The ongoing pandemic has caused organizations to shift to a more flexible and hybrid work environment. The adoption of a hybrid work model creates inevitable challenges for IT departments to manage technology assets.

Historically, under a pre-pandemic lifestyle, legacy assets would have been classified as on-premises data center servers, desktop PCs, network equipment, and other traditional hardware found in an office. As employees work less from the office and more from home and other remote locations, this has placed more reliance on cloud, SaaS, and virtual resources. This means the legacy definition of technology assets needs to evolve and include an entire range of technology not previously thought of from the perspective of IT, such as personal devices used in the enterprise.

IT Asset Management (ITAM) is a set of processes that are used to manage IT assets across the various business lines of an organization. As the concept of technology management broadens, so do the visibility and security issues related to it.

In today’s scenario, organizations’ IT management infrastructure is determined by the tools and processes used to manage the various assets: hardware (ITAM), software (software asset management or SAM), SaaS and cloud (infrastructure and SaaS management tools), mobile devices (mobile device management or MDM), and IoT (Internet of Things).

Traditionally, the enterprise has used a compartmentalized approach to manage these different technology stacks. This often includes using inefficient legacy systems that are highly specialized to individual needs, ultimately making upgrades difficult as new versions become available.

Furthermore, the rapidly expanding range of network-enabled devices in such varied fields as medical, transportation, manufacturing, and education, are all now part of a rapidly evolving and expanding IT infrastructure that must be tracked, managed and secured. IT asset managers have never worked in an environment with this many varieties, speeds, and sizes of assets to manage. And it’s not getting easier.

Along with more technology having to be managed, the increasing adoption of the cloud and SaaS has also accelerated due to more employees not working in traditional office locations. The expectation, however, is that IT departments must still be able to deliver the same level of infrastructure support that was previously provided in an office setting. This inherently makes IT’s job exponentially more difficult, and more importantly, it creates a vast expansion in the potential attack surface.

The risks associated with a hybrid framework are wide, with infrastructure management, security, compliance, and productivity constituting the most significant threats.

Don’t be surprised if software piracy surges in Russia. The growing blockade on certain tech inside Russia has prompted the Kremlin to consider lifting criminal penalties on digital piracy, according to Russian media.

The Kommersant reports that Russian authorities have discussed suspending criminal and administrative liabilities when it comes to using unlicensed software from countries that have imposed harsh sanctions on Russia.

According to the Kommersant, Russia could legalize the software piracy by citing Article 1360 of the country’s civil code, which allows the government to use an invention or industrial design without the creator’s permission during emergency situations.

Russian news website ANCB.ru also posted a draft plan from the Kremlin that outlines the measures it can take to protect the country’s economy in response to US and European sanctions. Under section 6.7.3, the plan notes “canceling” liabilities for unlicensed software through Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development.

Embracing software privacy could help Russia address the exodus of tech firms from the country in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. Microsoft, Adobe, Autodesk and gaming developers such as Electronics Arts and CD Projekt RED have all left the market. Others such as Apple, Intel, AMD, and Nvidia have stopped chip and hardware sales to the country.

According to the Business Software Alliance, Russia had a piracy rate of 62% in 2017 across software installs for an estimated commercial value of $1.2 billion. Since then, the tech industry has been moving to a subscription model for many products, which rely on a constant connection to the cloud. So piracy won’t be able to bootleg every software experience.

IT asset management has bedeviled CIOs and CFOs for years. The infamous “black box” of IT spending has kept most CFOs and CIOs from truly understanding what their technology budgets buy.

From a technology perspective, tracking IT assets should not be that difficult.

Network monitoring and cybersecurity tools can tell when a device connects or disconnects from a corporate network. Software vendors can uncover the total number of licenses in use, and automated asset discovery tools can scan for equipment unseen by IT.

If the use of personal devices is prohibited, all of these efforts are made that much easier since every purchase should go through procurement or the accounting department. And, if a CIO lacks the in-house resources, most of these services can be obtained through a managed service provider.

For Rob Zahn, CIO of AAA of Ohio — who manages a small data center and over 500 corporate-owned devices spread out over 34 regional offices plus a fleet of service vehicles — all of these approaches apply, as well as using standard images on new machines and conducting yearly security audits.

When Microsoft Windows NT was still around, the first version of which was released in 1993, AAA of Ohio conducted an audit looking for deployments of the operating system. “We thought, ‘Nah, we don’t have any NT PCs or anything around’,” he said. “And sure enough, after Microsoft did that first scan, we found an NT PC.”

There is no certainty, “but I feel very good about where we are at and what our assets are and how we track them,” he said.

Not all CIOs are in as good a position as Zahn, said Sandi Conrad, an infrastructure and operations analyst at Info-Tech Research Group. Just 64% of respondents have effective asset management programs in place, based on a InfoTech survey slated set for publication later this quarter.

In celebration of all of the ‘Women in Tech’ this month, our own SAM Director and expert May Turnbull was invited to join TBSC in their recent #SmarterCloudTalk Podcast to talk about being a woman in the IT industry and SAM space, as well as share some of her pearls of wisdom.

May has been a member of the EasySAM team for 11 years now and spends most of her days advising clients on how to gain the best from their software investment but also managing the EasySAM business. Through well-earned experience May shares some hints and tips on how to navigate the world of tech and how to progress successfully through the industry.

Why not grab a coffee and listen in?

Software asset management firm Snow Software Inc. is expanding its capabilities with the acquisition of hybrid cloud management company called Embotics Corp. for an undisclosed price.

Sweden-based Snow Software provides what it calls “technology intelligence,” giving enterprises more complete visibility into their on-premises information technology infrastructure. The company said customers can optimize both their spending and the way they use different technology assets, manage risk and compliance issues and improve overall productivity.

Embotics sells “platform-neutral” hybrid cloud management software that helps automatically provision infrastructure, reduce costs and ensure governance across private, public and multicloud environments. The company might not be that well-known, but some of its customers, including the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration and HBO, certainly are.

The two companies plan to combine their platforms to provide chief intelligence officers with an “integrated perspective” of their entire technology stack. In turn, that should enable them to tackle use cases that require insights into both their on-premises and cloud IT environments. Examples include cloud migration planning, hybrid cloud cost management and Bring-Your-Own-License optimization, the companies said.

451 Research Inc. analyst William Fellows said hybrid and multicloud strategies are becoming increasingly common as enterprises strive to balance digital transformation initiatives with their day-to-day business operations.

“Workloads now span public cloud, private cloud and legacy on-premises environments, and that mix is constantly changing to address the needs of the business,” Fellows said. “With Snow’s acquisition of Embotics, the market will benefit from the combination of their respective strengths on-prem and in the cloud, most notably when it comes to solving the unique challenges of hybrid environments.”

Snow Software, the global leader in technology intelligence solutions, today announced a new suite of offerings to better empower customers to address their growing IT operations, cloud shift and digital transformation challenges. This new set of offerings is aligned to strategic business outcomes, providing customers with product choices that will better meet their unique needs now and in the future.

“The market has evolved to a point where simply managing software, hardware or cloud services as singular elements creates limited value for organizations,” said Vishal Rao, President and CEO at Snow. “Customers want a complete view of their technology ecosystem as they launch digital transformation initiatives, migrate key services to the cloud, optimize cloud spend and manage risk. Snow’s new technology intelligence suite uniquely addresses these changing needs by building on our expertise as a leading software asset management provider while simplifying our offering to better align with business outcomes. Today’s announcement sets the foundation for future innovation, not only for Snow but also for our customers as they continue to adapt to an everchanging technology landscape.”

The rapid adoption of cloud technologies has broken down traditional siloes, allowing organizations to implement a mixture of software, hardware, SaaS and IaaS solutions that have accelerated their business performance. This shift to the cloud and hybrid technologies has also introduced new challenges, ranging from application sprawl to compliance risks, putting a premium on the ability to quickly understand and efficiently operate across the entire technology ecosystem. As IT teams confront these challenges, Snow is evolving its platform to place complete visibility and manageability at its core, and better serve the new realities and potentials of the digital enterprise.

With Snow’s new product suite, customers will be able to:

This week, organizations far and wide are stressing quite a bit about the General Data Protection Regulation, which we’ve written about many times over here at Associations Now, including an overview of how associations have been preparing for the May 25 compliance deadline and a report last week on how the regulation may improve trust between organizations and their constituents.

GDPR, the European Union’s big play to protect the private information of EU residents, is a messy reminder of the dance that compliance and technology play with one another at the corporate level.

But it’s not the only reminder out there. In fact, IT departments can face numerous other kinds of compliance headaches related to their asset management structure, including from the companies that supply them or their vendors with software—whether directly or indirectly.

In recent years, large companies such as Oracle and SAP have increasingly turned their businesses toward licensing audits, with the goal of squeezing a little more revenue out of clients that can afford to pay.

These audits have been both costly and controversial. According to a 2016 InfoWorld article, the candy maker Mars, Inc., faced an in-depth software audit at the hands of Oracle. The saga led to 233,089 pages of documentation and a court battle between the two companies. Mars eventually agreed to an out-of-court settlement.

For other big tech companies, the audit approach has created public relations problems. Last year, Microsoft compliance guru Patama Chantaruck had to write a blog post defending the firm’s software asset management program as not being the same thing as an audit.

SAP, meanwhile, launched a Licensing Transparency Center last fall, in the wake of negative headlines around its software audit battle with the alcohol giant Diageo. A British court found that SAP’s indirect licensing rules were legal—meaning that, at least in the UK, it can legally charge money for indirect uses of its software.

(Diageo is only one of SAP’s recent targets. Anheuser-Busch InBev recently settled a $600 million lawsuit filed by SAP.)

We could argue all week about whether software auditing rules are fair or represent bad PR. But they’re out there, and for organizations that use complex business software, it can be a real shock to the system to get notified of an upcoming audit.

But for the software industry, there’s a case to be made that companies leave significant amounts of money on the table if they fail to act against improper use of their products. A 2016 study from BSA: The Software Alliance found that nearly 40 percent of software installed on machines globally wasn’t properly licensed. Part of the problem was a lack of control over so-called “shadow IT.”

Most associations don’t have operations on the scale of the companies that make M&Ms and Bud Light, but many nonetheless rely on enterprise software that often gets quite complex down the line. A few considerations for IT departments looking to get a better grasp on licensing questions:

The cloud’s complications. Recently, Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy showed up on CNBC and effectively admitted that AWS is building database solutions designed to let companies get past complex licensing structures. “I think over the last few decades it’s been a rough place for enterprises because they’ve had to contend with the old-guard database providers like Oracle that are expensive, very high lock-in, and also they constantly audit their customers and fine them if they find something,” Jassy said. His point highlights an Achilles heel of cloud computing in the enterprise space: Infrastructure changes, such as those from servers to cloud, can introduce new licensing headaches due to the way contracts are written. When building out your infrastructure, be aware of how existing contracts can complicate these moves.

The open-source factor. A couple of pieces of software commonly used by associations that are unlikely to ever be subject to a software audit are WordPress and Drupal. The reason is that the content-management platforms are open-source, and as a result, they both are free to use and made of software that’s free of any licensing surprises. Not every piece of software out there can promise that. However, be mindful of those open-source licenses as well: If you create a commercial product that integrates open-source software, the rules can change. You may have to pay for that right or release any changes you’ve made to the code under the same license. Do your research.

The vendor equation. With big companies like SAP going after indirect licensing as well as more traditional kinds of access, you can run into a hornet’s nest around the many hands that touch your technology, including through your vendors. It’s good idea to have a general awareness of what’s in your vendors’ software stack, particularly whether they rely on proprietary rather than open-source software. It could help prevent some headaches down the road.

Some commentators are optimistic that we’ll see changes in this model, which feels consumer-hostile. Computerworld contributor Daryl Ullman, for example, recently wondered whether downloading SaaS applications directly from the vendor could help make licenses easier to track.

But consider this a reminder that the software licensing issue is out there and you have to think about it. Better now than when you’re getting audited.

Software Asset Management (SAM) is an essential mandate for CTOs/ CIOs and their teams. Why is SAM strategic to an organization and how can IT leaders create buy-in from business leadership for investing in it

CTOs and CIOs need good quality data to base their business decisions – they need to understand how technology is being consumed, what it costs them, and what value it is generating.

To do this, they need clear visibility not only into the traditional IT environments within the organization, but also into the digital technology used or accessed throughout the organization. Software Asset Management provides CIOs and CTOs with the level of transparency required to make the appropriate decisions to manage technology risks and costs while providing business value and supporting business innovation and agile work.

What is Virtual Desktop Access (VDA) and what advantages does it offer to organizations? Does it complicate the process of software licensing? How can CTOs ensure they have the correct license for VDI consumption?

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) allows organizations to offer a managed workplace (e.g., Windows 10) as a service available from any device, such as a thin client, mobile device, or external laptop (e.g., contractor).

The primary benefit is flexibility in devices used to access corporate IT functions, and the downside is the difference in software compliance considerations.

When using a VDI desktop image you do not need a license for the operating system of that virtual machine. However, you need a license for each device/user that accesses that virtual machine with a VDA license. Similarly, you need a license for the software running on the virtual machine based on the number of users/devices that use the software on the virtual machine or has potential access to use the software on the virtual machine.

VDI does not necessarily have a negative effect of your software compliance and software spend if configured correctly, but it definitely needs serious consideration before being deployed in the organization.

Snow’s customers have the benefit of having the license requirements for Virtual Desktop Access (VDA) licenses automatically calculated, taking Software Assurance (SA) into account, and offers the ability to detect the use of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure in the organization.

What is Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) and why is it significant for large, connected enterprises? What is expected from the CIO in developing a sustainable UEM strategy?

Managing your entire end-user computing estate from one platform has great potential to improve control and offer a stronger mobile experience. There is pressure to deliver information to staff whether they are on a corporate machine, corporate mobile or personal mobile. The CIO is expected to help solve this issue by providing access but at the same time reducing the risk of data loss or security issues. A sturdy UEM product has the potential to deliver both outcomes.

How will the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance requirements impact CIOs and how can they support their functional counterparts to manage the risk optimally?

GDPR is impacting CIOs in two ways. First, it generates discussion on the technical elements needed for compliance – for example, can we search for personal information in each application, what is our retention period, and so on. Secondly, it has led to greater interest from businesses on where their data is stored and how to protect it.

In my experience, these risk-based discussions surprise functional leaders when they discover just how much personal data they are holding.

By enforcing the need for data privacy questionnaires, challenges and ownership questions surface that were not previously being addressed.

How do you see the relationship between the CTO’s office and business impact changing? What are your top tips for CTOs to align more effectively with the business goals of the organization?

As far as digital transformation is concerned, businesses are undergoing a radical shift in the way they work. Digital technology underpins everything we do, and as a result, the CTO’s role needs to extend beyond IT strategy and into business strategy, helping business leaders to source the products and services they need to grow their business successfully. Business leaders do not necessarily consider that they are sourcing technology – they are buying services or outcomes.

CTOs need to learn to communicate effectively in business terms and demonstrate that they understand the issues and opportunities that business leaders are dealing with, in order to ensure that the technology underpinning these solutions will meet business needs. It’s important not just to spend time with business leaders and end-users, but also to interact with customers and the products and services themselves.

Tell us what your customers are saying. What are the biggest challenges IT leaders face today? Is there any significant difference between the challenges faced by CIOs at B2B and B2C enterprises?

I think IT leaders are facing a real issue with digital transformation as all businesses recognize the potential to gain efficiencies, leapfrog competitors and sell more effectively. Just look at the impact on the high street, and you can see a tangible impact that digital can have on business.

Although technology has become more critical, it is moving out of IT and coming under the control of the business functions.

IT must remain relevant and provide value by managing those technology choices, controlling costs, and providing consultancy. One of the first challenges to overcome is to have visibility of the software used across the organization for a complete picture of the organization.

Is the SaaS world making CTOs redundant? What new skills do IT leaders need to develop to thrive in today’s connected, DIY, SaaS business environment?

This depends on the CTO. Although business leaders can bypass IT and procurement to source the services and technologies they need to deliver business growth, they still need to research their options carefully. Where the CTO is engaged with the business and seen within the organization as an expert in both, technology and the business, then business leaders will seek out advice and guidance in their technology choices.

It is becoming more common to see CTOs sitting outside the IT department as organizations acknowledge that technology strategy applies across the organization rather than just to what is owned and managed by internal IT.

To survive and thrive, CTOs must not only acquire in-depth business knowledge and have access to detailed data about technology consumption but also develop the communication and influencing skills needed to establish their place as a trusted advisor and expert to whom business leaders will naturally turn for advice.

What are the top five factors impacting software spend right now? What trends do you observe in the way CIOs are prioritizing their spends?

CIO priorities reflect those of CEOs. So, they need to consider how they can support business growth, increase profitability, and deal with cybersecurity threats.

The trend towards cloud-based services is continuing, not just for SaaS but increasingly for IaaS as well.

At the same time, device proliferation continues as end-users are accessing these cloud-based systems from multiple devices and using smartphone-based access for business. Although this platform isn’t suitable for all business activities, the ability to deal with transactional tasks and communication across a range of channels rather than being restricted to desk-based exercise is supporting the more agile, flexible, and collaborative way that people work in when it comes to digital businesses.

What is a technology asset? Does the traditional taxonomy still fit for classifying IT assets? Do you believe a fixed taxonomy is at risk of becoming irrelevant as new technologies develop?

A technology asset is any digital technology that creates (or should create) value for the organization. While traditionally ITAM has been concerned with IT assets – owned, managed, and controlled by IT; in the age of digital business, we need to provide governance that embraces the entire digital ecosystem. To do this, we need to move away from a hard and fast taxonomy (hardware/software) that restricts us and build methodologies that enable organizations to determine what digital technology they need to manage as an asset based on business priorities.

If we just stick to managing traditional hardware and software, we risk being left behind as new asset classes don’t fit into these boxes. We’ve already seen the arguments about whether subscription licenses and SaaS should fall under the remit of SAM (they’re still software, so in the past, that’s justified putting them into the software box, although not without a lot of discussion and disagreement), but now PaaS, IaaS, and even BPaaS (Business Process as a Service) have started raising issues. There is no logical reason that these services can’t be managed through ITAM best practices, but they don’t fit into either the hardware or software box, which means that organizations are often abdicating responsibility for managing them effectively.

As cybersecurity functions struggle to manage the risks associated with these services, ITAM needs to step up and take responsibility for treating these as assets and ensure that security professionals are appropriately supported with good quality data. Likewise, finance and other stakeholders.

What are the key trends in the IT landscape that are exciting for you right now?

Machine learning is an exciting area of interest for us and one we will be investing in, going forward. I believe it will radically improve our ability to quickly assess and mitigate risks in our IT landscape by constantly monitoring and calculating real-time events in the business. Snow Software already produces vast volumes of actionable data. And it’s the validation, filtering, processing, and benchmarking of that data to generate the necessary business intelligence, that will benefit from the support of machine learning.