How does ITIL V4 describe Software Asset Management?

ITIL version 4 was brought to life in 2019 after some changes were made to the ITIL Practitioner version in 2016. The latest version of the best practices in IT service management focused on bringing value to stakeholders, digital transformation, and user experience including approaches such as Lean, Agile, or DevOps.

ITIL V4 is directed by 7 Guiding Principles:

• Focus on Value – everything we do should be directly or indirectly related to the value (for the organization, client, stakeholders),
• Start where you are – see what you already have available, remember to support the observation by measuring,
• Progress interactively with feedback – do not do everything at once, iterate and use feedback to improve,
• Collaborate and promote visibility – cooperate, cooperate, communicate, and put on visibility,
• Think and work holistically – see holistically to understand all parts of service delivery,
• Keep it simple and practical – think practically and focus on the result (Values),
• Optimize and automate - work optimally, uses automation where it is justified from the point of view of providing value.

In version 4, new practice comes up – called IT asset management. The purpose of the IT asset management practice is to plan and manage the full lifecycle of all IT assets, to help the organization:

• maximize value
• control costs
• manage risks
• support decision-making about the purchase, re-use, retirement, and disposal of IT assets
• meet regulatory and contractual requirements.

IT asset management practice is divided into:

IT Asset Management – focuses on the hardware and infrastructure dimension, it uses the register of IT resources.

Software Asset Management - focuses on the aspect of management in terms of the acquisition, development, release, implementation, maintenance, and retirement of software resources

This practice also defines a definition of IT asset types:

• Software / Software licenses,
• Hardware,
• Cloud IT asset.

?These IT assets are going through different lifecycle stages, like:

• IT asset planning and budgeting
• IT asset acquisition
• IT asset assignment (install, move, add, change IMAC)
• IT asset utilization optimization
• IT asset decommission
• IT asset disposal.

Hardware IT asset management and software IT asset management has been part of the ITAM practice from the beginning. In recent years, the demand for cloud platforms has significantly reduced the volume of licenses deployed on physical machines and increased the share of the budget spent on public cloud providers. This fundamental shift involves integrating cloud services into the ITAM practice's scope to avoid a dramatic increase in cloud expenses and software non-compliance.

IT asset planning and budgeting phase for Software Assets

In this phase, Software Asset Managers discuss stakeholders’ needs and based on the market and vendor data, price, and cost model, the managers plan the best method of acquiring a software asset. This is through purchase, upgrade, replacement, subscription, leasing, and so on. This enables budgeting the software asset acquisition with procurement and finance.

IT asset acquisition phase for Software Assets

This stage is triggered by an approved request for procurement. The person responsible for SAM reviews the request and checks the availability of the software assets. If the asset cannot be provided, the acquisition procedure starts.

The optimal use of the existing software assets and that all documentation regarding the purchase should be captured and stored. This includes all artifacts (such as license, maintenance, warranty, support), invoices, proof of purchase, entitlements, license keys, maintenance activation information, and so on.

?As a result of this stage, there should be verified proof of license purchase/entitlement/service subscription, as well as a recorded IT asset with unique identification and other required information.

IT asset assignment phase for Software Assets

This stage is an act of delegating responsibility for a software asset to a consumer for the period of consumption/use. This software asset can be combined with relevant actions like - install, move, add, change.

Software Asset assignment is usually triggered by an approved request for assignment or a detected asset data gap. SAM Manager checks that an available software asset or eligible substitute is in stock, then follows the asset assignment procedures. It may be governed by rules for the movement of asset stocks, bring-your-own-license (BYOL) policies or practical guidance about the installation and use of assets to streamline costs and risks.

IT asset utilization optimization phase for Software Assets

?This stage of the lifecycle includes:

• adapting the stock of licenses to facilitate supplies according to service level agreements (SLAs),
• analyzing software asset characteristics and contracts and proposing practical guidance for optimal usage,
• tracking and assessing the potential impacts of changes to software assets (also changes to hardware which can make an impact at licensing),
• collaborating with the service configuration management practice and others to define and track IT assets’ dependencies and be able to assess risks to the services that the change of IT asset might bring.

?Crucial for good optimization is providing appropriate monitoring procedures for software assets. Additionally, SAM Managers should monitor and action for software asset attributes such as end of contract or support, product/model obsolescence, and expiration dates. Based on this monitoring, they can create requests for procurement, asset decommissioning, or asset assignment to the service request management or change enablement practices.

IT asset decommission phase for Software Assets

This stage is an act of retrieving/recovering software assets from a consumer, particularly through uninstallation (including deletion of data according to security policy) and deciding whether the license should be returned to stock or disposed of (not renewed or subscription cancellation). Software assets are decommissioned based on the request from the service request management or change enablement practices. Other causes could include the end of subscription or hardware changes. Before decommissioning, the asset change impact must be assessed, the decommissioning condition must be verified with potential corrective actions, and a decision should be

IT asset disposal phase for Software Assets

This stage is an act of permanently removing a software asset that is no longer in use in the organization in an appropriate and documented manner. made on reusing or disposing of the asset. During disposal, any contracts or licenses connected to the IT asset should be terminated, including maintenance contracts and relevant financial data should be updated.

Verification and audit

The purpose of this practice is to provide stakeholders with trustworthy data about IT assets, the ITAM practice ensures IT asset data availability and accuracy.

It ensures that the relevant IT assets’ data is captured at each stage of the lifecycle. To do that, IT asset movement record-keeping should be automated where possible.

Key definitions in the practice are:

• Verification - An activity that ensures that a new or changed IT service, process, plan, or other deliverable is complete, accurate, reliable, and matches its design specification
• Inventory - Data collection and clean-up performed to build or verify the IT asset data.
• Discovery - The location and identification of IT assets that may exist in the organization, particularly those that may not have been recorded yet.
• Compliance - The act of ensuring that a standard or set of guidelines is followed, or that proper, consistent accounting or other practices are being employed. In terms of software assets very often related to the verification of proper use licenses according to a signed contract with vendors.
• ?Software assets audit - A planned, structured, and documented inspection of an organization’s software assets, including data collection, examination, verification, and correction activities that may be initiated and upheld by internal or external parties.

Practice Success Factors

?There are two main PSF (Practice Success Factor) in the practice:

• ensuring that the organization has relevant information about its IT assets throughout its lifecycle,
• ensuring that the utilization of IT assets is continually monitored and optimized.

Software Asset Management key interfaces with other Practices

So, as we can see Software Asset Management practice is one of the crucial ones in the whole ITIL, because it’s one of the foundations for all other ITIL practices. Neglecting this practice can bring the organization a lot of risks which can impact very hard to provide effective and optimized services.

If you have any questions or need to develop or organize for SAM Practice in your company reach me at LinkedIn or via mail - [email protected]