The software lifecyle
The software lifecycle consists of stages for negotiation, procurement, deployment, maintenance, renewal, and end of life, as illustrated in the following figure:
Software lifecycle
The following topics provide details about these stages:
Negotiation
When you plan to procure software from another company, one of the first steps is to negotiate a software license contract with the vendor.
In BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management, you can use the Contract Management console to track the different types of contracts for each vendor, including software contracts. You can use the Software Contract form to track the terms of the contract, the cost of the contract, and the individual certificates that represent the license purchased. The Software Contract form provides links to extended information about the contract, such as the purchase order, the Definitive Media Library (DML), and the deployed software configuration items (CIs) in BMC Configuration Management Database (BMC CMDB). For more information about Software contract, see Managing-contracts.
Procurement
BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management contains a procurement process that controls the full process from requisition and ordering, to receiving and returns.
The procurement process starts with a requisition. Requisitions are requests from users for items to purchase. Attached to a requisition is a set of line items. These line items define each of the individual items to purchase. The requisition provides the processes for pricing line items correctly and getting the appropriate approvals before orders are sent to vendors. For more information about purchase requisition, see Creating-and-managing-purchase-requisitions.
Deployment
When you receive the software application, you must perform several procedures to deploy the software, as indicated in the following table:
Procedures for deploying software
Procedure | Description |
|---|---|
Managing the deployment process | BMC provides several mechanisms to manage the deployment of the software. You can use BMC Helix ITSM: Change Management to manage the deployment of software into the IT infrastructure as described in Deploying the release to the business.BMC Helix ITSM: Change Management tracks the tasks involved in deploying the software, and can help you understand the risks or dependencies on the software. BMC also provides solutions to manage the actual deployment. |
Deploying the software to existing systems in the IT infrastructure | BMC Client Management can manage the deployment of software to existing desktops. It uses policies to enforce that the software is deployed only to the systems entitled to have the software. |
Managing the "bare metal" provisioning of new systems | You can use BladeLogic and TrueSight Orchestration to manage the bare metal provisioning of systems. TrueSight Orchestration integrates with BMC Change Management to take information about the systems that are being deployed. TrueSight Orchestration works with BladeLogic and with BMC Configuration Automation for Clients to deploy the appropriate software packages to the system. |
Accurately populating data into BMC CMDB | After the software is deployed, BMC discovery products, such as BMC Configuration Automation for Clients and BMC Atrium Discovery and Dependency Mapping (BMC Atrium Discovery), can find the software deployed on the IT infrastructure and populate the data into BMC Helix CMDB. For more information, see the BMC Configuration Automation for Clients Configuration Discovery Integration for CMDB Implementation Guide and CMDB synchronization. |
Accurately connecting the software represented in BMC CMDB to the software license certificate that represents the license agreement for that software | BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management provides dynamic mechanisms to connect the software that has been deployed and represented in BMC Helix CMDB. License certificates provide a definition of how to find the software in BMC Helix CMDB and leverage information from the DML, so that the searches are performed using a consistent, normalized set of data. The license engine uses this information to query BMC Helix CMDB to find the new or updated software that has been deployed, and to connect that software to the appropriate license certificates. If deployed software cannot be related to a certificate, it is treated as an exception for the software asset manager to evaluate and determine the appropriate action. |
For more information about license management, see Overview of software License Management.
Maintenance
Maintenance is an ongoing activity. BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management provides a way for you to track the ongoing license compliance for the software. Tracking compliance is rule-based and can vary based on the license agreement for the specific software and specific vendor.
To manage the health of the software, you can use the following BMC products:
BMC Products | Description |
|---|---|
Remedy Service Desk | Manage incident requests, problem investigations, and known errors related to the software. |
BMC monitoring software | Monitor application and server performance using programs such as BMC ProactiveNet Analytics, BMC Performance Manager, and BMC Transaction Management. |
BMC Service Level Management | Manage service level agreements related to the software. |
BMC Service Impact Manager | Track the impact to the company if the software has issues. |
Renewal
When software contracts are nearing expiration, BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management can send notifications. BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management provides processes for renewing contracts and for tracking the additional purchase of licenses. The renewal process feeds back into the negotiation process, providing a closed loop vision of the software lifecycle. For more information about license management, see Managing-software-licenses.
End of life
If software is being put through an end-of-life process, you can use BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management to help determine where the software is deployed, which can help you decide whether to upgrade the software to newer or other versions. For more information about software usage, see Viewing-software-usage-details.