Managing your software assets: the benefits this brings to your NHS organisation

NHS Connecting for Health has asked the resellers appointed to manage the distribution of licences under its latest Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft to conduct a piece of software asset management work.

The purpose is to find out what Microsoft software is deployed across the NHS, so better deals can be negotiated in the future. But there should be more immediate benefits for NHS organisations as well. 



The NHS finds it notoriously difficult to count things. Ask an apparently simple question, such as how many hospitals or beds it has, and the response will be that it depends on how you define your term.

What facilities does a building need to count as a hospital? Does a bed have to be on a ward, and if so, who decides when an open space is a ward? Does a bed have to be something that holds a patient, and if so, do fixed trolleys or airline style chairs count?

All these questions have been the subject of intense debate over the years. So it should perhaps come as no surprise that the NHS – as a whole - cannot put a figure on other items, such as how many computers it has and what applications they are running.

The Enterprise Agreement

NHS Connecting for Health (NHS CFH), the agency in charge of “digitising” the NHS, wants to find out. Or, at least, it wants to know how much Microsoft software it has.

To this end, the latest Enterprise Agreement (EA) signed between NHS CFH and Microsoft requires its designated resellers to carry out a piece of asset management work to find out what is in use and on what terms. " "This will give NHS organisations a clear view of what they have got – often for the first time."


The purpose is to help monitor the uptake of licenses under the present EA and to help NHS CFH negotiate better deals in the future.

But Amanda Abel, Microsoft head of licensing, says: “We were very, very excited when the NHS decided to put SAM into the EA. It is a very positive step. It is good governance and shows due diligence. NHS organisations ought to be very pleased this is being done.”

Reseller arrangements

NHS CFH has five local service provider regions, and each of them has a designated reseller for software covered by the EA. They are all taking different approaches to the task of finding out what is in use at the moment.

Bytes Technology Group, which is the reseller for London, the South and the North West / West Midlands, is offering the Centennial discovery tool to its customers as a hosted service (named Bytes Discovery) or one they can take and manage themselves. "...we have already found that many people are over rather than under-licensed, because they have bought more than they need to guard against the risk of non-compliance.”

Trustmarque Solutions, which is the reseller for the North East and for the Department of Health, is also recommending the Centennial tool. However, has brought in a consultancy - SAMpartners - to deploy it (while developing other services for interested customers).

Computacenter, which is the reseller for the East of England / East Midlands and NHS arms length bodies, is looking at whether organisations have a tool in place, whether it is working, and whether they can generate an asset register; and then offering advice on what they need to do.

“Trusts may have a tool in place that is working, which is great,” says marketing manager Bobbie Ttooulis. “Or they may have one that is not working, in which case we will help them fix it, or they may not have a tool, in which case we will make them aware of their options.”

Reporting back to NHS CFH

This activity has, unsurprisingly, raised some questions about what information will be generated and what will be done with it.

However, all the resellers stress that the discovery tools will look at what applications are loaded onto a particular desktop – not at what is being done with them or at what data is held inside them (so there should be no chance of patient confidentiality being breached). At the same time, NHS CFH is only interested in aggregated results.

“No information is going to NHS CFH that should worry organisations in any way at all,” says Tony Fisher of SAMpartners. “They just want numbers. They do not want detail. They do not want to know whether trusts are under-licensed, or what people are doing with the software.”

“Anything we provide to NHS CFH is at a rolled up level,” confirms Ms Ttooulis. “It has not asked for information at a trust level. If the exercise reveals issues at particular organisations, we will work through those with them.

“However, we have already found that many people are over rather than under-licensed, because they have bought more than they need to guard against the risk of non-compliance.”

Benefits for NHS organisations

Other benefits should flow out of the audit work for individual NHS organisations. “This will give them a clear view of what they have got – often for the first time,” says Mr Fisher. “I recently spoke to an IT manager who literally does not know how many PCs there are on his network, never mind what is running on them.” "We are starting to see businesses doing [SAM], because they need to be able to demonstrate compliance and because it delivers so many other benefits to them. So this is very forward looking."

“This is very important, because if you do not know what you have got, how do you know how to secure it, or manage it, or what else you need?” asks Ms Abel. “How can you do something as basic as patch management, if you do not know what you have?

“Some people might not be doing it, but that’s a worrying thought, given how much the NHS depends on its systems and the sensitivity of the information within them.”

Organisations should also be able to use the asset register for support and planning. “The tool will allow people to drill down into a PC and see what software it is running,” says Chris Hibbert, NHS service delivery manager at Bytes Technology Group.

“So if there is a support issue, they should be in a better position to spot what is causing it. If they are planning an IT project, such as a migration from Microsoft XP to Vista, they should also be able to look ahead for software issues that might come up.”

Software Asset Management

However, all the organisations involved in this piece of work agree that organisations will only get the real benefits if they build on it. “The really important thing is that if people do this, they can go on and do other things,” says Mr Fisher.

“They can check they are compliant [in licensing terms]. They can look at their SAM policies and processes and check they are following best practice. They can look at some sort of managed service, so they get a more or less constant audit of their desktops.

“They could even go for the ISO standard [ISO 19770]. The audit is just a route for getting information. The really important thing is what organisations then do with it.”

Timescales

Although nobody knows exactly how many desktops the NHS has got, it is a large number. Trustmarque is aiming to audit about 20,000 desktops a year over the lifetime of the EA, which runs until 2010.

Bytes Technology has something like 400,000 desktops to audit over the same timeframe - but Mr Hibbert says he wants to see the job done far faster. “Our corporate objective is to this done to the level of 80 per cent in the next year,” he says.

“There is no reason why that should not happen. The tool is easy to deploy and to use. Some of our clients have done this overnight or in a matter of days. There are clear benefits for the NHS and for individual trusts in doing it, and we think those should be delivered as quickly as possible.”

Similarly, Computacenter wants all of its organisations to have created an asset register within the next six months. Ms Abel feels the exercise will make the NHS out as an industry leader. “SAM is becoming more common,” she says.

“We are starting to see businesses doing it, because they need to be able to demonstrate compliance and because it delivers so many other benefits to them. However, it is not yet ubiquitous, so I think this is very forward looking.”

Related Articles: 

More on SAM and how it is being managed and deliverd by your reseller

Getting the best deals: what you need to know about Resellers

The NHS Enterprise Agreement: it's a big deal

Related Links:

Find out more about Bytes Technology Group and the Bytes Discovery tool

Find out more about Computacenter

Find out more about Trustmarque's SAM solution

Find out more about SAM Partners