Software Asset Management

Three Steps to Software License Compliance

Minimize the workload needed to achieve compliance by using the advanced recognition and reconciliation capabilities in this toolset. The process broadly falls into the following three steps.

• Discover the entire network and remove unwanted software
• Import the MLS statement and purchase orders, then match off against recognized software
• Use Built in Compliance reports and license or uninstall underlicensed software

The compliance process begins as soon as the implementation of discovery or the SCCM integration component is complete. Sources of software ownership evidence, including MLS statements, purchasing records, and accounting entries, are loaded into the system and normalized. The user can then start to match off purchases against existing infrastructure and discoveries to establish the software licensing compliance position.

Availability

xAssets Software Asset Management is incorporated with the following solutions:

xAssets Network Discovery is a leading edge discovery tool for discovering medium and large networks. It does not use agents, is very fast to run and has no impact on endpoints.

xAssets IT Asset Management is a full lifecycle IT Asset Management solution. This also includes Software Asset Management functionality as part of the core product.

xAssets Software Discovery Service is a 60 day service to enable companies to quickly establish their Software License Compliance position.

These products are designed to meet the scalability needs and extensive configuration requirements of very large enterprises, while also delivering the needs of Medium Size Enterprises with zero or minimal configuration.

Benefits

• Discover software installed on PCs across the network
• Analyse software installed on PCs across the network
• Import software license purchases
• Match software license purchases against usage on the network
• Group licenses into license pools
• Manage support agreements and other software related contracts
• Purchase software licenses in advance of going underlicensed
• Receive notifications when a user installs software
• Remove unauthorised software installations, freeing up licenses
• Reduce support incidents

Features

• Automatically recognize incoming software titles from publisher spreadsheets such as the MLS statement
• Classification of software according to risk, importance and licensing
• Import software license purchases and match off against discovered titles
• Discovery is fast and very low bandwidth and nothing is installed on desktops
• Assign software licenses to specific PC's
• Standardised reports on compliance position are part of the core product
• Adapt the system through configuration to your specific requirements
• Integration with SCCM, SMS, Active Directory and other products
• Email alerts

Information Collected

The discovery processes uses a wide variety of discovery techniques to collect Software information from assets across the network including the following:

• Operating Systems Version and Edition
• Sql Server Discovery and Licensing Model Identification
• AutoRun entries from Local User and System Registry
• Software is discovered and identified from executable file headers AND from registry entries
• Services running on both Servers and Desktops
• Antivirus software is recognized and classified
• Detailed Hardware Asset Information including Monitors, VM Hosts and Devices

Software Recognition in xAssets Network Discovery and in xAssets IT Asset Management is complemented by a manual recognition process. We receive unrecognized software lists from customers on a regular basis, and these items are manually investigated by our staff and added to the software recognition database. xAssets feeds software recognition data to your local installation or hosted installation on a regular basis, so unrecognized software is always dealt with in a timely and efficient manner.