Transforming SCCM Data into License Intelligence

One of the common organizational barriers encountered by those wishing to implement a genuine software asset management tool relates to internal pressure within the organization to leverage an existing Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) deployment to accomplish SAM-related goals. To be sure, SCCM has a very important role within the enterprise. But there’s often a fundamental misunderstanding among decision makers (and sometimes other groups within organizations) as to what capabilities SCCM was designed to deliver and the potential drawbacks of relying on it for more than it’s intended.

While users generally agree that SCCM is a fantastic deployment and patch management tool, we frequently hear that it falls short when it comes to calculating, managing, and optimizing their license positions.  According to our own customers, challenges exist in several areas:

1)  Reporting:  SCCM’s reports are inflexible and lack a user interface for easily implementing advanced filtering capabilities; in fact, asset managers often report they need to rely on SCCM experts to manipulate data in such a way as to be useful for software asset management purposes.

2)  License reconciliation:  While it’s possible to import basic license counts, the import process is very onerous unless it happens to be a Microsoft Licensing Report.  Additionally, it’s not possible to import or track other purchasing data or attributes related to deployed software.

3) Data presentation: Microsoft SCCM presents data from an “application view” rather than from a   “license view.”  This means, for example, every version of any given software title will be listed separately with no built-in mechanism allowing the application to be viewed as a single licensable entity.

4)  Software recognition: Microsoft SCCM sometimes has trouble properly differentiating between closely related applications (such as Microsoft SQL Server 2008) due to limitations with the type of data collected by the SCCM client.

To help organizations with these challenges, we recently released Express Software Manager for SCCM, a new product offering built on top of our flagship product, Express Software Manager.  With Express Software Manager for SCCM, you can extract hardware and software inventory data residing in your SCCM database, run the data through a normalized catalog of application titles, enrich it with your own purchasing information, and present everything in intuitive, reliable, and license-centric reports.  This product is most appropriate for organizations that aren’t able or willing to invest in a dedicated software license management solution, but rather wish to extend computer inventory data collected by the SCCM client for their asset management efforts.

If you’re interested in learning more about Express Software Manager for SCCM, be sure to attend our upcoming webinar on Wednesday, February 15 at 11am Pacific / 2pm Eastern.  Our VP of Products, Jeff Kelsey, will cover in greater detail some of the issues commonly encountered when attempting to use SCCM for software asset management, as well as demonstrate how Express Software Manager for SCCM can overcome these problems through superior software recognition capabilities and reporting that approaches the software estate from a genuine licensing perspective.

We look forward to having you join us!

Register for the Webinar:  Transforming SCCM Data into License Intelligence

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Article written by Debra Brandt, Director of Marketing

Debra is the Director of Marketing for Express Metrix, having joined the company in 2005. She leads the company's PR and marketing efforts, and oversees the Express Metrix corporate blog.