ISEB Practitioner Certificate in Software Asset Management

Special Notices

* Due to pre registration requirement for the exam by ISEB, bookings must be made at least 10 working days prior to the course start date to be eligible to sit the examination.

Overview

The course will primarily benefit those already involved in the areas of SAM including IT process/asset managers and software compliance managers.

A pass in the ISEB Certificate in Software Asset Management Essentials qualification is compulsory.

This is a Practitioner course and leans heavily on discussions and workshops designed to reinforce the concepts being taught andto build the delegates confidence in implementing SAM. The course is also designed to encourage debate and the sharing of knowledge and experience between delegates.

The 3 hour, closed book, written examination is set by BCS/ISEB. The examination, which takes place on the final day of the course, comprises 5 questions based on a scenario. Students need to obtain a pass mark of 60%. If a mark of over 80% is achieved, a distinction will be awarded.

Introduction to SAM

• The scope of SAM including benefits, risks and costs
• What is SAM including the development of SAM and the software lifecycle
• How SAM fits into the organisation's culture including awareness and training

The Business Case

• Conducting an ISO 19770-1 compliant risk assessment
• Creating an appropriate business case for implementing SAM

Planning for SAM

• Establish the scope and size for SAM
• Define all objectives, KPIs, CSFs and deliverables
• Identify resource requirements and implementation plans

Implementation

• Establish a software policy
• Change controls for SAM tools
• Manage the software licences
• The software audit
• Measure against oobjectives
• The transition to business as usual (BAU)

Establishing and Maintaining Control and the Software Licencing Overview

• Maintain and monior the processes
• Establish a method of continuos improvement
• Detecting, escalating and managing exceptions
• What is a licence and what is required?
• Licence types
• Licence management including handling upgrades
• The distribution chain

Exercises

This is a highly interactive 5 day course with at least 50% of the time spent in group exercises, working through real life SAM issues and tasks such as:

• Carrying out a risk assessment on the business
• Building a business case from scratch
• Assessing, categorising and choosing a SAM partner based on quotations received
• Devising a communcations plan to go to all staff explaining the SAM project
• Creating a comprehensive 'Request for Information' document to send to the SAM tool providers
• Constructing a full implementation plan for SAM
• Creating a comprehensive set of policies to control usage
• Creating a detailed procedure for the protection and retention of software licences
• Understanding and identifying counterfeit licences

By the end of the course, delegates will have a detailed understanding of all the key components of software asset management and be able to return to their organisation and make a significant contribution to the software asset management process. Delegates will benefit from the practical and extensive experiences of URM's trainers who are all practising software asset management specialists.

This qualification covers the Software Asset Management processes as described in the SAM module within IT Infrastructure Library (ITILV3) an closely follows the ISO 19770-1:2006 Standard.