Fast Understanding Of Your Application Estate
Your raw application inventory is examined against the software catalog and automatically categorized as 'Mapped', 'Irrelevant' or 'Unknown.' Hardware manufacturers and models are also checked against the hardware catalog and categorized as 'Mapped' or 'Unknown.' Gap fill commitments ensure nothing gets missed and in-house applications can be categorized manually to achieve 100% coverage. Typically, this process alone will shrink the applications list by 70% - 80% for major IT transformations like Windows 10.
Normalize All Data Points To Cut Down Master List Significantly
After categorization, rather than trawling a huge list of raw application data, the normalization process reduces this output of applications and hardware manufacturers to only relevant and consolidated minor versions. On average, a reduction of 3:1 is achieved for the hardware data. For applications, it is a lot higher, often reaching over 20:1. An example would be normalizing Adobe Reader 11.0.1 and 11.0.2 to Version 11.0. On the hardware side, for example, HP, Hewlett-Packard and HP Inc. are all mapped to Hewlett-Packard.
Instantly Know The Compatibility Status Of Your Application Estate
Mapped vendor applications are then checked for compatibility with Windows 10 or other target platforms. Categorizations are either 'Compatible', 'Incompatible but upgrade path exists', 'Incompatible' and 'Unknown.' Application data is added to show the first compatible version if an upgrade path exists, and whether that is a free or paid version. Applications then have additional lifecycle information added, including 'In Support' or 'Out Of Support,' 'End of Life Date' and 'Licensable to provide further reporting value.'
Dashworks Analysis+ leverages powerful data connectors, such as LANDesk, Microsoft SCCM, and Altiris to pull thousands, if not millions, of data points during your migration or IT transformation project.
After you set up all the feeds and have imported your application inventory, you will have millions of data rows to go through as every application installed on every device creates a new row — which is virtually impossible in a spreadsheet.
After normalizing your application inventory, you can eliminate 60-65% of your data rows by having Dashworks Analysis+ categorize device drivers, hotfixes, patches, standard language packs and runtimes as irrelevant — leaving you with around one fifth of the data categorized as 'known and relevant' (i.e., mapped to a vendor major release version). All others are most likely in-house developed applications.
To make sense of millions of rows of data, the Analysis+ platform will match your apps against a catalog containing more than 87 million market data points and over 1.2 million products. In most cases, the catalog coverage for known applications is around 94-99%.
It then automatically processes this data to categorize, normalize and rationalize your IT information so you understand what you have and what state your software/hardware estate is in.
Windows-as-a-Service management requires organizations who do not want their users to be without support to upgrade any devices running Windows 10 twice a year.
With Dashworks Analysis+, you can instantly determine which servicing options a device or a group of devices is on and which devices can be instantly upgraded.
With the help of Analysis+, you can normalize all discovered hardware for manufacturer and model types. Specification details are obtained regarding the device type, manufacturer, model, and release to manufacturing age, as well as the device memory, hard drive size, free disc space, and TPM & UEFI Support (if available). This gives you detailed insights into your devices' age, how much of your estate meets upgrade requirements and much more.
Never before have organizations had the ability to understand their hardware and application estate lifecycle, and act upon it right away. Continuous software management (IT Transformation in BAU Mode) is a huge goal for IT teams, and the ability to manage and control it proactively will help control application security risk, license bloat and prevent overspending — putting you in the driver's seat rather than chasing after the problem.
Because the number of applications to be packaged and tested will determine the scope of your workload, it is imperative to eliminate duplicates and consolidate different versions of the same software.
By accurately assessing and prioritizing your application inventory, you can scope your project correctly, find the lowest hanging fruit and get numbers on the board in the most efficient and fastest manner.
Trusted by large enterprises all over the world and major service integrators like Microsoft Consulting, Atos, Wipro, Hewlett-Packard, WWT and Fujitsu, Juriba's software has readied over 5 million assets for their next generation IT platform, and continues to accelerate IT migrations across the globe.
I was spending all of my time updating and passing around spreadsheets trying to schedule handfuls of users. Trying to keep track of who changed what, and which information was current was impossible. With Dashworks, I had everything I needed in one console, was able to see clearly the applications that were holding up my migrations, and schedule hundreds of users across lots of different countries in the same time. Compared to spreadsheets, Dashworks was a revolution.
Susan Rooney, Project Manager
Email: info@juriba.com
