Moving away from SAM Pro

[VernYerem]

Good afternoon!

My org has initially thought HAM and SAM would be useful. It doesn't seem like a cost benefit analysis was done on ITSM Asset management vs HAM&SAM, and we assumed that there were no asset management capabilities with ITSM. Our asset count doubled in the last year, and it's licensing cost has us looking at it now.

I'm finding that most of SAM Pro are configurations rather than actual functionality. There is some functionality I do find, like model normalization. No matter how I configure a solution like that, I'll never have the amount of data provided by the normalization feature. Looking for what else we'd lose by moving away from SAM Pro. Are there any tables specific to SAM Pro that we'd lose access too? Other than SAMP OOTB Flows, Dashboards, recommendations, what else would be lost? 

[dreinhardt]

Hi @VernYerem ,

It's unfortunate to hear that you haven't yet experienced the full value of SAM Pro firsthand. Sometimes, working with an experienced ServiceNow SAM Pro partner can make a difference by helping you get started and building foundational knowledge together. Has everyone on the SAM team completed the necessary training and certifications? I believe that after the SAM Pro Fundamentals course, the added value should become clear beyond just the topic of “normalization” being the primary focus.

What would be lost:

• All the features shared in the last month in the SAM blog - SAM blog - ServiceNow Community
• SAM Pro features explained by the SAM Rangers - Software Asset Management - From Setup to Success - Part 1
• Publisher Packs (e.g., MSFT; Oracle, IBM)
• Direct Integrations for SaaS Providers

Best, Dennis

[VernYerem]

Yep, we integrated with a partner that had CIS-SAM. Oddly enough, it was going though that training that spawned this conversation. It seems that ITSM asset management will cover 95% of our needs, The last 5% is mostly configuration I can provide within the next six months. The stuff that isn't configurable isn't worth the cost to us. I 100% see the value if we were using the ISO SAM Pro was built for, but it mostly considers things we don't need.

[Ashok Sasidhara]

As I explained in response to your similar question in the HAM forum, it would still be fine if you consider not using HAM pro as long as you have less number of devices and hence able to do normalization manually. But for the purpose of SAM, it is important to consider using SAM pro if you don't any existing SAM tool like Flexera. Even if you have less devices, many products from publishers like Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, IBM etc. have complicated licensing models and high license costs. Use of SAM pro is important for maintaining, managing and optimizing software inventory, licenses, contracts, costs, compliance position etc. more accurately. The potential benefits like cost savings and mitigation of various risks (compliance, legal, business continuity, security etc.) will definitely make the product more than worth it for the costs involved in licensing and implementing SAM pro. But make sure that it is implemented by involving product, process and licensing SMEs to ensure that benefits can be realized properly.

[VernYerem]

I don't think we're mature enough to realize the benefits as of yet, which is the actual problem here. Not the value of SAMP itself. I see the benefit of SAM Pro from a development and administration perspective, as well as from an asset management perspective. But it doesn't make sense for us to spend the equivalent of 4 FTE on things we don't have any plans on using. Should we be planning for that? Yes, but that doesn't change the fact they we aren't.