Back to Basics post Attachmate Acquisition of Novell

June 8, 2011

Back to Basics

It appears the dust is beginning to settle after the acquisition of Novell® by The Attachmate Group®. Sadly—if inevitably—that means many familiar faces won't be kicking around the Salt Palace at BrainShare this October, and I'll miss them. On the plus side, Attachmate has been saying a lot of the "right things" about supporting products and sticking to published roadmaps - there are even murmurs about increased levels of support for Netware!

I've spent more time with ZENworks® Configuration Management lately than with the Asset Management side of the ZENworks family. ZCM 11 has been quite clean and perhaps even a bit quicker as I've worked with it over the last couple of months. I like the new look of the user interface, the removal of the "Z" from the Z-icon in the system tray (some users will never even notice the new icon at all!) and the ability in ZAM to hide the system tray icon completely through the availability of a small subset of the ZCM Policies functionality. Later this month, I'll be sitting in on the beta presentation for the latest incarnation of the ZCM Administrators course from the folks at Novell ATT; I hope that leads to an update to the ZCM certification process.

I've also been hard at work adding the ENGL imaging toolkit to my list of proficiencies. Bit of a learning curve with this product, but a very feature rich add-on for ZENworks.

The ZAM Man

None of this ZCM talk should be interpreted as a step away from my work with ZENworks Asset Management. I know there are a lot of ZAM 7.5 customers still out there, and the party line is still that Product Recognition Updates for that version are all but done with. If you have customers or partners who haven't looked at ZAM 11 - show them! If you need help with a demo or a teleconference sales pitch, give me a call and we can set a time.

Companies still need to protect themselves from risk and avoid under-licensing of software. A comprehensive and accurate inventory is still the first step in understanding what software is installed on which machines - and streamlining the purchase and management of software will usually cover the cost of implementing a long-term asset management strategy.

Overspending on software licenses can be found in almost any environment. The total dollars of annual overspend on software is staggering. By analyzing software usage, you can spot underutilized copies of an application and move those copies rather than purchasing new licenses. Also, when upgrades or subscription updates come due, you can purchase the right quantity for what is actually being used.

"Enterprises that systematically manage the life cycle of their IT assets will reduce cost per asset by as much as 30 percent during the first year, and between 5 percent and 10 percent annually during the next five years (0.8 probability)."*

Customer Stories

This week, Novell published several new customer stories. Two of them involve ZENworks Asset Management — Watts Water Technologies, a project on which I am still active, and Long Island Railroad. Both stories reinforce the notion that the cost to set up a software management and licensing program is more than returned from the savings in decreased software license and maintenance purchasing. However, there is no way to measure the risk of potential civil or criminal penalties without doing a complete software inventory and analysis.

The bottom line is that a consistent Software Asset and License Management program utilizing ZENworks Asset Management from Novell will save your company in licensing costs in the long run and protect it from compliance violations now and in the future.

* Patricia Adams, Management Update: IT Asset Management Stages Form the Stairway to Success