IT Management in the Clouds with SAAS

Here is a nice article about clouds and IT management published by our friends at WebWhile.

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IT Management in the Clouds with SAAS.

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, 24x7.

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.

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Credits to Dror Gliksman, online technology and marketing specialist at webwhile inc.

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Automatic classification of computers and virtual machines.

SAManage got some extra brainpower last week with the addition of Computer Asset Intelligence ("AI"). With the new AI capabilities, SAManage will now analyze each new computer that subscribes to the service and categorize it by physical and virtual types including workstations, laptops, servers and virtual machines.

The new AI makes it easier for IT Administrators to identify, track and manage IT assets across your network. You can now easily verify that your asset allocation is in line with your policy (for example, that your engineering team is using workstations and not laptops, and your servers are not running any productivity suites). You can easily audit your physical and virtual assets at any time and track all the virtual machines used across your network.

Tracking usage and proper licensing of virtual machines ("VM") is a huge challenge for IT Asset Managers: with VM's, each user can create and launch his own VM and run multiple VM's on his local computer. According to many of the software vendor's license agreements, these VM's still have to be properly licensed for the operating system and (many of the) server products they run - new VM, new license. S0 now instead of a single license we have to track multiple licenses on a single computer, and account for these VM's as part of our inventory even though they may or may not be running on a regular basis.

SAManage can now make your job easier by tracking all your VM assets (including servers that are running one or more VM's). The virtual machines supported are:

• EMC's VMware (both virtual machines and servers running virtual machines)
• Microsoft's Virtual PC
• Citrix XenSource
• SWsoft (Parallels)
• Virtual Iron

We tested the new capabilities over the past few weeks and refined the asset intelligence algorithms to make them more accurate and support most common hardware configurations. If there is anything we have missed, please let us know.

Take the product tour to learn more about the new capabilities or sign-up for a free trail and see how simple it is to manage your IT Assets with SAManage.

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Asset classifications and new ways to account for your IT assets

The latest release of SAManage adds a great way to classify and manage your assets:

1. Classify assets based on their status (operational, loaner, disposed, in-repair and more).
2. Assign assets to organizational units (both sites and departments).
3. Assign a technical owner to an asset.

Coupled with the asset categories (marking an asset as a laptop, server, workstation and more), you can now classify and manage your assets based on their actual usage across your company:


As you set the status of your assets you can generate reports and online views to search for assets with a certain status, for example all the assets that are currently in-repair, assets that were disposed or simply get a listing of all your laptops.

You can assign each asset to a site or department, and generate reports to view assets that are physically located in any of your sites or departments. Now you can easily tell how many laptops are being used by each of your teams, reassign assets between teams or decide to dispose your older assets (and know which team will be impacted). These features provide a great way to manage and account for all your assets, understand how they are being utilized across your company, and easily audit all your assets at any time. Time to ramp up your asset management program - click here to sign up for a FREE 30-days trial.

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5 Tips for getting started with IT Asset Management

1. Set goals - what is it that you are looking to achieve with your new IT Asset Management program? This can be an effort to improve support resolution, respond to an audit request, or simply a need to know which assets you have across your networks. Set the goals and targets for your program so you could measure how your ITAM efforts are progressing.

2. Get buy-in from the business side - ITAM is a business process, so get a buy-in from the business side of the house. Communicate your plan with senior management and get their support for the process and the investment, and make sure they are actively involved with exploring the improvement opportunities (for example, renegotiate your maintenance contracts, reassign assets or modify your IT usage policies). An ITAM program is probably not going to help improve your company's income, but it will most likely drive significant cost saving and help improve your IT efficiency - set your management expectation accordingly.

3. Prepare for the long term - ITAM is an ongoing process and not a onetime event. Your business and your IT systems are constantly changing and keeping them aligned is an ongoing effort. An effective ITAM program requires ongoing review to allow you to maximize the value of the program. On the bright side, the ongoing nature of an ITAM program is a source for a constant flow of improvement opportunities (cost saving or procedure wise) which you could adopt to extract even more value from your assets. Examples includes reassigning licenses, reducing help-desk resolution time, and detecting risks to your IT asset such as missing security patches or illegal software, as well as risks to your business such as insufficient software licenses.

4. Pick a tool and automate what you can. Once you define the goals and requirements for your ITAM program, pick a tool that would support your requirements and fit your environment. If your company has many branches and remote employees, or your network architecture is very complex, you need to consider a tool that can easily adjust to it. Look for a tool that will support your ongoing efforts, help detect improvement opportunities, and will not create a significant administrative overhead (we want to manage assets, not manage more-tools-to-manage-assets). Lastly, make sure you try the tool in your own environment before you commit to it.

5. Establish a baseline - an accurate baseline of your assets is the foundation of a successful ITAM program. Your baseline should include an accurate inventory of your PC's (including physical locations and users), installed software, printers and financial records such as contracts and software licenses that your company owns. Once you have established a baseline, a proper tool (see #4) and the right mindset (see #3) will help you keep your inventory accurate so you could gain long-term value from your newly deployed ITAM program.

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New feature: New software installed in the last week

This week's release introduces a new feature that easily shows which new software titles were installed across your entire network in the last few days.

The new view is available in the Inventory Module under the Software section, and provides a selection of software installed in the last 7 days, 14 days or the last month. This view is a great way to easily learn what software your users are installing, and verify its in compliance with your policies.

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Introducing the new Dashboard

The hub of your information:

Computers - how many computers you have across your network? what operating system do they run? how many where added in the last week and who is getting on your network? Easily drill down to view each computer configuration and better control your computer inventory.

Software - what software is used across your company? view the top 10 software titles installed and used in your company.

Risks - a quick snapshot of your open risks - take action today to remove these risks and better protect your assets.

Licenses - easily organize your software license, know when they expire and better prepare for your renewal negotiations.


Try SAManage today! Sign up for a FREE 30-days trial.

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Enhancing Security with SSL encryption

In an ongoing effort to improve our security practices, the SAManage IT Asset Management service was recently upgraded to include SSL encryption for the entire online session. This means that everything you do with SAManage is protected using 256 bit SSL encryption. You can note the padlock icon in your browser and the HTTPS prefix in the address bar when using the SAManage service.



Learn more about our privacy and security practices, or email us with any questions at support@samanage.com - we are at your service.

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