Certero have developed a very strong solution to address market needs. It has used important customer/market feedback in designing a product that is intuitive to use and capable enough to manage very large installations across multiple sites and domains. Its small footprint for both the management code and the client engine makes it a strong contender for multi-site organisations. As does the web based front end which offers true portability/access.

A lot of its initial focus is on granular management of Microsoft products which makes a lot of sense given that the vast majority of organisations use Microsoft products for most business requirements. By automating the majority of the intensive, skilled volume licensing functionality, it has been able to remove the complexity and risk from SAM for Microsoft products. The company intends to add such granular control to other major software products from Adobe, Oracle and many others.

With the software metering component in place the administrator can report back on usage profiles across all supported software. It can show in detail by user or device what software is being used and provides the information needed to facilitate optimum management of software deployment and management of software licences across the installed base. More so, it can comprehensively identify software that is installed and never run, run a couple of times or conversely used actively, thus facilitating decisions on deployment and removal of software components.

Certero's approach provides a common sense approach to SAM and delivers it with an intuitive interface and well structured set of menus that allow the administrator(s) to report, plan and execute changes across the organisation's software base. The ability to create software installation/uninstallation jobs across groups of computers is nicely presented and operationally extremely powerful. Add to this the SAM automation (for Microsoft) and you can see that Certero are taking up and delivering on the requirements organisations are demanding for today's challenges.

The solution starts at 250 devices and blocks of 1000 can be added quickly as the organisation grows.

Certero AssetStudio™ is packaged into one very small file for installation. Probably the smallest delivery packages of the products reviewed to date. This is mostly to do with the fact that the product is web based and consequently has a very light footprint of 8MB. The installation itself is a breeze although a required SQL instance is a pre-requisite. The installation is extremely easy to understand and takes only a few minutes for the initial installation. Top marks in this area for the product.

The whole system is managed via a web interface like one or two of the other products reviewed. This again makes it ultimately very portable and can be accessed from just about anywhere, security and firewall rules permitting. Certero have developed the product with the familiar navigation context to the left of the screen with the action window (contents) taking up the right hand pane. It's extremely easy to understand and the menu system is structured in an intuitive way.

Client installation is slick and fast and can be installed either automatically through the console, manually, via active directory or any of the scripting methods available to the modern day network manager. Once the client is installed, which incidentally is again one of the smallest out there at just over 500 kilobytes in size, the software starts to inventory software and hardware assets on the host machine. Within 30 minutes the data was back at the administrator console and could be viewed and managed from that point on. For assets other than PCs and Servers, agentless technology is used to bring back inventory information. For Microsoft Licences, Certero can reconcile your MVLS/CLARET report and import this into AssetStudio™, this can be done in a couple of hours. A brief configuration routine which takes less than 30 minutes, a real-time Effective Licence Position can be quickly achieved (for Microsoft).

Once installed the product is a breeze to use. A very intuitive left hand pane holds the navigational options and the larger right hand pane the detail. It's a common setup but in this case it is well constructed and easy to use. Once the client is installed, the system starts to gather software information. The granular information available on PC hardware and software is excellent, brilliantly presented with clear and concise information, broken down by machine. The console presents information on machines/devices that are not running the client so that the administrator can deploy using a range of tools including push from the administration console or via mechanisms such as active directory. Software delivery is a major part of this solution and it provides a strong set of tools to manage the process. The software Licence information is again clearly displayed via an Effective Licence Position Dashboard providing key information on installed software alongside the corresponding software Licence information which is dynamically maintained regardless of the activity on your estate (for Microsoft).

The product has good support for hardware and software components. In particular the Assets/Systems view is excellent and the operator is able to gather very granular detail on PCs and associated hardware (See screenshot Assets/Systems). Its ability to report on installed hot fixes goes an additional step and really does provide a means to understand what OS level an organisation has across the installed base and gives a means to synchronise these effectively. The ability to manage licences across the installed base is also of high value. The product allows granular control of software elements including the ability to add more licences, spread them across specific machines/users/groups and manage the software base through its comprehensive toolset. The ability to automatically manage Microsoft CALs, both Device and Users is a feature which many may find attractive.

Reporting functionality is strong. The dashboard gives an immediate view of licences purchased, in use and available across all of the software components. Particularly strong on Microsoft products at present with the roadmap adding detailed functionality for Adobe, Oracle and many others in the near future (See Reporting Dashboard screenshot). A snapshot of software compliance is an excellent view and indicator that allows the organisation to review and manage its licences and usage of individual applications. Likewise Microsoft operating systems are reported in the same way so that an organisation can see what is in use across its network(s). The console user can filter reports. The reports and dashboard are dynamically updated giving a real-time view for Microsoft.

• Fast to implement and web based interface very intuitive
• Structured approach to management domains
• Very good user interface for fast tracking staff in usage of the product
• Very small client footprint and delivery size
• Excellent portable management console
• Ability to import MVLS/CLARET report which can be pre reconciled to normalise upgrade/downgrade rights, software assurance
• Ability to automate the assignment of Licences to installed software based on configuration rules
• Ability to maintain ELP automatically when the estate changes
• Enhanced inventory on SQL, Exchange and ISA to return key version and edition information needed for licensing
• Ability to assign

• Basic real-time application metering indicating frequently used etc. Certero have a separate stand-alone tool called SoftwareMetering for Decision Makers™ for comprehensive application monitoring (metering). Roadmap will enable integration between the two products in the near future
• Right now heavily focused toward Microsoft packages for detailed management functions but there are plans for all major vendors during the next few months (However Microsoft software management is very strong as the first logical target for the product)
• Software metering requires a separate client for the time being although this will come together in the near future.

• Very flexible when it comes to management overheads due to web based design and ease of use. Super small package for the client meaning it will be very effective over multi-site installations
• Excellent one stop shop for software control, delivery and software Licence management

• Two, albeit excellent products, are required to offer asset and software metering control. This in turn means two separate client payloads. These are however small and in no way a barrier to deployment and ease of use.