Fundamentals of Software Audit Data Collection

In order to effectively manage their software usage and to mitigate software license-compliance exposure, companies need to know how to gather information regarding their product usage. While some software products may have unique data-collection requirements that ordinarily would not be applicable for other products, usage levels for many products can be measured using a common set of reports that companies can prepare themselves to gather. Understanding what datasets are required, why they are relevant to licensing obligations, and how to gather them all are critical components of successful software asset management.

This presentation covers:

• Challenges and Risks of Inaction
• Identification of Basic Datasets:

• Hardware Inventory
• Virtualization Inventory
• Software-Deployment Inventory
• User Data
• Use-Characterization Data
• Entitlement Data

• Common Challenges Encountered in Data Collection
• Best Practices for Data Collection