Software Inventory

Software Metering, Software Compliance and Software License Management

Overview

The Software Inventory feature of Desktop Central helps maintain an inventory of software applications in a network. It periodically scans computers and servers in a network to collect details related to inventory. For example, it can collect details of all the software applications installed in a network and their usage information. This information helps administrators to monitor the usage of the software applications installed in a network. Using the Software Inventory feature, license information, for commercial software applications in a network, can be added and managed.

Software Metering

One of the prime function of a Inventory Management tool is to keep track of the software usage statistics in an organization. Every organization uses many licensed software from multiple software vendors. Desktop Central provides the software inventory details of all the software installed in the network with the total number of copies with the usage details of each software like, Frequently Used, Occasionally Used, or Rarely Used. This will give a complete picture of the used and unused software in the network. The Software Inventory Reports helps to decide on the software purchases and renewals based on the actual usage. The savings on the license renewal cost can be huge when unused or very rarely used software are known well before the renewal time.

Software Compliance

Another important task of the Software Inventory Management tool is to get the software license compliance details of the commercial software used in an organization. Desktop Central provides an option to input the license details of the commercial software used in the network. These details are used in arriving at the software compliance status for each software installed in the network. This helps to know the number of software licenses purchased, the number of software licenses that are currently in use and the number of software licenses that are remaining.

Prohibited Software

Every organization prohibits using certain software in accordance with the company policies. Detecting such prohibited software will help in tackling the compliance issues that might arise later. Desktop Central provides an option to add the list of software that are prohibited in the company. When any such software is detected it can be configured to be notified through an email to take necessary action.

Alert Notifications

Desktop Central enables administrators to get notified through email in any of the following events with regard to Software Inventory Management:

• When a new software is detected in the network
• Non Compliance (under-licensed) of software licensing policy, i.e., the license is inadequate and has to purchase more licenses to be compliant
• When a prohibited software is detected in the network.

Software Inventory Reports

Desktop Central scans the Windows systems in the network to collect the software inventory details and stores them in to the database. This data is presented in the form of reports for ready reference. The following Software Inventory reports are provided by Desktop Central:

• Software Vendors by Volume: Provides the volume of the software installed in the network based on the software vendor.
• Software by Volume: Provides the installed number of copies of each software in the network. This can further be filtered to view the software pertaining to a specific vendor.
• Recently Installed Software: Provides the list of software installed recently. You can choose to select a pre defined period or provide a custom period to get the software list.
• Software License Compliance Report: Provides the details of the commercial software with their software license compliance status as compliant (including over-licensed software) or non-compliant (under-licensed software).
• Software Licenses to be Renewed: Provides the list of software whose licenses have to be renewed shortly.

For more details on the Software Inventory Management, refer to the Hardware and Software Inventory topic of the online help documentation. Refer to Securing Windows Desktops to see the ways to enhance desktop security using Desktop Central.