Situation:
Information and communication technology constitutes one of the basic work tools for the majority of Vita civil association staff at present. Initially, computers were used for common office work; the PC numbers and user structures did not require systematic care of IT. With respect to the company's development, also the volume of the information technology employed grew as well in the course of time.

In 2004 Vita overtook the buildings of 3 ex-retreat schools and gradually remodels them to Field Ecology Education Centres. This change increased the PC numbers in one move; there are new locations as well as ways of ICT utilisation (for instance, PC accessible to the public in study rooms and computer classrooms). This fact significantly affects the method necessary to employ in addressing the ICT issue in the future.

With respect to significant distances between individual offices and the increasing number of PCs it is no longer possible for an individual to supervise each computer in the company.

The spontaneous growth form based on user requirements exclusively when all ICT administrator activities were concentrated only in service work requested from within the organisation, was no longer sustainable either.

Software management concept:
For further development, it was necessary to create procedures to tackle the hardware and software use field in the long-term and to allow investment optimisation for newly acquired equipment. The objective of the processes we implement in such cases is creating a stable environment that will allow users to focus on their actual work tasks.

Problems with hardware and software equipment will be addressed centrally from now on while the flexible response to changes in user needs will be maintained; another task that we always have to consider, as an NGO, is saving money used to acquire sw licenses, hardware and servicing.

Software audit:
The key component of our concept is software license management. We have performed a network audit using freeware tools; although they served the purpose of a one-off equipment stock-take they were not suitable for permanent use or network status monitoring. When searching for a solution to allow license management process automation we were looking for a well-proven software suitable for utilisation in our company environment. We considered the possibility of collecting data independently of the local network and individual client connection to the Internet (dial-up, ISDN, dsl) very important.

Another requirement was a problem-free run on older machines and systems - small requirements for funding. Since we had no previous experience with this type of software our way of orientation was the recommendation by administrators of similar networks.

Conclusion:
We have chosen AuditPro due to excellent references and system scalability - it can grow together with our organisation and is suitable for environments with tens as well as thousands of PCs. The last but not least decisive factor was the willingness of truconneXion to help in acquiring the product. The AuditPro installation took place without any problems on all computers, the data obtained about workstations are exhaustive and we could identify certain undesired software installations already after the first audit. In the future we plan to extend the system by Asset Record Module and Barcode Module.

 

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