Define software harvesting

By: Brad Rudisail Contributor. By: Kaushik Pal Contributor. By: Leah Zitter Contributor. Dictionary Dictionary Term of the Day. Decentralized Finance. Techopedia Terms. Connect with us. Sign up. Term of the Day. Best of Techopedia weekly. News and Special Offers occasional. Software represents one of the largest IT budget items for most organizations, so managing the number of applications and licenses in use on the network is critical.

With license harvesting, unused and underutilized software licenses can be automatically reclaimed. These licenses can be reassigned and made available to other users who have requested them, eliminating unnecessary purchases. This alone can have a tremendous impact on software costs and required maintenance , optimizing your total software portfolio budget.

Licenses may also be retired if appropriate. Software license harvesting is one of the SAM processes that can result in the biggest cost savings. It should be an integral piece of any Software Asset Management Program. IT-Pedia provides comprehensive normalisation of hardware and software data from myriad sources.

License Harvesting. How big a problem is this? However being that in mind, perhaps this is an improvement that could be implemented by the deployment tool. Most good deployment tools work by setting a desired state policy. If the desired state is a removal for this software, then ideally it should remove the backup as well. I am not sure about Line Manager role in step 1.

Software Re-harvesting process Primary Objective: To ensure that only software used within a 90 day period remains on the IT estate with the exception of certain ear-marked titles Secondary Objectives: To ensure that a QA check takes place to ensure that the process has been successful That where appropriate, Management approval takes place for the removal of software, if the software has a specialist status. Assumptions: The audit and reconciliation process takes place every 90 days Software Metering is available to support the Re-Harvesting process This process is supported by a policy that software not used after 90 days will be removed to re-cycle the software licence Function Step Overview: 1.

Proactive SAM is the perfect antidote to cloud blackmail. Can I sell my surplus software licenses? Time to dry your tears and act! About Rory Canavan With a technical background in business and systems analysis, Rory has a wide range of first-hand experience advising numerous companies and organisations on the best practices and principles pertaining to software asset management.