What is SAM Automation?

One of the major roles of a Software Asset Management solution is to simplifying the work of SAM and IT professionals through automation. This can be the automation of data collection, reporting, notificationof critical events, and more. This enables employees to focus on more strategic initiatives like the implementation of new technology, licensing and cost optimization, trend analysis for upcoming budget cycles, cost reduction and strategic decisions that will provide the IT team, as well as senior management with powerful data and reporting to enable critical decisions across the business. Xensam’s SAM platform offers advanced automation to make SAM simpler, and more effective. 

Xensam’s Advanced Automation 

These are some of the advances automated capabilities that Xensam’s solution offers: 

• Automated application normalization. Learn more about our market-leading software inventorying here.
• Hardware inventory (primary user and automatic warranty retrieval) 
• User inventory (primary computer, AD info) 
• Organization Structures (build structures based on AD data, computer name, IP, Domain) 
• License allocation (auto allocation of all licenses- no need for VLookup activity in Excel)
• Compliance (prebuilt reports for compliance at vendor, application or organization level)
• Internal invoicing (Cost Center automates cost allocation per org, department or vendor/application)
• Reporting (Almost 150 prebuilt reports)

SAM Software Maintenance Automation 

How much time do you want to spend maintaining your SAM tool? With a traditional on-premise SAM tool you are responsible for all updates and maintenance. This means the upkeep of all connectors, backend servers, agents, components and configurations etc.  

For example, you update the server backend and maybe the agents stop reporting in. You then update all agents and connectors and due to the multiple technologies and parts, the system still doesn’t function, requiring a roll back on all updates.  

Perhaps you use a partner to host your SAM tool. This could mean that you don’t run the latest version, or the partner has updated the server backend and you have older agents, and your agents have ceased providing data. Furthermore, if you want to change your hosting partner, you may have to rebuild your SAM set up from scratch. 

You could compare this with owning a car. You could own a traditional car that is equivalent to your on-premise software solution. You must service it directly or pay a servicing center, which could include repairs and improvements.  This is done approximately once a year and whether it’s a brand-new car or an old car, you’re still paying a significant fee for parts, labor & expertise. The longer you own it the more expensive the services will become.

On the other hand, you could have your software hosted in a third-party datacenter, which is like the vehicle rental model – imagine Hertz or Avis. The problem is that you can’t specify which features or engine the vehicle must have – you only select the class of car for your budget. You may get a BMW 5-series or an Audi A6 but you don’t get to decide if it is diesel/petrol or a hybrid model, and sometimes you want a manual BMW, but you get an automatic Renault. The whole service depends on what the hosting company can deliver based on its technical capabilities and its availability. It’s the same with SAM. What you get depends on the expertise of the vendor and what feature the software product allows to be provided in a third-party hosted environment. 

However, a SaaS solution which is always running the latest version, is like leasing a Tesla. No maintaining, just ongoing updates with new features, improvements and even security fixes every month. The value is significant and ongoing and you never get stuck with old technology. 

Software Recognition/ Software Normalization 

What if you could automate manual tasks that SAM managers or consultants are spending significant time on? For example, validating data or normalizing software, allocating licensing or building outdated reports in excel for compliance? You can read more about the importance of software normalization here: https://xensam.com/resources/blog/the-importance-of-software-normalization/

Hardware

Xensam provides detailed hardware information on which user uses the device, and which organization it belongs to. Refreshingly, due to its SaaS architecture, Xensam automatically retrieves hardware warranty information from HP, Dell and Lenovo devices. This includes start date, end date and warranty type rights out of the box, which drives strong ITAM efficiency. 

Organization Structure 

To support larger or more complex organizations, Organizational Structures are supported to show which computer or user belongs to which business unit and their relationships. Xensam enhances this with Auto Unit Mapping rules that automate much of this process. Simply select the computer and user and what rule should apply to that organization, for example, you could stipulate that all computers with “swe” in computer name should automatically be allocated to a specific Swedish business unit or organization. The system also supports multiple rule assignments, as well as using IP range, domain or AD data. With Xensam, you also have the ability to build three independent organizations: one for compliance and license allocation, one for geographical region and one for internal invoicing and cost center. With Cost Center you can automate internal invoicing per organization, department, per vendor and application. 

License Allocation and Compliance 

For desktop applications like antivirus and productivity applications, for most SAM tools, license allocation is simple and automated in general: one installation means one license. However, for cases such as SQL server or Windows Server in the Data Center, it is much more complex. Multiple license metrics, virtualization rights, hardware data, SA dependencies and minimum requirements. Usually competing products require this analysis to be done in Microsoft Excel, which is time-consuming, and the analysis could be out of date when it is time for renewal, true up or when you get hit by an audit. Xensam’s Data Center feature has automated this process by adding thousands of Product Use Rights, so you can focus on license optimization and cost reduction instead of wasting time on manual tasks. 

Reporting 

Xensam offers hundreds of pre-built standard reports and custom reports – which can be created using your desired data. Share your own custom reports with your team, colleagues or managers direct in Xensam’s Xupervisor portal, or with scheduled report subscriptions for anyone in your organization. Reporting is one of the most important parts of a SAM solution as essential business data will need to be shared with different teams, divisions and stake holders in the business. Xensam provides multiple groups of reports, including vendor specific reports, compliance, cost savings, optimization, cloud, hardware, specific application reports, contract, license and organizational reports.