Audit of the software

The institution needed a full audit of used software and licenses, audit and inventory of computer equipment, as well as development of regulatory documentation for the use of software in the institution. As far as there was no clear picture of the active software licenses, monitoring of their use and installation, as well as availability of all regulations on the use of licensed software, there emerged a need in continuous recording and monitoring of the licensed software.

Justification of the project:

• reducing the cost of purchases and savings through optimisation of budgeting, cost for asset management and technical support,
• reducing downtime and non-nominal situations through standardisation, registration of updates and use of the licensed software.

Expert advice: introduction of software license management system Software Asset Management (SAM).

Description of the approach to implementation:

• We collected and described the general information about the infrastructure and network of the customer (number of desktops, number of mobile computers, number of servers, network structure, connection of the computers in the network, existing procedure for software purchase, availability of employees responsible for selecting, purchasing, installing, maintaining, upgrading of the software, etc.).
• We carried out a complete inventory of the software installed on all computers.
• We counted all licenses previously purchased, compared the number with the number of actually installed software products and verified compliance with license conditions.
• We also developed the model configuration of the workplaces, software usage rules, orders, instructions and other regulatory documents.
• The redundant software was uninstalled, and necessary licenses were purchased. The software was installed in accordance with the model configurations. Internal documents (software usage rules, orders, regulations, instructions) were signed and brought to the attention of the staff.

Goals achieved:

1. Ensuring software control, development of regulatory documents for using the software.
2. Determination of the list of software owned by the institution, places of particular software installation, as well as identification of the best use of the software.
3. Determination of what kind of licensing documentation is essential, as well as identification of the optimal licensing options for the organisation.
4. Arrangement of a single system for control and inventory of software and licenses.
5. Development of regulating documentation for software updating, deployment of a new workplace, standardisation of workplaces.