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Mine the Gold in Microsoft SCCM Asset DataFrom Raw Data to Actionable Information for IT Decision-Making

BDNA for SCCM quickly and easily translates existing hardware and software data stored in Microsoft SCCM into normalized,

actionable information that accelerates time-to-decision for IT cost saving and service improvement initiatives.

IntroductIon

Delivering more with less has become the order of the day in IT departments around the world. This imperative goes beyond simple cost cutting, but also covers increasing positive economic returns from IT hardware and software assets. Here, IT departments pursue a never-ending series of initiatives to eliminate inefficiencies in existing infrastructure on one hand and invest in new technologies—virtualization, cloud computing, dynamic IT asset management, green computing etc.—on the other.

IT decision-makers know that they can’t manage what they can’t see, and have deployed processes and technologies focused on identifying, inventorying and tracking the lifecycles of IT hardware and software

assets. Since a contemporary IT infrastructure can encompass thousands to hundreds of thousands of computers distributed across the globe, automated asset management solutions are essential to making rational, informed decisions on information technology investments, programs, and policies.

MIcrosoft sccM

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) has become one of the most-used system management tools in the IT industry. While SCCM is an outstanding platform for enterprise system management, many IT experts agree that the sheer volume of data reported by SCCM can easily overwhelm its users. Even a moderately sized infrastructure can generate SCCM asset inventory reports

containing millions of listings. While the data may be thorough, actionable decision-making information is often hiding in plain sight. Organizations are increasingly looking to leverage the data trapped in SCCM to enable key strategic initiatives and increase the value in their SCCM investment.

However, what constitutes useful information is highly subjective, revolving around the specific decision an organization seeks to make. Typical decision questions can include: Is this right time to replace a defined group of PCs? Which server workloads should be consolidated? What do we need to do to achieve compliance with a new industry standard? Stand pat, virtualize, or outsource to the cloud? These and any number of equally critical questions will require different data sets and analysis frameworks.

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froM raw data to actIonable InforMatIon

Transforming Microsoft SCCM data into strategic information to drive key initiatives begins by extracting the raw hardware and software data generated by SCCM. Then by aligning the results with an independent source of IT product knowledge, normalization helps clarify, classify and enrich the raw data to provide consistent, reliable and actionable information..

Depending on the actionable information required by IT decision-makers, the normalization process can involve a number of steps:

•Filteringoutirrelevantdata.

•De-duplicatingandconsolidating redundant data.

•Detectingandidentifyingassetsnot directly seen and reported by SCCM based on fingerprints and signatures.

•Showingrelationshipsbetween products; for example, recognizing

Adobe Creative Suite as an umbrella identity for Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Acrobat and other suite components.

•Standardizingproductnames,which can vary widely especially when originally entered manually.

•EnrichingSCCM-generateddatawith externally sourced product lifecycle, sales and marketing history, licensing, enterprise-specific licensing and cost of ownership information.

•Classifyingassetsintodefined categories—applications, computers, middleware, operating systems, processor cores (often relevant for software license management exercises), network infrastructure, etc.

Since every IT policy and asset management decision is different, the normalization process will be guided by the needs of a decision-maker, for example, whether a Chief Security Officer assessing compliance with a government PC configuration

Figure 1: Actionable information for IT decision making is often hidden in plain sight in Microsoft SCCM configuration output.

Detail view of specific devices with suite products & components

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standard, or a purchasing manager preparing for an annual software license audit, or a CIO making a keep-consolidate-virtualize-outsource decision regarding a set of servers carrying a common workload.

bdna technopedIa™: the defInItIve GuIde to It hardware and software

As noted previously, normalization involves cross-referencing enterprise-specific asset inventory and configuration data with an external knowledge base. The BDNA Normalize™ solution leverages BDNA Technopedia to supply the IT product knowledge required to uncover the actionable information required for a decision-making exercise.

The product of over 10 years of ongoing research, BDNA Technopedia has been recognized as the world’s most comprehensive data store of specifications, development evolution, and market¬place history of commercial IT hardware, software, and associated products.

BDNA Technopedia currently contains over 11,000,000 data points on -over 90,000 products. Technopedia’s product knowledge extends well beyond technical specifications supplied by vendors. By integrating both product-inherent as well as economically and historically valuable external market data, including patch and update history, licensing costs and models, service and support, vendor business moves (particularly mergers and acquisitions), Technopedia delivers critical discoverable and non-discoverable information on every major software and hardware product to provide a single source of enterprise truth.

It should also be clear that BDNA’s universal approach to cataloging and normalizing IT product-related information enables decision makers to map and analyze all products and technologies in their infrastructure, not just those recognized through SCCM asset discovery.

Through the normalization process, IT decision makers gain an understanding of the sum total

Figure 2: Informed by Technopedia, BDNA Normalize clarifies, classifies and enriches raw data from Microsoft SCCM, transforming it into actionable information for strategic IT decision making.

File NameFile Description

File Version

File SizeCompany Name

Product Name

Product Version

Product Language

MSACCESS.EXEMicrosoft Access for Windows

9.0.2719 4677686Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft Access

9.0.27190

WINWORD.EXEMicrosoft Word for Windows

9.0.2717 8798260Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft Office 2000

9.0.2717 0

EXCEL.EXEMicrosoft Excel for Windows

9.0.2719 7151661Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft Office 2000

9.0.27190

POWERPNT.EXEMicrosoft PowerPoint for Windows

9.0.2716 4325428Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows

9.0.2716 1033

ProdID Display Name Publisher Version

{004F0409-78E1-11D2-B60F-006097C998E7}Microsoft Access 2000 SR-1 Runtime

Microsoft Corporation 9.00.3821

{00000409-78E1-11D2-B60F-006097C998E7} Microsoft Office 2000 SR-1 Microsoft Corporation 9.00.2720

Category Sub-category Manufacturer Product Major Version Version Edition Suite Licenseable

Databases Personal Microsoft Access 2000 9.0.2719 Runtime No Yes

Applications Word Processors Microsoft Word 2000 9.0.2717 Standard No Yes

Applications Spreadsheets Microsoft Excel 2000 9.0.2719 Standard No Yes

Applications Presentation Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 9.0.2716 Standard No Yes

Applications Productivity Microsoft Office 2000 9.00.3821 Standard Yes Yes

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of products, configurations, usage patterns, costs and benefits that define the contours and attributes of an organization’s IT infrastructure.

By automating the normalization process BDNA has also radically accelerated the time and reduced the effort required to ascertain information required for strategic decision-making. Actions that formerly would have required a dedicated task force working for months or years can now be completed in hours or days.

Of course, by their very nature, IT infrastructures are very complex and in a state of constant change. BDNA understands that decision makers want answers to specific questions and have therefore designed BDNA Normalize to enable its users to cut through analysis paralysis and more quickly harvest benefits of cost-saving and IT program quality improvement initiatives.

The practical effect of radically streamlining and sharpening the focus of normalization lowers the cost of acquiring actionable management information and enables more sophisticated analysis. To cite how this plays out in just a few real world use cases, consider:

•Whichsystemshavethehighest availability, and which ones trigger the most trouble tickets.

•Approachingvendorsoftware licensing audits and true-ups with the balance of information in your favor.

•Knowingthepowerconsumptionof every device in your infrastructure.

•Abilitytocombineassetinventory, external market and product lifecycle information with customer-specific

information (actual asset cost of ownership, end user information, utilization metrics, availability, etc.) to gain a complete picture of all factors relevant to a decision or management action.

• Identifyingsystemsthathavefallen dangerously behind security patch and service pack levels.

•Whichserverscanquietlydisappear during a consolidation project.

•Whichapplicationsshouldbe virtualized, migrate to the cloud, or be outsourced.

•Whichsoftwareapplications performing equivalent functions should make the cut in a vendor reduction drive.

•Discoveringrogue,orunsanctioned, assets that may pose risks to IT security.

bdna and the MIcrosoft systeMs center allIance

BDNA for SCCM and its demonstrated track record in adding value to SCCM-based asset management processes has qualified the company for membership in the Microsoft System Center Alliance partner program. While Microsoft does not expressly endorse specific companies or products accepted into the System Center Alliance, BDNA’s membership in the MSCA partner program recognizes it as providing a complementary solution that enables organizations to tackle high value strategic initiatives without deploying a complex solution. Because BDNA for SCCM requires zero changes to an existing SCCM deployment, organizations realize rapid time- to-value.

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Copyright © 2011. All rights reserved. BDNA, BDNA IT Visibility. Solved., BDNA Technopedia, BDNA Discover, and BDNA Normalize are trademarks of BDNA Corporation. Other trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks are property of their respective owners. CSCAL.8.23.10

suMMary and conclusIon

Often conflicting imperatives to cut costs while improving IT quality of service and support new initiatives have brought new urgency to the task of IT asset management. Under these circumstances, IT managers and executives need to quickly and reliably access actionable information on their IT infrastructure to make informed, rational decisions. BDNA for SCCM brings three key attributes to the decision making process:

•MarketContext—Generatesstrategic information quickly and easily by leveraging BDNA Technopedia to translate existing hardware and software data stored in Microsoft SCCM.

•BetterDecisions—BDNANormalize aligns and augments the normalized information with market data such as Windows 7 compatibility, licensable flags and hardware power information that streamlines information sharing and speeds time-to-decision .

• ImmediateValue—Increasesvalue of existing investment in SCCM by creating Microsoft SCCM Collections to enable more informed IT decision making.

As forces driving change in the IT sector accelerate and infrastructures become more complex, IT decision makers need to quickly and easily unlock the strategic value of the data trapped in SCCM to enable key initiatives while reducing cost and improving efficiencies. Together, BDNA’s Technopedia-based normalization technologies and Microsoft SCCM bring new levels of transparency and incisiveness to the IT decision-making process. The BDNA value proposition is compelling: for a modest incremental investment in BDNA technologies, IT organizations can dramatically increase the value of management technologies they already know and trust—in this case Microsoft SCCM.