Are SAM tools ready for the cloud?

Best practice

Are SAM tools ready for the cloud?

The ITAM Review team attended the European version of Gartner’s ITAM Summit in London last week for great networking and ITAM and IT procurement led presentations.

Gartner Analyst Stewart Buchanan led an interesting session on the future of SAM tools where he argued that the future was about control and not inventory.

I enjoy Stewart Buchanan’s presentations, in fact one of Stewart’s provocative rants a few years ago led to the Campaign for Clear Licensing being formed.

https://twitter.com/itammartin/status/512544502880673792

It got me thinking about the gaps in current SAM tools when it comes to Cloud based software. I agree with Stewart that Inventory is just about discovering potential liabilities – the future is about controlling things on the front end before they are consumed.

I think there is a gaping great hole in the capabilities of current SAM tools when it comes to managing cloud-based software (See table below).

Specifically, leading SAM tools have begun to track cloud based usage via their installed agents. But this only tells half of the story – what if I’m accessing cloud based systems via personal, corporate and other devices – Identity Management will be really useful here (use case: HR notifies IT to remove an AD account because of Staff leaving, AD removal also removes 15 passwords and cloud based services and re-harvests users via a SAM tool. Optimization, good governance, and efficient spend don’t go away with the cloud.)

This week’s trend is user-based licensing, the future will have many more. Will user based licensing capture enough revenue for software publishers in a Internet of Things world? Internet connected devices are already outnumbering humans (much like rats and sheep) – if in the future I want to sync my office diary with my car, fridge, fitness band and home energy system (you never know), will I need a license for all of those things?

Also noteworthy from the two-day summit was a session on Cloud contracts and governance from Martin Prendergast.

"Balance is required between availability, ease of admin and compliance" SAM needs to be workable. Martin Prendergast, Concorde #GartnerITAM

— The ITAM Review (@itamreview) September 17, 2014

Do risk & waste disappear with cloud? No. Martin Prendergast of Concorde exploring the concept of 'shelfware as a service' #GartnerITAM

— The ITAM Review (@itamreview) September 17, 2014

Martin provided a useful session on the risks of cloud contracts and recommendations for good governance. These included:

• Price caps on cloud contracts
• SLA’s must be meaningful with workable penalties associated with them (financial)
• Make measurement periods for SLAs match billing
• Options to cancel for repeated breaches
• Remove onus on customer to report penalties
• Stop contract terms being charged at short notice
• Confirm support fees

Thanks to our friends at Gartner for inviting us. See you again in 2015.

The @itamreview team at #GartnerITAM @itammartin @Practical_ITAM @margorfly pic.twitter.com/LfHDcmufhz

— Glenn Thompson (@GlennThompson79) September 17, 2014

Can’t find what you’re looking for?