Microsoft's SMS™ is one of the most widely used electronic software delivery systems available today. As part of the task to deploy software, SMS collects a detailed hardware and software inventory from the endpoints where the SMS client is installed. The inventory data is used for effective targeting of software delivery for updates and additions to any asset that has the SMS agent on it. This inventoried data is frequently used as the starting point for software asset management. However, applying the business intelligence necessary to properly analyze the inventory data can be a costly and time-consuming process. In organizations with thousands of assets, the collection of software data to support business analysis can be difficult and time consuming.

Organizations choose a unique mix of software to conduct the business of the enterprise and to manage the internal workings of the enterprise. In the environments where SMS is a key contributor to network management, the product can work cooperatively with other products or provide data to another application. The choices for continuing to improve software asset management and achieve significant business goals with SMS can take a variety of paths, depending on the needs and goals of the organization.

The traditional choice for expanding SAM functionality is to bring in another product designed specifically for the in-depth discovery and inventory required for the business and contractual management of software. SMS may be in the background of software asset management and used only for software packaging and delivery and hardware management.

Another choice is to select an additional product that works cooperatively with SMS so that the functionality of SMS data collection is utilized and enhanced. The ideal choice would be a discovery and inventory product focused on IT asset management and yet with the capability to incorporate the SMS data collection, either as the complete source or as an adjunct to additional data collection that the product may offer. True integration would allow customer choice on what agent to use plus collecting the data into a single, easy to use set of results.

What if the organization is satisfied with the extent of data and the coverage of the SMS deployment within the organization, but has great difficulty keeping up with the license status for all the software? The problem in this situation is completing the task of software license reconciliation, where inventory data is compared and assessed against purchasing data. With only a repository tool to help, where “ownership” information is manually added or accumulated over time, the hard task of scrubbing inventory data into units that relates to licenses remains. The original time and resource issues drive the organization to investigate other options, even if replacing SMS as the discovery product is not a choice.

In this case, a product that can transform inventory data AND purchase data into comparable representations of licenses would be an enormous success factor for software asset management.

Organizations that choose to integrate SMS with Eracent's discovery and inventory product improve their patch management capabilities through the specificity and breadth of the software elements that are reportable with EnterpriseAM. With the integration of EnterpriseAM and SMS to create a seamless, automated process for the deployment life cycle, consider these improvements to the patch management process:

• Targeting machines which require specific SMS bundles
• Feeding SMS with accurate information for automated deployment
• Reporting the results of actual installation success after SMS deployment
  
  
  

Coordinated efforts between SMS and EnterpriseAM enhance the SAM capabilities by providing detailed, timely and highly accurate software asset inventory reports, expanding the scope of the data and the potential for real-time scans. Enhancements to network processes with SMS and EnterpriseAM include improved patch management capabilities as well as adding value to software asset management. Some of the advantages are:

• SMS package deployments can be targeted to PC's by SMS ID in real time
• SMS package deployment status and reports are available in real time
• EnterpriseAM™ inventories computers on slow dialup connections and remote devices, even in a wireless LAN environment
• EnterpriseAM will detect duplicated SMS ID's
• EnterpriseAM maintains an inventory and history of every active software file existing on the enterprise network
• EnterpriseAM can target PC's /Servers for security patch updates.
• EnterpriseAM has enhanced serial number and WMI support
• EnterpriseAM provides a complete Web Based reporting process
• EnterpriseAM Integrates UNIX, LINUX data into the SMS database and process.

With EnterpriseEM, SMS data is successfully transformed, along with purchasing data, into accurate software license reconciliation with less time and effort.

The collaboration between SMS and Eracent's products is a powerful addition to managing the IT environment in any organization.