ITAM & SAM for Remote Working

The chances are you’re reading this from home right now. Like millions of workers around the world forced into remote working by the coronavirus pandemic. But regardless of where are physically working from, organizations still need to support their business operations and fulfil their governance obligations.

And just as many IT teams have quickly rushed through the adoption of online productivity suites or collaboration platforms, now the SAM and ITAM teams find themselves with the challenge of not only managing this new technology consumption (some of which they might not even know about yet), but also having to establish governance over users and devices that are no longer in offices.

This introduces a set of complexities and challenges that some organizations have never faced before.

The good news is that, if you’ve already had to adopt remote working, but don’t yet have the tools in place to monitor technology consumption remotely, Certero is ideally-placed to help.

Here’s why:

SaaS architecture makes provisioning and deployment painless

Certero’s unified platform is a ‘true SaaS’ solution, designed from the ground up to be rapidly deployed in Azure, AWS or Google cloud environments. This makes it ideal at times when the last thing organizations want to do is introduce cost, risk or disruption into their mission-critical datacenters. Instead, by provisioning from the cloud, normal daily operations can continue unhindered while SAM and ITAM professionals get the tools they need to manage technology governance remotely.

Everything you need in a single unified platform

With Cetero, you get the full ITAM and SAM capability, across all platforms and locations, in a single install, a single asset repository and a single pane of glass [see below for more details]:

• Discovery & Inventory
• License & Subscription Management
• Software Distribution & Patch Management
• SaaS Monitoring
• Full Remote Access

Get results in minutes, not months

Thanks to Certero’s modern architectural advantage, with our IT Asset Management Solution you can start building a picture of your IT assets in minutes, not weeks and months. In less than 20 minutes, you can have a fully configured instance of Certero up and running, with inventories flooding in shortly after that. Even for organizations with tens of thousands of devices, a full inventory can be achieved in days.

Why Certero excels in remote working scenarios

Thanks to its unique architectural advantage, Certero’s SaaS delivery model enables the Unified Platform to be completely provisioned, configured and maintained remotely (and in minutes, not months), providing value immediately and with role-based access to a wide range of stakeholders from across the business.

Here are just some of the ITAM and SAM benefits of managing remote workers and devices with Certero:

1. Full discovery and inventory – in the office, at home, on the move.

Certero has the most flexible and comprehensive discovery and inventory capabilities available. Meaning that you can combine information from datacenter servers and other on-premises devices with information collected remotely from laptops and mobiles away from the corporate network. To help illustrate this, here are some example scenarios:

For remote workers that connect via a VPN connection:

• The agent can be deployed directly to their computers manually or automatically directly from Certero (or through incumbent tools like SCCM)
• Inventories will be collected automatically and reported back to the Certero server as soon as the device connects over VPN
• Agent-less scanning is possible whenever the device is connected over the VPN connection

For remote workers that do not always use a VPN connection:

• Where our agent is already deployed, it can be easily configured to report into a secure internet facing Endpoint Server, thus ensuring inventory and application usage data is available.
• The agent can also be directly downloaded from your instance of the Certero solution via a browser and installed locally (users will require appropriate local privileges)
• Your authorized personnel can remotely connect to the user’s computer (such as those available from Microsoft System Center, TeamViewer, Dameware and others) and install the agent.

2. Software distribution and patching activities maintained.

You can continue to distribute and remove software, or ensure computers are patched according to your policies for those computers connecting remotely, automatically and seamlessly. This ensures continuity of key ITAM and SAM functions throughout changing work practices.

3. Tracking the increasing use of SaaS apps.

Whether it’s the adoption of collaboration platforms or extending productivity suites online, Certero helps you keep tabs on changing user behaviors and gives you visibility of the uptake of SaaS applications. This means you can control cost by adapting license and subscription management practices to ensure that rapid adoption of new (or trial) services does not put the organization at financial risk.

4. Full remote access to the Certero Unified Platform.

Unlike outdated ITAM platforms that were never designed to be administered or used by remote staff, Certero is architected to empower staff to do exactly that. Every piece of functionality you could access in the office is open to you remotely. And if you opt for the SaaS delivery model, that administration is next-to-zero as our staff take care of all your most pressing hosting and administration needs.

If your organization is having to rapidly adapt to the proliferation of technology outside the workplace, Certero can help. Speak to one of our specialists today and let’s discuss how we can help you take control of technology governance in these challenging times.