Ivanti Blog: Posts by

ITAM Awareness Month: Let Your IT Assets Celebrate the Season

Mon, 02 Dec 2019 22:41:04 Z

Round up your assets, hang up your spreadsheets because it’s time for ITAM Awareness Month! It’s no surprise that the last month of the year—what with all its celebratory cheer—is also focused on IT Asset Management. There are a number of similarities between properly managing your IT assets and ensuring the holiday season goes off without a hitch, after all.

ITAM and ITSM Are Better Together: Free Whitepaper

For instance, checking every tiny lightbulb while hanging holiday lights is akin to checking each of your org’s software licenses are up-to-date.

Or, like Santa Claus checking his list not once but twice, you’re checking that your IT hardware assets are where they need to be and working as they should.

Or even, as family holiday dinners are a hectic mix of good, bad, and everything in between, your IT asset management solution feels much the same—hidden assets, unneeded licenses, and spreadsheets included.

Holiday or IT Asset Management season? Why not both!

Ivanti is offering ’12 Days of ITAM,’ chock full of helpful blogs and resources around managing your IT software and hardware:

Two blogs a day for 12 days from ITAM product experts and thought leaders
5 Instances Where ITSM and ITAM Are Better Together whitepaper
An informative infographic about ITAM’s importance to your business
Ivanti Asset Manager demo to see the holiday magic of managed assets for yourself

Here’s a sneak peak of our upcoming ITAM blog schedule, where we asked ITAM experts and thought leaders to contribute blogs covering a wide range of ITAM topics. Make sure you mark your calendars for the next 12 days; you won’t want to miss a single post.

Schrödinger’s Licenses: License Optimizer's Perfect Paradox / Simon Harrison
5 Reasons Why IT Asset Management is Key To Your Business / Mareike Fondufe
Shadow IT is a Pain for Healthcare / Rob DeStefano
Key ITAM Skills They Don't Tell You About / David Foxen (@SAMBeastDavid on Twitter)
Software Asset Management Tips Explained in 5 Classic Movie Quotes / Rory Canavan
If IT Assets Could Talk, What Would They Say? / Erica Azad
Software Asset Management: It's More than Audit and Compliance / Lara Hellman
The 5 Keys of a Successful ITAM Execution Framework / Edward Zarzour
Education, Education, Education: The Value of Technical Knowledge in IT Asset Management / Barry Pilling
ITAM: 4 Tips to Break Down your Organization's Data Silos / Mark McGinn

Maybe this holiday season your IT assets are trying to tell you something, and it’s time to listen up! Join us for the most wonderful time of the year and celebrate ITAM Awareness Month with ’12 Days of ITAM.’ Ho-ho-ho and fa-la-la-la-la!

Ivanti Insiders Weigh-In on Cybersecurity Best Practices

Fri, 18 Oct 2019 17:07:46 Z

The name of the game right now is cybersecurity, and phishing attempts, malware threats, and hacking tragedies are par for the course more often than we’d like to admit. In fact, according to a recent Forbes study, cyberattacks will cause an estimated $6 trillion in damages worldwide by 2021—that’s more than a year’s worth of damage caused by the globe’s natural disasters or more than the global trade of all illegal drugs.

Cyberattacks are real, and for the foreseeable future, they’re not going anywhere. So what can you and your org do to manage cybersecurity risks?

We’ve asked our Ivanti Insiders, the crème de la crème of IT professionals, just how they’re managing their own organization’s cybersecurity concerns. Their responses are insightful. Heck, even we could learn a thing or two. Grab yourself a steaming cup of something and let’s get stuck in.

What do you wish your users knew about cybersecurity?

“Understand how serious the threats are.” – Ivanti Insider

“We put tough policies in place to try and protect everyone, because we're only as secure as our weakest link. The weakest link tends to be the human component, and hackers are good at making something look legitimate to exploit that component.” – Kelly Ruston, Technical Support Specialist, William Osler Health System

“Random companies won’t send you software to install via email.” – Ivanti Insider

“It is imperative to stay vigilant on the lookout for phishing scams and other malicious threats that they are exposed to.” – Katelyn Eubanks, Info. Security Administrator, City of Sioux Falls

“As IT professionals, I believe we have a duty to provide practical, effective steps non-IT users can use to mitigate cybersecurity risks.” – Ivanti Insider

“It is not the sensationalized portrayals in the movies, with power grids crashing and anarchy taking over the world. Cyber security is the protection of our systems so we can do our day-to-day jobs.” – David Jimenez, Operations Engineer, Emerson Electric Co.

“1. Never open things you don't expect.

2. Check URLS before clicking on them.

3. Do not use unknown USB sticks.

4. Don't be a stubborn user.

5. Don't install your own software.

6. Don't even think about trying to use torrent and downloads on our network or company laptop.” – Ivanti Insider

“No General in Africa is trying to send you 2 million dollars.” – Ivanti Insider

What tips do you have for users looking to be more secure?

“Lock your devices up. Make backups. Stay on top of your accounts.” – Ivanti Insider

“Be vigilant and be up-to-date. Verify you're typing in the correct web address. Before you click anything in an email, verify the sender is who you think it is and the link/attachment is something they themselves sent. Verify that your antivirus products are up-to-date (and that you have one installed!) and scanning, and that your PC is staying up-to-date with patches. Most issues can be avoided by being careful to always visit legitimate sites, ensuring you aren't opening attachments from unknown individuals, by keeping your PC patched, and your antivirus up-to-date and performing regular scans.” – Kelly Ruston, Technical Support Specialist, William Osler Health System

“When you are going to click a link on a webpage or an email, hover over the link first and check the bottom left of your browser to see if it will take you to the page you are expecting.” – Adam Howard, Systems Administrator, Rack Room Shoes

“Consider using a fake or one-time-use email address for non-important signups.” – Ivanti Insider

“Make sure you pay attention to the required cyber security training. We are all targets now!” – Ivanti Insider

“Don't trust anyone. Use common sense. Longer passwords are better than ‘use 4 categories’ passwords.” – David Jimenez, Operations Engineer, Emerson Electric Co.

“Audit: Review everything that you install on your computer and only install from trusted sources. NEVER discuss private matters (username / password / personal information) with anyone that you do not fully trust. (Again, even personal information can be dangerous, like when Paris Hilton's email was ‘hacked’ because she used her dog as a ‘security response’ and then made public the name of the dog because it was lost.)” – Daniel Cogny, Systems Developer, OPS

What is your biggest cybersecurity concern right now?

“Data theft.” – Deshon Pile, Jr. Team Lead, SCI

“Ransomware.” -- Katelyn Eubanks, Info. Security Administrator, City of Sioux Falls

“Not knowing what users click.” Thomas Smith, Director Telecom and IT Support, SCI

“GDPR.” -- Viviana Radosta, Inside Sales, Ready Informatica Srl

“Phishing.” – Josh Castleberry, Cyber Security Administrator, MDU Resources Group Inc.

“Limiting personal data owned by third-party companies. No company can guarantee perfect security, so I try to limit the amount of information given to any third party. As the recent disclosure of a major credit reporting company illustrates, disclosures happen, and when they do companies who've been hacked are not required to compensate you for the attack.” – Ivanti Insider

“Privacy. There are many services that are hard to avoid these days (i.e. as an immigrant, I use Facebook despite hating it, to keep in touch with people ‘back home’), and most corporations are pushing hard to learn (and use) everything from you. Lately I am focusing on looking for Open Source (or at least privacy aware) alternatives to my ‘day-to-day’ software. – Daniel Cogny, Systems Developer, OPS

“The lack of knowledge of our users. The worst thing is, we can tell a user 30 times how they can keep their computer safe and they agree with us. And then suddenly it is again ‘OOPSIE!’ I got a virus or malware.” – Ivanti Insider

IAITAM Predictions for 2019: Get Ready, IT Asset Managers!

Mon, 07 Jan 2019 23:40:43 Z

Get out your crystal balls, shuffle those tarot cards, and crack open a fortune cookie. It’s 2019, and we’re here for IT Asset Management predictions. IAITAM—the industry’s authoritative training organization dedicated to the needs of the IT Asset Management community—did some fortune telling for the new year, and their predictions wouldn’t come without a look back at what ITAM folks learned in 2018.

Let’s dive into the past before delving into the future. In 2018:

Data leaks and hacking incidents were at an all-time high, leaving a lasting impression on consumers
The GDPR was felt throughout all global business
IT Asset Managers needed to increase the offerings they provide to their organizations

Okay, maybe IAITAM slipped a prediction into that list without anyone noticing because IT Asset Managers will always need to increase the offerings they provide to their organizations. That won’t change in 2019. Now that we’ve got a grip on the past, it’s on to the future!

Resolve to be Challenged

IAITAM predicts that the industry will face three distinctly unique challenges in 2019, pushing the profession even further forward in 2019.

Contract management will become a new emphasis for IT Asset Managers

Either strengthen your relationship with legal and contract departments or become more adept contract managers because this will become a new requirement for managing assets in the future.

A strong focus on cybersecurity will continue

The NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), along with NCCoE (National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence) published a cybersecurity standard for IT Asset Managers and will continue in 2019. Help aid your organization’s cybersecurity efforts!

ITAM and ITSM will continue to blend, and not always harmoniously

Work to mature your IT Asset Management program so you can better facilitate IT Service Management. Both are necessary, not one or the other.

Fulfill Your Destiny, Get with the Trends

Stay ahead of the curve and get with the trends! Impact your organization through IT Asset Management, it’ll surely be grateful.

And check out our free IT Asset Management resources to move beyond basic discovery and optimize your hardware and software performance. Free resources include:

Software Savings Calculator
Hardware Asset Management Best Practices
Automating Software Requests Infographic
IT Asset Management Trends On-Demand Webinar

IT Asset Management for Risk Mitigation, Compliance, and Business Scalability

Fri, 04 Jan 2019 00:03:01 Z

Food for thought:

30% of IT fixed assets are lurking around as ‘ghosts’ in today’s enterprises.
56% of organizations verify asset location only once a year, with 10-15% only making asset location inventories every five years.

So, what? Besides a few missing assets, what’s the big deal? Well for one, ‘ghost’ assets are costing you—you’re making purchases you don’t need to. What’s worse, you’re missing a large percentage of assets that need to be patched and integrated into your security processes to avoid cyber-intrusions. Risks such as rogue devices, ‘shadow IT,’ fileless malware are elevated when you don’t have a thorough, global view of hardware and software in your asset inventory. Essentially, you can’t protect what you don’t know exists.

At the same time, the added complexity of rapid cloud adoption, the proliferation of IoT devices, and the demands of compliance regulations is a lot for your IT team to face.

The good news: there are practices you can put in place to enable you to take a more unified, powerful approach to IT asset management on a global scale. Consider these five areas around IT Asset Management where improvements will help mitigate risk, achieve compliance, securely scale your operations, and better control costs:

Visibility and Performance

For visibility, engage a reliable discovery tool that can discover and run an inventory of every asset attached to the corporate network. For performance, build a clear tracking process and refresh policy to ensure productivity by knowing when to refresh or retire an asset. (hint, hint: Ivanti has an IT Asset Management solution that can give you both visibility and performance).

Compliance and Risk Management

A critical best practice for risk management: a thorough auditing of all assets. Auditing happens continually and the best defense in knowing whether software or hardware assets present a threat to data security or a larger disruptive event. For compliance, discovery tools provide an accurate representation of licensing agreements and which users are allowed which application and device based on their identity and organizational status.

Cost Management and Fiscal Accountability

Asset discovery and auditing that can manage and track all digital assets are foundational to cost control, and the digital assets must include all servers, virtual machines, software containers, and installed software. The easiest way: unified IT via automation, where a database of assets integrates with procurement, service management, and key suppliers. Those using the software and hardware assets are therefore just as accountable as IT—enabling the organization as a whole to control costs.

Business Scalability and the Cloud

Before you can begin scaling your business, with additional employees, applications, and locations, you need to know what assets should be repurposed, retired, or newly purchased. This demands a solid IT Asset Management strategy. The cloud plays an integral part of this scaling up, with cost-sensitive organizations choosing to add new applications in the cloud, which still requires a dynamic picture of your IT assets—hardware or software.

End User Experience

Put an automated system in place—with set refresh dates and the ability to capture IT service tickets and requests—that allows end users to refresh or replace their assets. And what’s more, an automated IT Asset Management solution will flag asset performance issues and track usage, ultimately allowing for a more productive user experience.

Learn More, Manage Your Assets Better

Read Phil Merson’s full article in Virtual Strategy Magazine to get the complete picture of the IT asset management practices you can put into place to mitigate risk, achieve compliance, securely scale your operations, and better control costs.

Also, check out some of Phil’s other insights from the Ivanti blog:

Ditch the spreadsheets and embrace IT asset management with tools that match today’s workforce. Explore our free resources today and make 2019 your year for IT Asset Management.

IT Automation for the Win! Find out Just How

Tue, 11 Sep 2018 15:23:54 Z

Plenty of things are automated today – even the most mundane, daily tasks are part of the conveyor belt of our lives. For example, take the beginning of our days. We wake up to our alarm (with our phone having recorded our sleep cycles), brush our teeth with an electric toothbrush (which is synced to help us brush efficiently), and brew our coffee via autotimer (with perfect drip sequences for optimal coffee flavor).

Though perhaps subtle, each of these previously manual tasks has been eclipsed by an automated, efficient, and innovative solution. We no longer wake up with the sun, brush our teeth cursorily, or brew subpar coffee. Humans have moved up in the world, due in part to automating and innovating.

If every other part of our day is automated, why can’t our IT processes be too? Ivanti is here to tell you that they can!

Break IT Free from Manual Tasks

Many IT organizations today find themselves responsible for managing complex hybrid environments with limited resources. The demands on IT services have simply outpaced the resources available. This growing list of requirements includes: supporting mobile workers, maintaining a secure digital workspace, provisioning new cloud-based resources, and complying with internal governance policies and government regulations.

All of these requirements consume IT and service desk resources, limiting IT’s ability to move ahead with higher-impact, strategic projects. And on top of that, these manual processes have the potential to be inconsistently implemented and prone to errors. All of this, the requirements and the manual processes, results in frustrated and unproductive workers and over-stretched IT teams.

The Needed Solution?

Organizations struggling with manual, time-consuming processes need a solution that:

Empowers IT to automate routine and manual tasks
Accelerates ROI from existing technology investments through integration
Quickly gives people access to the digital resources they need to do their jobs
Enforces essential security and compliance policies
Expedites the transition of on-premises or virtual workloads to the cloud
Shifts IT spending to more strategic projects
Optimizes the service desk to reduce or eliminate ticket resolution times
Aligns with and provides agility to support dev-ops initiatives

Our Solution: Ivanti Automation

Ivanti Automation streamlines the management of complex hybrid environments by automating infrastructure, cloud, and workspace processes required to support and deliver IT services to the business. And, we’ve recently announced that the solution spans Ivanti products (including ITSM, Security, ITAM, etc.), providing automated workflows across IT departments for unified IT management. Talk about a one stop shop for all your IT needs! The shared environment across Ivanti products can also automate many on-premises infrastructure processes and tools, including multiple public cloud services such as Amazon and Microsoft Azure. Integrating with third-party technologies is supported through pre-built connectors and add-ons, which are available in the Ivanti Marketplace.

IT can transform once manual and laborious tasks into automated workflows that are all maintained in a single, easily navigated repository, where they can be readily found by anyone who needs them, freeing up resources to focus on strategic projects. Automating IT tasks helps enforce essential security controls and compliance policies by removing the risk of error and creating a strong audit trail. Key capabilities of Ivanti Automation include:

Task automation: Automate configuration, provisioning, and upgrades with over 300 out-of-the-box tasks and queries to maintain on-premises and cloud infrastructure. Utilize existing PowerShell scripts to get started quickly and ensure they are repeatable and sharable. Run books support complex changes, where multiple systems are touched often in sequence.
Flexible administration: Simplify the management of complex hybrid environments with intuitive web-based administration. Delegation and advanced job scheduling enables you to control who can make changes and when they will be executed within the infrastructure. Every module and run book can be exported to building blocks for easy backup and transition to development, testing, and production.
Cloud-readiness: Take advantage of a shared automation environment that can be applied to conventional on-premises infrastructure, as well as public cloud services such as Amazon and Azure. Quickly define appropriate rules and policies for provisioning services and granting users permission to access cloud services.
Integration: Get more ROI out of existing investments by integrating with other data sources via the powerful API and utilizing add-ons that integrate with various third-party technologies, including mobile device management, IT service management, virtualization and cloud provisioning, PC lifecycle management, and SaaS apps.
Governance: Reduce risk and ensure compliance through insight and visibility. Version control and trust security improves auditability, traceability, and change control. To meet compliance initiatives, perform troubleshooting, and improve infrastructure management, you can utilize the audit trails, historical reporting and configuration analysis.

Greater Agility, More Benefits

Ivanti Automation brings greater agility for cloud infrastructure projects. IT teams can fully automate processes, including around how and when apps and services are delivered. The scalable architecture and automation fabric provides over 300 built-in tasks and a portfolio of connectors for seamless integration with existing technology investments. Resulting benefits include:

Greater strategic business value from IT
Significantly faster responsiveness to business users’ needs
Better performance and uptime for critical applications and services
Reduced security and compliance risks
Improved business agility
Less vulnerability to loss of key technical employees

With Ivanti Automation, IT can support even the largest and complex enterprise environments without generating excessive overhead. It is so easy to use that customers begin automating on day one.

Common Uses for Ivanti Automation:

Routine configuration, provisioning, and upgrade tasks
Auditable compliance
Advanced change control

Want to Automate Now? Learn More.

Want your IT tasks to match the rest of your life. Check out www.ivanti.com/products/automation. And to see how Ivanti Automation now spans the entire product set, take a look at our press release – “Ivanti Unifies IT, Service Management and Security Operations with Ivanti Automation.”

Secure and Productive From Day One

Thu, 06 Sep 2018 18:09:56 Z

Getting workers the right access to the right apps and resources often takes days, even weeks. IT teams are often bogged down by manual processes, leading to downtime, inefficiencies, and possible security risks. And not only do employees need the correct apps and resources when they’re hired, but roles change and employees leave. IT must keep up with all of it – ensuring that access changes when employees change roles and denied when employees leave. Proper offboarding processes are vital to the security of an organization, without which assets are left vulnerable and security risks increase.

Along with service and asset management, identity is essential to the success of an organization’s onboarding and offboarding process. Why? Let’s break down just how the identity of your employees is vital to them receiving or being denied the right access to apps and resources.

Onboarding and Offboarding the Identity Way

Here’s Jeff. He’s a marketing professional at your organization who needs access to a slew of apps and resources (perhaps Marketo, MS Suite, or even Slack for team communication). For Jeff to be provisioned these apps and resources, his identity means everything. What his role is, what computer he uses, where he likes to work (whether at home or at the office), how often he works – all are vital to the onboarding process.

And then, Jeff decides he doesn’t want to be a marketing professional at your organization anymore (perhaps he’s leaving to start his own business selling grass-fed, gluten free butter). His access to specific apps and important resources should be denied – he won’t need them any longer. The offboarding process will happen in minutes, not months. Jeff’s identity makes it simple and easy to decommission his devices, deny him apps and resources, and ensure your org’s assets are secure.

Employee identity sits at the cornerstone of your organization’s failure or success – without a proper grasp on your employees’ identities, IT has a difficult time enforcing complex access policies while onboarding and offboarding within the ever-changing, hybrid environment of the modern workplace. And if IT struggles, everyone struggles – especially your employee’s productivity.

Identity by Ivanti

Ivanti can help you answer the identity question for your organization. How? Let’s break it down.

The Solution: Automation with Ivanti Identity Director

By automating everything (and yes, we mean everything about the onboarding and offboarding process), IT can address both rising security risks and new, complex technology. Through automation, IT can balance the responsibility of meeting compliance and governance requirements, while also providing workers with more flexibility than ever – that’s a win-win. IT knows your workers’ identities, onboards them accordingly, and they’re free to work effectively, with peace of mind and flexibility, until they need to be offboarded.

How do you achieve this IT-worker win? With Ivanti Identity Director, of course!

With an attribute-based approach to identity and access management including automated provisioning, workflows, and self service, workers are guaranteed access on day one based on their identity, the business remains secure if they ever leave the organization, and IT is free to get on with innovating.

As your organization becomes increasingly dependent on IT services, conventional approaches to managing identities and access and providing services to users just don’t cut it. But, by implementing Ivanti Identity Director, your organization can handle the intensifying requirements of onboarding and offboarding processes with ease, efficiency, and excellence.

Want to Know Who You Are? Learn More.

Forrester Study Uncovers the Value in Ivanti Endpoint Security Solutions

Wed, 15 Aug 2018 21:08:54 Z

SUSCEPTIBLE WITHOUT IVANTI

Prior to using Ivanti, the organizations Forrester interviewed had a high degree of threat exposure. Manual processes made it difficult to update operating systems and third-party applications, for example. And alternative solutions were not meeting their needs.

INFOGRAPHIC: With Ivanti Endpoint Security, Be More…

A manager of deployment services even said, “When we implemented our previous solution, we had issues right from the start. Detection logic wasn’t finding the correct number of vulnerable endpoints.”

The solution that organizations were searching for? One with more consistent cybersecurity practices for patching, application control, etc. They wanted:

Automated patching for third-party applications and operating systems
Additional features beyond patch management, such as application and device control, privilege management, reporting, etc.
Advanced reporting to help meet compliance requirements

After Forrester’s interviews with four Ivanti Endpoint Security customers, they determined the following benefits for a composite organization:

IMPROVED PRODUCTIVITY

Patching is automated and requires fewer resources to complete. Ivanti’s automated patching capabilities reduce the resources required to complete patching activities by two-thirds.

An interviewed Ivanti user said, “We deploy six million patches across all the endpoints each year in multiple languages and we only need five people to support 50,000 devices. Without automated patching with Ivanti, we would need 25 people.”

And what’s more, reports can be produced in a quarter of the time — over three years, that’s an average savings of $832,785. This is specifically helpful for compliance reporting, where auditors will require numerous reports to verify they have met or exceeded standards.

The director of end user computing for a healthcare organization says, Ivanti Xtraction “greatly simplified our software audits; it showed the query and the data, and the reports could be emailed with high confidence.”

THAT UNQUANTIFIABLE “IT” FACTOR

Equally felt among the customers interviewed, Ivanti forges a strong customer experience and partner focus.

“With Ivanti we can also get the correct applications to these employees quickly, in under two hours, creating a happy end user.” – An interviewed Ivanti user

Forrester also found Ivanti partnerships helped improve overall security strategy. Customers were able to obtain critical, integrated security solutions not offered by Ivanti through our partnership program.

“Ivanti is a huge part of our security posturing, and they bring other solutions they don’t own through their partner program, helping us meet all our cybersecurity needs.” – An interviewed Ivanti user

SECURED FOR THE FUTURE

As ransomware and other threats are on the rise, it’s becoming increasingly important for organizations to act, and act fast. Ivanti helps organizations address essential components of their security strategy, including the first five security controls from the Center for Internet Security’s Critical Security Controls list: inventory and control of hardware and software assets, continuous vulnerability management, controlled use of administrative privileges, and secure configuration.

The risk reduction is demonstrable, with a 40% risk reduction of a large data incident (one involving more than 1,000 records). And the number of critical and high-risks items can be reduced by up to 50%. On average, Forrester found that this risk reduction amounted to $585,146 over three years for their composite organization.

“Had we not patched, we’d most likely have had a breach or incident with WannaCry.” – Associate director of infrastructure security, telecommunications company

COST EFFECTIVE

With Ivanti capabilities such as automation, third-party application patching, application whitelisting, and privilege management, other legacy solutions that lacked automation capabilities or didn’t function as expected were retired – for a savings of 30% to 50% in license and support costs.

Overall, Forrester found a total benefit of $3.5 million over three years, with a net present value of $2.3 million — an ROI of 176%. And this payback begins at seven months.

Check out the Forrester Total Economic Impact™ of Ivanti Security Solutions or take Forrester’s online assessment for a more customized analysis based on your organization’s individual needs. Visit our site for more helpful resources on Ivanti Endpoint Security Solutions and how they can help you reduce the risk of ransomware and other cybersecurity threats infiltrating your organization.

Check out our new infographic “With Ivanti Endpoint Security, Be More…” Or, if you want a more comprehensive look at just how Ivanti Endpoint Security Solutions can help you reduce the risk of ransomware and other cybersecurity threats infiltrating your organization, take Forrester’s online assessment and check out the Forrester Total Economic Impact™ of Ivanti Security Solutions.

Achieve Hardware Asset Management Nirvana with Seven Key Principles

Mon, 30 Jul 2018 17:22:46 Z

The new-age of IT is here, and you’re looking to integrate, consolidate, intercommunicate – all those ‘ate’ words. Where IT strategies across various silos are unified, that wonderfully magical place, that’s IT nirvana. And to achieve IT nirvana, you’ve got to optimize everywhere.

But, and this is important to note, proper hardware asset management is absolutely necessary for every IT discipline – security, end user experience, IT service management, etc. – to experience total enlightenment.

Without a savvy hardware asset management solution, it can feel like your organization is living in the stone age, with rudimentary spreadsheets and unaccounted-for assets. We’ve talked with the experts in IT asset management strategies, and the following are seven key principles of hardware asset management that will get you to IT nirvana fast. Follow the path laid before you, oh young apprentice, and you too will belong to the great kingdom that is unified IT.

Achieve Seven for Hardware Asset Management Heaven

1. Breadth

Goal: Review accuracy of hardware numbers to drive positive change
Identify one data point as a source of truth
On monthly/quarterly basis, compare data point to others to identify breadth of accuracy

2. Depth

Goal: Understand total purview of hardware asset fields
Measuring the actual device vs. your expectation of the device
Best practices: locked down hardware, automated request system (allows you to keep track of hardware/software before their deployment), and change control

3. Ownership

Goal: To know where the asset is and who’s using it
Sense of accountability allows for more efficient, better innovation
Important for both security and software licensing

4. Naming Conventions

Goal: Being able to identify a hardware asset when we see one
Build a naming convention around your unique environment
Standards and uniformity are necessary for logical conventions

5. Performance Metrics

Goal: To show business value of hardware asset management
Track metrics that show value against your original business plan
Ex. Unknown device metrics, maintenance metrics, leasing expiree metrics, assets lost/stolen metrics, etc.

Manage your own success!

6. Major Process Areas

Goal: Managing hardware effectively throughout its lifecycle
Processes include: hardware request, hardware move, hardware replacement, employee offboarding, lifecycle steps, reclaim/redeploy, disposal/recycle
Chance for integration between IT Service Management and Asset Management

7. Stakeholders

Goal: To engage various stakeholders from across an organization into the hardware asset management process
Stakeholders such as:
- Software Asset Management
- Service Management
- Information Security
- Procurement
- IT Projects/Enterprise Architecture
- Finance

IT Nirvana: Successful Hardware Asset Management & Beyond

Following these seven, key hardware asset management principles will help you on your way to achieving total IT nirvana. Because again, if your hardware assets are mismanaged, so too is your entire IT environment. Get enlightened with Ivanti.

Check out the webinar recording, “Seven Pillars of Modern Hardware Asset Management (HAM) Practice,” which features Martin Thompson, owner and founder of The ITAM Review, and Darren Wilensky and Todd Hogan, both ITAM product managers with Ivanti.

And to ensure you’re on the right track, learn more about our unified IT strategies here!

Ivanti Ditches the Instructional Manual with Asset Manager Essentials, and So Can You!

Tue, 17 Jul 2018 20:48:17 Z

We’ve all been there. Trying to piece together cumbersome parts of furniture in vain. You could’ve sworn piece A attached to piece B, or should that screw have gone into that leg? You’re ready to rip the instruction manual to pieces or give up – leaving you with a poorly built, frustrating chair (who needs to sit on it anyway, right?)

Much like building big box store furniture, IT Asset Management can be equally complex, costly, and time-consuming. And what’s more, to get the most out of any IT Asset Management solution, you should be able to do three things:

Know what assets you have and where they reside
Track contracts and regulatory compliance
Understand your cost of ownership

Tracking assets using manual, outdated processes is an administrative nightmare, much like your chair is a hazard.

With Ivanti Asset Manager Essentials, ditch the instructional manual!

As a pre-built ITAM solution running in the cloud, Asset Manager Essentials significantly accelerates time to value, enabling you to get full visibility of your IT assets, track contracts, and understand cost of ownership.

Delivered in a pre-packaged, fixed design, you can enjoy rapid, budget-friendly implementation of Asset Manager Essentials so you can receive out-of-the-box reports and dashboards configured to meet the specific needs of your IT asset management team.

And on top of the sweet, pre-built functionalities, feature updates are automatic in the cloud, removing the administrative headaches around software maintenance that keep your team from focusing on vital IT assets. Don’t overcomplicate things, opt for a pre-built solution that tackles all your IT asset management needs.

The Short

With Ivanti Asset Manager Essentials, you have capabilities right out of the box:

Track asset availability and performance
Retrieve data with barcode scanning
Gain cost and contract visibility
Deliver enhanced user experiences with a product catalog
Drive vendor management
Improve growth, support capabilities, and end-user satisfaction with unified IT

The Long

Now that you’ve got the short list, let’s get into a few of the Essentials’ best features:

Tracking asset availability and performance has become easier than ever. No more grappling with multiple systems and inaccurate spreadsheet data. Asset Manager Essentials simplifies the entire process with an Asset Repository, enabling consistent management from procurement to purchase order, receipt deployment, and disposal. And to maintain repository accuracy, Asset Manager Essentials includes powerful data-importing capabilities that allow imported data from several different sources, including Ivanti Endpoint Manager, Data Center Discover, or barcode scans.

Now that tracking assets is a breeze, with Asset Manager Essentials, gain valuable cost and contract visibility. Now you can store and view procurement data, providing accurate, timely financial and contractual information to help you optimize your asset purchases for the business. Things such as opening and maintaining purchase orders, rolling up to your TCO, or assigning financial ownership to report on IT spend is now available. And what’s more, you can view and manage your complete list of contracts tied to individual assets, ensuring you’re in compliance and anticipating contract-renewal dates.

On top of these sweet, pre-built capabilities, Asset Manager Essentials is built on the proven Ivanti cloud platform and integrated with Ivanti Help Desk Essentials for an overall foundation for growth, improved support capabilities, and boosted end-user satisfaction. Want to ditch the instructions too?

To learn more about the ins and outs of the new out-of-the-box Asset Manager Essentials, visit www.ivanti.com/asset-manager-essentials. And, read the datasheet to see how Asset Manager Essentials meets the specific needs of your ITAM team.

Get the solution you want (and the chair you need), without overcomplicating things.

The GDPR – How to Deal with the Aftermath

Wed, 13 Jun 2018 20:42:08 Z

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect Friday, May 25^th, 2018.

You’ve probably heard about the GDPR by now – its trending on all your feeds, your own company is concerned – but you’re wondering how it truly affects you. The long and short of it: The GDPR will touch all companies globally that hold the data of EU citizens.

A lot of companies are staring down the barrel of some pretty hefty fines if they don’t get their act together to comply with the protections the GDPR grants EU citizens.

But, let’s say Friday has come and gone. Your company is in compliance with the GDPR, but WHAM – a data breach occurs. What do you do? Where do you go from here?

Option 1: Panic!

Option 2: Ignore it.

Option 3: Keep calm, and discover, provide insight, take action.

DAY 1 Discover - Ask yourself some key questions:

Do you have systems in place to protect data?
Do you have processes in place to detect and respond to a data breach?
Do you have a data protection officer?

DAY 2 Provide Insight – Figure out how the breach happened:

Where did it occur?
How widespread is it?
Has any damage occurred?

DAY 3 Take Action – If personally identifiable information (PII) was exposed, you need to take action:

Inform relevant supervisory authority
Inform affected individual(s) without delay

You may believe your company is protected, but don’t chance hefty fines if you’re breached after the 25^th has come and gone. Follow Ivanti’s approach by discovering the breach, providing insight into it, and taking action against it.

And, get the ultimate form of protection with Ivanti solutions – we secure data, detect breaches, and respond to the fallout. Contact us for more information.

IT Asset Management for the Modern Workplace: Podcast Recap With Phil Merson

Fri, 25 May 2018 20:58:16 Z

IT asset management is having a bit of a moment, and quite honestly, why shouldn’t it be? Shadow IT is bigger than ever, IT teams are struggling for visibility, and auditors are making their rounds. You need to know what assets you have to utilize them more efficiently and effectively.

So let’s review an Ivanti podcast with one of our own IT asset management experts, Phil Merson. Learn a bit about Merson, where IT asset management was, is, and will be, how an IT asset management solution can save you some serious cash, and so much more!

Phil Merson Uncovered

Starting his career in IT asset management in the late 1990s with the Federation Against Software Theft in the UK, Merson made sure companies were paying for the licenses they were using—a rudimentary but nonetheless necessary beginning to the asset management market.

But, Merson ultimately believed that customers should become more proactive about managing their own IT assets, or as he puts it: “[I] formed my own business to actually help customers build their own asset management practices, and that’s how it started.”

IT Asset Management: Then to Now

More now about reducing a company’s risk of audit than merely license agreement compliance, the IT asset management field has changed significantly, with more awareness of its necessity than ever. Where is the IT world in relation to effectively tracking their IT assets? Merson says it started in more regulated countries like the Nordics and the UK, trickling back down into lower-mid markets. In the last five to six years, the U.S. has begun to take hold of the trend, with companies deciding that they have to know what assets they own, what software they buy, and what to do in order to optimize.

Merson: “It’s growing across the world. We’re seeing it right the way through into Asia, into Asia PAC, South Africa, [etc.] It is becoming quite a big industry now.”

How did companies track assets pre-networks? Merson chuckles while elaborating that many customers were, and still are, used to updating a spreadsheet manually to track their assets. No longer can organizations use the Donald Rumsfeld phrase, “We don’t know what we don’t know,” for you really can discover everything with proper software asset management tools, saving as much as 30 percent of your software budget along the way.

In fact, the amount of money you can save in one year of using a software asset management solution can pay for three years of those same products and services.

Savings, You Say?

That being said, 75 percent of organizations are over-licensed for fear of audits. I.e., their license position is entirely unknown for fear of under-licensing and being audited. What’s a license position, you ask? Merson explains: “License position is being able to find all the software you have on all of your devices and marrying those discovered software assets with your licenses.”

And funny enough, License Optimizer does that marrying work for you—it’s the officiant of the IT world, bringing together previously undiscovered IT assets with the correct number of licenses.

To find out how License Optimizer can unify your IT assets with the correct number of licenses, track their usage, and identify which can work harder for you, contact us.

Subscribe and never miss a new episode!

er miss a new episode!

Drop us a line on social media:

Improved Service Quality and Compliance With Unified IT

Mon, 16 Apr 2018 19:17:40 Z

An iconic catchphrase attributed to the world’s number one fast food restaurant, Would you like fries with that?, seems rather arbitrary. It’s as if the McDonald’s marketing department decided off hand to have their customer associates begin asking one simple question with the hope of improving service quality.

Well, according to business analysis, that’s exactly what happened.

Knowing that a McDonald’s burger only tastes as good as the fries you have with it, the company’s formula was brilliant. One phrase, billions in additional revenue, and happy customers.

Wouldn’t you like a silver bullet for your user endpoint management system? The Would you like fries with that? for the IT world?

Well, perhaps you can with an automated and unified endpoint management solution. Such a simple approach to UEM seems like the McDonald’s value prop—too good to be true. Can you really experience the following benefits with automation?

Let’s take a look at how service quality and compliance can be improved:

1. Reduce fines and penalties

With the complexity of today’s environments, ensuring compliance from an IT perspective can become incredibly complicated, resulting in fines/penalties. Change, Release, and Configuration Management improve compliance and governance with: change and release templates and workflow that ensure separation of duties and oversight; and multi-level approval assignment to streamline change approvals and provide detailed audit trails.

The sample organization was able to reduce fines by one fine per year and the cost per fine by 10 percent, with an impact of $110,000 in annual cost savings.

2. Improve service quality by increasing service desk agent motivation and productivity

When call centers are outfitted with hardwired/land-line phone systems, it results in very little mobility or choice of work location for the service agents, essentially keeping them at a single desk in a single room all day. Voice Solutions allows service desk agents a great deal of flexibility in work arrangements. The software-based system doesn’t require agents to be stationed at a hardwired phone all day, allowing them to take calls from various locations, including tele-commuting. In addition, call overflow can be handled easily by having more agents sign on, as there is no constraint on the number of phones available.

The sample organization witnessed a five-percent improvement in overall service desk agent productivity, with an impact of $70,000 in annual revenue gains.

3. Reduce the risk of exposure to hacking and malware

Ineffective patch management can expose an organization to security compliance risks such as hacking and malware, which often target weak points of operating systems and applications. Ivanti enables a high level of automation for all phases of patch management, from identifying vulnerabilities in the network and selecting relevant patches, to quality control and rules-based implementation. Automated searches provide a complete overview of threats.

The sample organization reduced the time per patch deployment by 80 percent and the exposed vulnerabilities still affecting machines by 50 percent, with an impact of $171,600.

4. Reduce time spent transferring data between systems

When the IT service and endpoint management systems are not integrated, it can result in users having to wait a long time to have software installed, as the process would often contain a number of manual steps to enter and pull the needed data from the two separate systems. Combining the IT service management and endpoint management systems allows requests that require information from both systems to be handled much more quickly, as no human interaction is needed in transferring the information from one system to the other.

The sample organization was able to reduce the time spent transferring data and requests between systems by 95 percent, with an impact of $168,700 in annual productivity improvements.

5. Improve overall customer service/end-user uptime and customer satisfaction

Interrupted business processes can significantly impact employee productivity and satisfaction. And given the complexity of today’s IT management challenges, the risk that service disruptions could occur is considerable.

IT Service Management allows for the measurement of actual service-delivery quality against established benchmarks and availability metrics for every component within a service. Robust analytics help to determine where fine tuning will improve and transform the overall business service, so that productivity, performance, and quality can be optimized. In addition, Endpoint Management works across all areas of desktop and server management to reduce the amount of downtime incurred by end users, whether it be from waiting for new applications and upgrades installed, re-setting their preferences once an upgrade is complete, having vulnerabilities removed, or other issues and trouble that can arise. This reduced downtime increases end user productivity and satisfaction significantly.

The sample organization improved overall end-user productivity due to better uptime and customer service, with an impact of $140,000 in annual revenue gains.

With Ivanti, we enable you to improve service quality and compliance—a true Would you like fries with that? value, where with the power of unified automation, your end user is happy and your organization securely compliant.

To look back at the other two value props associated with an automated and unified IT solution, check out the other blogs in this series:

And to see how the Ivanti Service Manager solution could help your organization, download the full whitepaper here.

3 Ways of Reducing IT Costs With Ivanti's Unified IT Approach

Tue, 10 Apr 2018 16:39:19 Z

Reducing IT costs reminds me of a song: “I don’t know what they want from me / It’s like the more money we come across / The more problems we see…”

Humorous song lyrics aside, IT pros encounter the same problem—where there’s more money at stake, there’s bound to be more problems. Significant IT changes (such as OS deployments, etc., etc.) cost money, and usually, cause problems as the organization goes about changing.

As in the previous blog in the series, Maximizing Operational Efficiencies: Removing the Thorn from IT’s side with a Unified and Automated Solution, we’ll be pursuing the benefits within the value area of reducing IT costs. With the Ivanti Service Manager solution, a unified and automated IT solution, more money doesn’t have to mean more problems—just the opposite in fact.

Let’s take a look:

1. Reducing IT costs with less downtime due to unplanned/unapproved changes.

Failures caused by changes in IT can have a significant impact on end-user productivity and can result in significant added costs due to downtime. Change, Release, and Configuration Management mitigate the risks of failures caused by changes in IT. They can control the variations of IT asset configurations with sophisticated reconciliation and enforcement tools, and improve deployment time and quality by managing planning, authorization, and deployment from a single interface.

The sample organization reduced unplanned downtime and unapproved changes by 80%, with an impact of $172,700 in annual revenue gains.

2. Reducing IT costs with no purchase of unnecessary end-user hardware and software.

In today’s complex environments, knowing exactly what hardware and software exists and where it’s located on the network is a real challenge and can result in unneeded purchases of additional hardware components or software licenses. Ivanti Discovery makes it easy to catalog all IP addressable hardware (including servers, desktops, laptops, network printers, switches, and devices) and software, as part of a complete IT inventory that is always up to date. This 100-percent visibility can help control sprawling networks and manage them efficiently.

The sample organization reduced its annual end-user hardware and software costs by 5%, with an impact of $125,700 in annual cost savings.

3. Reduce IT systems and maintenance costs.

When IT service management and endpoint management are managed across a number of disparate systems, or across different systems and vendors in different departments, it can result in significant internal IT hardware and software costs. By moving to a single system across all IT Service Management and Infrastructure/Desktop and Server Management groups, the server, software, and maintenance costs are substantially reduced.

The sample organization consolidated five systems into one across IT Service and Endpoint Management, with an impact of $200,000 in annual costs savings.

So where's there mo money doesn't always mean mo problems. In fact, with unified IT, the mo money there is at stake, the mo money there is to save. Let a unified solution reduce downtime, the purchases of unneeded end-user hardware and software, and the costs of IT systems and maintenance. That's mo money across three value areas within an IT organization.

No, more money doesn't have to mean more problems.

To see how the Ivanti Service Manager solution could help your organization, download the full whitepaper here.

Maximizing Operational Efficiencies: Removing the Thorn From IT's Side With Unified Solutions

Mon, 09 Apr 2018 22:59:21 Z

In the previous post, Automated and Unified IT: The Swiss Army Knife of the IT World?, I introduced you to the jack of all trades for IT professionals: a unified and automated service and endpoint management solution. And of that solution, there are multiple value areas that are worth investigating, namely operational efficiencies (which we will address today), reducing IT costs, and improving service quality and compliance.

Most technical operations are considered a thorn in the side of the beast that is IT—a thorn whose negative effects are evident to both IT pros and end users alike. Time spent on routine tasks is far above what it should be, the number of service requests is astronomically high, call details are manually and painstakingly collected, etc.

With the Ivanti Service Manager solution, the coup de grace of IT Service and Endpoint Management solutions, such processes can be improved. Let’s see what an automated solution can really do:

1. Reduce time spent on routine tasks.

Service issues can often gobble up time to resolve and often require a good deal of time spent on routine tasks, such as updating end users on ticket status when the process is not fully automated. Incident Management provides the ability to diagnose problems quickly, determine workarounds, and restore service with: best-practices workflow, escalations, and notification to automate routine tasks; easily accessible knowledge base; drill-through analytics; intelligent ticketing; ITIL best practices workflows; and SLA traffic lights.

The sample organization we tested reduced time spent on routine tasks, such as updating end users on ticket status, by 95%. And was impacted by $232,900 in annual productivity improvements.

2. Reduce the number of service requests into the IT group.

A significant number of calls that come into the service desk are for services that could be standardized fairly easily, but which today take up significant IT time, both in answering calls and in setting up services for other departments. Service Catalog makes it easy to define, publish, and manage services with a drag-and-drop workflow designer and engine, significantly reducing or eliminating IT time needed. In addition, many standard requests can also be completed directly by the user by choosing an option from the service catalog.

The sample organization was able to reduce the number of service requests and the time-per-service request by 10%, with an impact of $296,200.

3. Reduce time spent collecting call details.

Time spent collecting all of the details for any given service call can be extensive. In addition, calls back out to the user might be required if key data is missing and needd before the incident can be addressed, slowing resolution time. Voice Automation speeds resolution time. The service desk technician can answer calls with a pre-populated intelligent ticket that provides immediate access to the customer’s contact information, PC inventory, and compliance information for easy routing to the correct area for resolution. The automated attendant may also be used as the primary interface to provide extended after-hours support.

The sample organization reduced the time spent collecting call details by 40 percent, with an impact of $108,000 in annual productivity improvements.

4. Reduce time spent creating software packages.

Whether it’s provisioning new employees or managing a mass migration, package configuration is one of the most time-consuming software management tasks. Ivanti Endpoint Management solutions allow packages to be created quickly and easily, as well as making it easy to find the right drivers. In addition to time saved, these tools allow the work to be done by a broader group of people since the level of technical expertise required is reduced.

The sample organization was able to reduce the time needed to build packages by 85 percent per package, with a $120,000 impact in annual productivity improvements.

5. Reduce time spent on application deployments.

The ever-increasing complexity in client computing— including new devices (laptops, notepads, smart phones); new delivery methods (cloud computing, hosted virtual desktops); new users, and new platforms—make application deployment difficult and time consuming. Ivanti Endpoint Management solutions automate application management tasks with a single-console interface for packaging, testing, deploying, and configuring software applications. Software sets can be created quickly and easily, and then applications can be deployed automatically to users based on criteria such as job description, location, department, or individual user profile.

The sample organization reduced the time spent on application deployments by 95 percent per machine, with $465,800 in annual productivity improvements.

The persistent difficulties that plague IT ops—and eventually affect an end users’ experience—can be a thing of the past with an automated and unified solution. That thorn in the flesh is no more! One deployment officer claimed an automated solution “reduced the time needed to build each software package from as much as a day down to about one hour.”

To see how IT costs can be reduced, one of the three value props associated with an automated and unified IT solution, click through to the next blog in the series: 3 Ways of Reducing IT Costs With Ivanti’s Unified IT Approach.

And to see how the Ivanti Service Manager solution could help your organization, download the full whitepaper here.

Think You Know How IT Assets Are Actually Managed?

Mon, 19 Mar 2018 18:19:39 Z

In terms of asset management software, did you know that only 36 percent of the software businesses pay for is utilized? That’s right! Only 36 percent. That’s an extra 64 percent that’s being paid for but going unused.

So, what does it mean to manage your software assets effectively—where 100 percent of your software investments are used?

Getting the Facts

The official definition of "software asset management," or SAM for short, is:

A process for making software acquisition and disposal decisions. It includes strategies that identify and eliminate unused or infrequently used software, consolidating software licenses or moving toward new licensing models.

So, eliminating, consolidating, and revitalizing old software licensing models is the name of the game. But if you don’t know the lay of the land around software (i.e. how often organizations over-license software, how much time is spent resolving data accuracy issues, how much software license complexity indirectly costs an organization, etc.), you’ll never have the wherewithal to manage your own software.

We’ve Got You Covered

Knowing the painful facts about asset management software will properly equip you to face your own licensing fears.

Our Software Asset Management experts have formulated a simple, 5 question quiz that tests your knowledge about how organizations actually manage their software.

After you test your knowledge, we’ll give you the right answers and some accompanying helpful tips for managing your own software in the future. The more you know, the more capable you are of properly managing your software.

Take our Software Asset Management 5 question quiz to test your knowledge about SAM today!

The REAL NEWS About IT Asset Management

Thu, 01 Mar 2018 21:20:18 Z

The term "fake news" has had a ubiquitous presence in the media over the last 12 months, with an increase in usage by 365 percent since 2016. It has been a nearly inescapable buzzword lately, being defined as: “false, often sensational, information disseminated under the guise of news reporting.”

So how does this term relate to managing IT assets? Well frankly, everything.

Too many executives view ITAM as redundant. "Doesn’t my organization already have insight into the assets we’re utilizing? What’s the big deal if they don’t? Aren’t my employees still productive and the organization still thriving? I bet ITAM is just some scam IT organizations have created to take more resources from us.”

And to that, I respond—no. IT Asset Management (ITAM) is not a scam. Let me explain.

Flaunt your assets. IT assets, that is.

Your IT assets are your greatest assets and you should flaunt them—pardon the expression. They help your business achieve financial and strategic goals, and when managed properly, they can drive your organization towards success.

ITAM allows you to:

Discover resource availability and performance for better allocation and cost savings
No longer fear audits with compliant contracts and risk management
Find favor with your end users, who are productive and positive with better operational success
Scale the business and earn more money

With fiscal accountability of your assets, IT isn’t just serving. It’s innovating.

ITAM is REAL NEWS, and we’re going to preach the harsh truth.

A shocking 76.4 percent of organizations admit to over-licensing in fear of audits, and there’s a 68 percent chance that most organizations will be audited within the next 12 months. That means you’re probably spending too much on licenses because an audit might be coming your way within the year.

Get rid of the software clutter, and hear the good news! With SAM processes and tools—like Ivanti’s License Optimizer—you can save 30 percent of the software spend you would typically put in place in fear of an audit.

Download the infographic The REAL NEWS About IT Asset Management for even more insight into how managing your IT assets can truly save you money.

Automated and Unified IT: The Swiss Army Knife of the IT World?

Fri, 09 Feb 2018 01:11:15 Z

Do you remember the Swiss army knife your grandfather carried in his pocket with him? Perhaps there were six to eight different functionalities to it—a nail file, scissors, blade, screwdriver, etc. He used it for just about everything (even picking his teeth with the knife when your grandmother wasn’t watching).

Whether he’s given you his simple model or you’ve caved and purchased the $320 mammoth with 83 different functionalities, the jack-of-all-trades that is the Swiss army knife is a traditionally indispensable tool.

Much like the variety of simple tasks one Swiss army knife can complete, a unified and automated service and endpoint management solution contains all the information for all of an organization’s IT services and its hardware and software inventories. AKA, it’s a single solution to address multiple different incidents and deploy multiple different software packages to your end users.

Unified IT: Value That’s Immediate and Demonstrable

A sample organization with 10,000 employees, 3,000 service requests a month, 40 hours a week spent managing changes, and 25 application/upgrade deployments per year can experience $1.5 million in savings from maximizing operational efficiencies and reduced IT costs alone. Through improved service quality and compliance, annual benefits can be as much as $2.3 million.

Based on interviews with Directors and Managers of IT Operations, Services Management, Systems Engineering, Deployment, and Delivery and Support at a number of U.S. and international organizations, the value falls into three main categories:

Maximize operational efficiencies
Reduce IT costs
Improve service quality and compliance

Each value can be broken down further into a set of specific benefits, as illustrated in the chart below:

To get the full picture of each specific benefit within the three value areas, click through to the next blog in this series: Maximizing Operational Efficiencies: Removing the Thorn From IT's Side With Unified Solutions.

And to see how the Ivanti Service Manager solution could help your organization, download the full white paper here.

10 Tips for Feds to Ace Their Windows 10 Migration Part 2 of 2

Sat, 06 Jan 2018 00:17:36 Z

In case you missed it, we featured the first five tips of this series here.

But to Recap…

37% of IT organizations across the public and private sectors plan to fully migrate to Windows 10 within the next year
35% plan to migrate within the next two years
14% have not yet established a migration timeline

Ivanti’s first five tips to help you gain insight into completing your Windows 10 OS migration process:

Tip #1: Prepare for a New Release Cadence

Tip #2: Don’t Let Applications Be a Barrier to Migration

Tip #3: Pick an OS Deployment Strategy

Tip #4: Ensure Windows and Applications are Properly Patched

Tip #5: Stop Malicious or Unlicensed Applications

Tip #6: MANAGE USER ADMIN PRIVILEGES

By now, federal agency IT organizations understand that providing users with full administrative rights makes endpoints vulnerable to attack, significantly increasing security and manageability expenses, while also reducing regulatory, legal and liability controls.

Out of 20 items on its list of Critical Security Controls, the Center for Internet Security ranks ‘controlled use of administrative privileges’ at number 5. But how can trusted agency IT administrators help maintain user productivity without giving users the keys to the kingdom? By applying granular privilege management techniques, administrators can remove full admin rights from users, quickly and easily, instead providing them with ‘elevated’ privileges to access only the apps or tasks that these users most need. This also helps to simplify endpoint security, reducing support calls, and lowering costs.

Tip #7: PLAN FOR A HYBRID ENVIRONMENT

Complexity is a nagging challenge in federal IT environments, and hybrid computing environments, while popular, certainly don’t reduce IT complexity concerns. Increasingly, agency success has little to do with the technologies used, and more to do with how well each agency can bring disparate technologies together in a way that’s efficient for all types of users.

This creates a new challenge for IT in terms of predicting and reacting to context. Windows 10 is accessible from an array of devices, including PCs, laptops, tablets, handheld smartphones, and even wearable devices. Users today log onto their workspaces from nearly any location, using different types of endpoints. And IT administrators must understand the context in which users are logging on, to adapt each user’s workspace experience accordingly, to help those users be productive from any location.

For example, a user in an Internet café will typically require a much higher level of security protection to access government resources, especially compared to an employee working from the secure confines of a federal agency office. It’s crucial to utilize information about user context, such as location, device or connection type, even time of day, to determine resource entitlement. This will help you properly secure and protect Windows 10 endpoints.

Tip #8: CREATE AN *ULTIMATE* USER EXPERIENCE

User acceptance of a new workspace starts at logon. If the first logon process is slow, user acceptance of a new workspace will be less-than-stellar from day one. And, with every slow log on and every slow-running, frozen, or unavailable application, user acceptance — and productivity — will diminish.

To optimize usability and user acceptance of Windows 10, Ivanti recommends running analytics to evaluate user experiences using the new workspace. You should baseline existing environments and record metrics such as logon times, memory and CPU utilization, application usage, and privileges needed to run resources.

It’s also a good idea to ascertain how and where users are storing their data — which is crucial to ensure a good user experience, both during and after OS migration. This exercise will allow you to pre-empt potential bottlenecks, or resource hogs that could affect quality of service in your new environment. It will also help you understand license requirements and identify users with unnecessary or other less than secure rights/privileges.

Tip #9: GIVE USERS EASY ACCESS TO THEIR DATA

One of the biggest obstacles in migrating to Windows 10 involves how to migrate files and folders stored locally on each user’s prior device. In this situation, how does IT ensure both agency and personal files are securely backed up, so they can be effortlessly migrated to new devices? It’s also difficult for IT administrators to establish how many local files exist on each device, to determine the best way to migrate them to Windows 10.

Storing user files and folders on file shares or home PC drives in the data center is another challenge for agency IT organizations and users, because users working remotely or offline may not be able to access their files stored in the data center. If they have remote access to on-premises file shares, use of a VPN is typically required. This can frustrate users and adds another layer of security and complexity that causes headaches for IT administrators when dealing with break/fix, migration, and upgrade scenarios.

Ivanti® File Director enables effortless migration of user data, no matter where it resides. With File Director, user file and folder migration becomes a simple, stress-free task that, once initiated, prepares agency IT organizations instantly for any future migration projects. In addition, the data migration process is 100% unobtrusive to users.

Tip #10: PERSONALIZE USER WORKSPACES

In a recent Dimensional Research survey, over 90% of users surveyed expressed emotions ranging from annoyance to despair when asked for their reactions to changes on their desktop. The survey also revealed 32% of users are already confused by the Windows 10 interface.

If, after migration to Windows 10, a user’s personal settings are missing, it’s inevitable that user acceptance of the newly delivered Windows 10 workspace will be negatively affected. To avoid this scenario, federal agencies may choose to continue to support users on older operating systems and hardware.

However, if some users also need new hardware that runs Windows 10, new headaches arise because Windows 10 introduces an additional roaming profile architecture that makes it difficult to persist/maintain prior user settings when users switch between different devices and platforms.

However, if a user logs onto their new Windows 10 workspace and finds their familiar settings already in place, agency IT administrators will reduce fears and increase user acceptance, speeding the transition away from older Windows versions. To enable the ability to maintain user settings postmigration, you’ll need to capture and manage user personalization information, independently from the underlying operating system and applications. This will ensure personal settings are always available, regardless of the device or platform used.

Check out the first five tips in the full report here. Start your transition now with Ivanti!

10 Tips for Feds to Ace Their Windows 10 Migration Pt. 1 of 2

Thu, 04 Jan 2018 00:44:11 Z

The U.S. federal government’s migration to Windows 10 is currently being driven by government-wide mandates that favor industry standard technologies, along with increasingly stringent security requirements.

Agency IT executives fully understand that a lack of OS standards across the government has only generated confusion and complexity, especially when upgrading thousands of user devices at once. With so many devices running multiple, differing OS versions, agencies face difficult, time-consuming and budgetary challenges when deploying, maintaining and upgrading endpoint devices.

Security Concerns Rise, Windows 10 Migrations Do Too

Driven by security concerns and issues with OS standardization complexities, the Pentagon set a January 2017 deadline for Department of Defense agencies to migrate to Windows 10. While the entire DoD didn’t achieve this goal, the aggressive timeline mandated by the Pentagon kickstarted Windows 10 migration efforts across both DoD and civilian agencies. Meanwhile, Microsoft announced it will end all support for Windows 7 in January 2020.

According to a recent global study by Dimensional Research:

37% of IT organizations across the public and private sectors plan to fully migrate to Windows 10 within the next year
35% plan to migrate within the next two years
14% have not yet established a migration timeline

What We Have to Say About It

Ivanti’s created its Top Ten Tips for Windows 10 Migration, which is designed to help agency IT departments gather insights from our extensive, collective experience in helping all types of organizations across the public and private sector to complete Windows 10 OS migration processes.

Tip #1: PREPARE FOR A NEW RELEASE CADENCE

With Windows 10, Microsoft has introduced a far more frequent update cadence to ensure Windows 10 endpoints remain up to date. This twice-yearly cadence, called the Semi-Annual Channel, replaces the Current Branch for Business (CBB) and the Long-Term Servicing Branch (LTSB) options for servicing Windows, which was introduced with the advent of Windows 10.

Endpoints that employ the Semi-Annual Channel will receive two major updates per year, while endpoints that use the Long-Term Servicing Channel will receive major feature updates infrequently, perhaps every two to three years. In addition, Microsoft has removed many of the non-essential, built-in Semi-Annual Channel features from the Long-Term Servicing Channel — such as Windows Store Apps, Cortana, and Microsoft Edge — to reiterate its advice that the Long-Tern Servicing Channel is only for point-of-sale and industrial devices.

Most organizations will receive twice-yearly updates from the Semi-Annual Channel. Primary benefits include increased security and feature updates. The downside is that most IT teams will find themselves in a constant state of migration due to more frequent updates.

Tip #2: DON’T LET APPLICATIONS BE A BARRIER TO MIGRATION

One of the largest obstacles organizations face when migrating to Windows 10 involves application compatibility. Luckily, there are several alternative application-delivery platforms that help apps to be integrated seamlessly into desktop environments using techniques such as virtualization, layering, or streaming technologies.

When selecting an application delivery method, consider the questions below to help determine the best approach to fit your agency’s needs/requirements:

-- Will my users need access to applications offline?

-- What security privileges will users need to run these apps?

-- How do I license these apps?

-- How will my IT department handle upgrades/patches?

-- Based on answers to the questions above, which approach is most cost-effective for this agency/department?

In addition, federal agencies must also consider Web applications.

If in-house agency web apps currently run without issue on IE9 in compatibility mode, or only with a specific version of Java, what will happen when migrating to IE11 or Microsoft Edge? Do you redevelop internal web applications, or do you virtualize them to continue support, which could be costly and time consuming?

Ivanti recommends re-testing mission-critical agency applications on Windows 10 before migrating them, with a specific emphasis on testing the most secure applications that require administrative rights in order to run.

Tip #3: PICK AN OS DEPLOYMENT STRATEGY

There are several device-related caveats to consider when embarking on a desktop migration initiative. Most importantly, some devices may not support Windows 10. Since late 2016, PCs no longer ship with Windows 7 pre-installed, and most modern processors will only be supported on Windows 10.

Federal agencies must decide whether to replace, re-image, or upgrade existing endpoints. The Dimensional Research survey found there is no single best approach to Windows 10 migration. Of respondents surveyed, 52% planned on re-imaging existing endpoints using systems management tools, while 49% were looking at hardware migration, or upgrading to Windows 10 as new devices are deployed. However, by timing computer replacement strategically to coincide with an OS migration, agencies may save time and expenses associated with in-place upgrades.

Tip #4: ENSURE WINDOWS AND APPLICATIONS ARE PROPERLY PATCHED

With ransomware and other malicious attacks on the rise, it’s increasingly difficult for federal agencies to satisfy security compliance requirements while protecting against new and more intelligent threats.

Social engineering tactics use deceptive techniques to manipulate users into performing non-secure actions or divulging private information. Many targeted attacks look for vulnerabilities and weaknesses in agency operating systems and application content, typically due to unpatched operating systems and applications.

A comprehensive patch management solution can help protect your agency’s Windows 10 environment, without disrupting the continuity of operations, by detecting vulnerabilities in both your Windows 10 endpoints and installed applications.

Tip #5: STOP MALICIOUS OR UNLICENSED APPLICATIONS

Will agency users employ Windows 10 Store apps? If so, how will agency IT administrators control which apps they may access, install, or run? Agencies are likely to encounter productivity, compliance, and security risks when they fail to use application controls.

In addition, it’s not solely Windows Store apps that must be controlled, but traditional Windows apps as well. Without proper app controls in place, users may introduce unlicensed software, ransomware, or other malicious executables, compromising agency security and increasing serious cybersecurity risks.

Traditional whitelisting and blacklisting technologies typically require ongoing maintenance when new service packs or upgrades are released, or when new, unknown malware is propagated. This can increase the burden on IT staff, along with the cost of IT support. In addition, these solutions are often easily bypassed by renaming unknown or blacklisted applications as an application on the whitelist.

Ivanti® Application Control uses a Trusted Ownership™ model in which any application installed by a non-trusted owner (any standard, typical agency user) is blocked automatically.

Application Control is recognized by Microsoft for enforcing device-based software license control. By controlling which users or devices have permission to run named applications, agency IT administrators can place limits on the number of application instances, which devices or specific users may run an application, as well as when users may run a program, and for how long.

The Next Five?

Be sure to check out 10 Tips for Feds to Ace Their Windows 10 Migration Part 2 of 2

Also, read the full report here.” Start your transition to Windows 10 with Ivanti now!