SAM is the management and reconciliation of the physical, financial and contractual lifecycle attributes of software assets. SAM enables the delivery of cost-efficient, timely business knowledge to better manage and control the business and operational aspects of IT. It includes managing and optimizing the purchase, deployment, maintenance, utilization and disposal of software applications within an organization. Software assets have unique characteristics within IT infrastructures, so they must be managed differently than hardware and other components. For example, when it comes to software, many organizations struggle to understand and manage some of the more intangible elements of these assets, including:

• Asset Lifecycles and Relationships
• Vendor Histories
• Contractual Elements
• License Allocations
• Costs On top of these concerns, the continued popularity of virtualization and cloud platforms means that many of the software assets IT is managing today may not even physically exist within their onsite infrastructure. That said, the potential benefits a SAM strategy can bring to an organization make it worth navigating these challenges.