting barely-used PCs
and peripherals, providing a rundown on whether the latest software
service packs are installed, and the number of people who regularly
use specific software packages.
This data can help organisations to streamline IT management
costs, by allowing the switch from site-wide licenses to individual
licenses for specialist software applications, and by identifying
redundant hardware that can be redeployed elsewhere.
At Schmidt’s LOGIN, our customers have been able to take
affirmative action to reduce the complexity of their IT infrastructure,
simply by being able to obtain an overview of everything connected
to their network. This knowledge is particularly important in
planning migration projects, since running the software in advance
of making any changes provides an almost-instant snapshot of
the infrastructure’s readiness – from processor
speed of desktop machines, through to a comprehensive summary
of all the software installed, across the network.
Our customers also tell us they have rapidly identified and
eradicated irregularities and unnecessary duplications within
their networks: a task that becomes more complex over time,
as IT infrastructures grow. These savings have enabled our customers
to update their networks, whilst adhering to existing budget
constraints, simply by reallocating resources and eradicating
unnecessary expenditure.
Schmidt’s LOGIN offers a 20-client license version of
LOGINventory as a free download from its website, www.loginventory.com,
and offers sliding-scale licensing for larger networks –
equating to around €4 per PC for a network of 2000 PCs.
Roland Lötzerich
Managing Director LOGIN GmbH
|
Flyer (PDF)
Screenshots
Webinterface
Download
Version History
Support
Shop
Contact
German
LOGINventory