Crawl-Walk-Run approach in implementing a SAM program in ServiceNow (Part 2 - Walk)

As stated in our previous article, implementing a SAM program in ServiceNow is a structured journey that enhances software asset visibility, minimizes risks, and boosts operational efficiency.

By adopting the Crawl, Walk, Run approach, organizations can progressively improve their SAM maturity. 

In part 1 of this series, we highlighted some of the main topics from the Crawl Phase. In this part, we will focus on the Walk Phase. In the next edition we will dive into the Run phase!  

Highlights of this blog:

• Introducing the Walk phase
• Intake software titles
• Software discovery
• Integrations to SaaS products
• Entitlements for datacenter software products
• Reclamation Rules for EUC & SaaS software
• ITAM Health Check
• Normalization

Walk Phase: Cost savings & avoidance / Mitigate risk

In the Walk phase you will begin establishing processes, procedures, policies, resources, and tools to execute on the roadmap of the Software Asset Management program. You can automate the manual processes and procedures, which you’ve established during the Crawl stage. You can now also move to more complex licensing models found in datacenter environments, Bring-your-own-license (BYOL) use cases, and additional SaaS publishers. You can consider additional governance and cost control through software metering and reclamation, identify overlapping software, and right-size the software estate through compliance results.

Process: Intake new software titles into the organization

It is crucial to establish a clear process to intake new software titles into the organization. This process should include architecture, security, procurement and contract reviews. As well as identification of the license metrics, contract terms & conditions, installation requirements, type of software (subscription or software install), and establishing the product owner.

Discover Datacenter/Infrastructure environments

Whereas the Crawl phase focused on discovering software in the End User Compute (EUC) estate, in the Walk phase we turn our attention to software deployed in the datacenter. Software discovery in datacenters requires more sophisticated tools and processes to account for virtualization, dynamic environments, and complex licensing.

Both ServiceNow and Noventiq recommend enabling ServiceNow Discovery to automatically populate the datacenters. With ServiceNow Discovery, you can use patterns, create them or customize them. Its base system already contains a wide range of patterns that cover most industry standard network devices and applications. Such as these, used by Software Asset Management:

• Microsoft SQL Server
• Microsoft Exchange Server
• Oracle Database Server
• VMware vCenter
• Citrix XenApp
• Citrix XenDesktop

You can also customize other patterns for Software Asset Management.

Additionally, ServiceNow SAM also provides specific capabilities to gather datacenter software information required for specific software publishers:

• IBM:
  • You can integrate with ILMT or BigFix Inventory using either version 1 or version 2 of the ILMT and BigFix Inventory integration APIs. The Software Asset Management application uses these APIs to retrieve data, such as software installation data and peak usage data, from the ILMT or BigFix Inventory. For more information on integrating with ILMT or BigFix Inventory click here.
  • You can track and manage IBM licenses in both VMware vSphere environments and IBM LPAR infrastructures by integrating the Software Asset Management publisher pack for IBM with Software Asset Management providers. Provided that they are approved to participate in the IBM Authorized SAM Provider (IASP) Program. With these integrations, you can track and manage IBM licensing directly without having to integrate with the IBM License Metric Tool (ILMT) or BigFix Inventory. For more information, click here.
• Oracle: To collect installation and usage data for the Oracle products that are deployed in your environment, you must use a discovery process. With the verification and enrolment of ServiceNow in the Oracle Third-Party Tool Vendor (3PTV) Program, both the ServiceNow Discovery application and the Software Asset Management application are verified by Oracle to collect and report on this data without requiring any Oracle measurement tools. For more information on Oracle discovery, click here.
• SAP: To start connecting your SAP systems and your ServiceNow instance, deploy the ABAP program for SAP. 

Setup direct integrations to SaaS products

In the Crawl phase, a broad understanding of SaaS usage was the objective. Now we focus on optimizing the spend on your most-used, highest-cost SaaS applications. To achieve this, you need to create direct integration profiles to view software usage information and optimize stale licenses. The SaaS integration profile pulls your company's software usage information from the software vendor. This information includes a list of all users and identifies which users haven't recently used the software. 

Here you can find a current list of all the pre-built SaaS Integration profiles. ServiceNow realizes new integrations on a quarterly basis! It is also possible to create integrations for Adobe Cloud and Microsoft Office 365. For more information, see Microsoft 365 integration and Software Asset Management publisher pack for Adobe.

After following this process, you're all set for reclaiming unused licenses to reduce software costs for your company. 

EUC/SaaS: Compliance Validation

To ensure that the compliance validation is accurate, it is crucial to ensure that a process is established to check reconciliation output, and identify and fix any data related issues. The Reconciliation and compliance checks are critical to the SAM Program to minimize true-up and audit costs, as well as help reduce waste and overspending on software. 

Create/import entitlements for Datacenter software products

In the Crawl phase, we focused on creating entitlement data for end-user compute (EUC) software. In the ‘Walk’ phase we expand this scope to include datacenter software. The complexity of datacenter software licenses vs. end-user compute (EUC) software licenses varies greatly due to differences in usage environments, scope, scalability, and compliance requirements. Here is a breakdown of the differences:

• Typically, datacenter software is licensed for large-scale, multi-user environments. Examples include server operating systems (e.g. Windows Server, Linux), virtualization platforms (e.g. VMware, Hyper-V), and databases (e.g. Oracle, SQL Server).
• These licenses are often designed to accommodate multiple servers, virtual machines, and data-heavy workloads.
• Software might be installed across multiple physical servers, virtual machines, or even geographic locations.
• Licensing models for datacenter software are often based on metrics such as processor/core count, physical/virtual machine (VM) instances, or RAM allocation. For example, database licenses might be based on the number of CPU cores in use (core-based licensing) or per server.
• Licenses can be perpetual or subscription-based and may involve more complicated enterprise agreements with discounts based on volume.
• They may also include concurrent user licensing, where a limited number of users can access the system at the same time, regardless of how many users are enrolled. This type of licensing is often seen in engineering/design software products.
• Datacenter software often comes with complex support agreements involving different levels of service (e.g. 24/7 support, on-site technicians, etc.). Maintenance fees are usually significant and must be renewed yearly, covering patches, upgrades, and premium support.
• Licensing agreements often include complex service-level agreements (SLAs) that dictate performance and availability requirements.

In summary, datacenter software licenses are more complex due to scalability, varied licensing models, and infrastructure integration. They often involve server-based or virtualized environments and require careful compliance tracking. The complexity of datacenter licensing stems from its need to support mission-critical systems, while EUC software focuses more on accessibility and ease of management.

Important note: The task of creating an accurate baseline of datacenter software entitlements should not be underestimated. ServiceNow recommends working with a certified SAM partner having specialist knowledge in this area to ensure success in this endeavor. The Noventiq team has both the licensing knowledge as well as the ServiceNow expertise to assist you, and the capabilities to perform health checks to assess your current implementation and usage of ServiceNow SAM.

Create Reclamation Rules for EUC & SaaS software

ServiceNow Software Asset Management (SAM) reclamation rules are automated processes used to identify and reclaim unused or underutilized software licenses within an organization. These rules help optimize software license usage and reduce costs by ensuring that unused licenses are reclaimed and made available for other users or purposes.

How ServiceNow Reclamation Rules work:

1. Identify Unused Software: SAM reclamation rules define criteria to detect software that hasn't been used for a specified period. For example, if a user hasn't opened a licensed application (on-premises or SaaS) in 90 days, that license may be flagged for reclamation.
2. Automate Notifications: Once unused software is identified, SAM can send notifications to users, asking if they still need the software. If not, it can be automatically reclaimed.
3. Reclaim Licenses: The system can automatically reclaim unused licenses by uninstalling the software or revoking access, making those licenses available for other users. This reduces the need to purchase additional licenses.
4. Reallocation and Reporting: The reclaimed licenses can be reassigned as needed, and the process generates reports on software usage, savings, and compliance improvements.

Overall, SAM reclamation rules help organizations control software spending, maintain license compliance, and ensure efficient resource usage.

ITAM Health Check

Now is a good time to run a Health Check for Software Asset Management. The health check gives you a reliable overview of your Software Asset Management configurations and makes recommendations for you to correct any errors that may exist.

Noventiq combines experience with industry best practices to perform functional and technical health checks, to ensure ITAM readiness on the ServiceNow platform. These health checks can also be performed on existing implementations to report (and act) on potential improvements.

During the health checks Noventiq will focus on all the important elements related to ITAM. Such as the basic setup and configuration, overall CMDB health, integrations and Foundation Data.

Datacenter: Normalization

The normalization process in the Crawl phase was described with a focus on end-user-compute. The focus of this maturity step (Walk phase) is around data center software products.