Rock-Solid Inventory with Software Discovery Tools
Software Asset Management is like a wheel with spokes. You have data coming in from everywhere, and you need to connect those parts together. It’s essential to see every cloud service, software installation, and IT system. If you have the right software discovery in place, those tools and processes are part of your SAM success story for managing licenses.
Top 3 Checklist for Software Discovery Tools
Scan every data source
Get built-in data connectors to every device such as cloud services, servers, and virtual machines
Gather all license data
Reliable data will leads to reliable insights about your software and cloud usage
Integrate tools and IT
The tools must integrate with your SAM platform and the larger IT environment
Scan every data source and device
Today’s IT environment is often a mix of software used in the cloud and software that’s installed on-premises. Sometimes your software will be “hybrid” and located in both places, so you’re looking for both installations running on a computer and when people have logged online. Your software discovery tools must talk to every device and machine that tell the story of how your applications and services are being used.
- Classic discovery tools that scan physical servers and employee computers
- Server discovery tools that scan virtual servers and all of their partitions
- Cloud monitoring tools that pull data directly from cloud service portals
- Agent-based and agentless tools that collect the data using specific technical methods
Gather software and cloud license data
So what data is gathered? It’s all the inventory information that shows how your software is being used in cloud services and on hardware devices. This lets you calculate what services and products you really need, and compare to what you’re actually paying to license. It’s mission-critical to know that all the data is gathered such as:
Integrate your software discovery tools
You don’t want gaps in the data transfer. It’s essential for your software discovery tools to integrate with every important IT system -- such as procurement, virtual machine management, and mobile device management -- and even other discovery tools. Here is why:
- Procurement systems show the software you’ve paid for through central IT purchasing
- Virtual machine systems show which VMs are running, how they’re partitioned, and what software is on them
- Mobile device systems show the apps installed and allowed on each phone, laptop, and tablet
- Cloud metering tools and cloud usage tools show the activity in each cloud service portal
How Aspera does rock-solid discovery
We ensure you have great data
Once you’ve collected the software data, it’s essential to make it relevant for managing your software licenses. That’s why the Aspera platform filters your important data, removes unneeded data, and fixes missing data.
Connectors are our secret sauce
Aspera platforms have built-in connectors that talk to every important IT system and data source. We integrate with every software discovery tool, cloud monitoring tool, and device management system.
Have tools already? We work with them
If you’re a large company, then you probably have discovery tools already installed. Most likely, there’s a gap in the data they gather. At Aspera, we help you find those gaps and get all the information.
Talk with our expert team
In nearly two decades of doing Software Asset Management, we’ve learned that it’s best to find the right tools for your data, instead of asking your data to fit our tools. We focus our time and talents on building the best SAM solution, and adding software discovery tools that fill your data gap. We analyze the discovery tools you already have. Then we figure out how to make that data stronger, and design a full solution for your data sourcing and discovery.
