Certero helps Diodes to maintain 100 per cent licence compliance and become greener and cleaner

28 September 2009

Diodes Incorporated turned to asset management specialist, Certero, to improve its software licence management and help reduce its carbon footprint and power emissions. Since working with Certero, Diodes has deployed two web-based products, AssetStudio™ and PowerStudio™, to:

• Maintain its position as 100 per cent licence compliant

• Provide complete awareness of licences and assets through an effective asset management system

• Cut the costs and time involved in identifying asset, resource and system information

• Reduce its environmental impact by setting non-intrusive power policies to lower the amount of power used across UK offices

Diodes Incorporated

Diodes Incorporated is a global manufacturer and supplier of high-quality, application-specific products within the semiconductor markets. The company works with the consumer electronics, computing, communications, industrial and automotive markets on a global level.

Licence management and green power

Diodes Incorporated has spent the last ten years working to gain full software licence compliancy and today prides itself as being 100 per cent in meeting industry requirements. With global operations and hundreds of licences to maintain, Paul Baxendale, Diodes’ IT Group Manager for Communication across UK and Europe, recognised the need for a system to provide complete awareness of licensing issues and ensure the organisation remains fully compliant.

Baxendale explains, "We respect all copyright and licensing laws and have worked extremely hard in achieving full compliancy. We have a large IT estate so our systems need to conform to constantly changing legislation. Having an awareness of every licence can be problematic, so we wanted to reduce the risk of non-compliance."

In 2008, Diodes Incorporated won the Environmental Award at the Elektra Awards, which demonstrates how its products, manufacturing process and commercial practices help reduce the impact on the environment. "We are committed to minimising our carbon footprint and understand that, as an international organisation, we use vast amounts of electricity to run our PCs. A reduction in our IT power consumption can help us become even greener," says Baxendale.

Testing the switch

Diodes Incorporated initially selected Certero to provide its AssetStudio™ product. This web-based IT asset, inventory, systems and configuration management suite, provides effective monitoring and management through a centralised repository for recording licence agreements, entitlements, purchase information and physical assets.

Diodes trialled AssetStudio™ for 30 days prior to rolling it out across its UK offices. Baxendale says, "The trial allowed us to test the product and find out if it would work with our existing systems. AssetStudio™ effectively demonstrated it could manage our licences and help reduce the risk of legal and financial exposure. It also highlighted the amount of unused licences we had. From these results we had the confidence that AssetStudio™ was a reliable and quality product to deploy across our organisation."

Turning up the voltage

With the knowledge that Certero’s products could deliver, Diodes Incorporated looked to the asset management specialist to provide a solution for greener computing. Diodes has a 350-strong mixed user environment of office and remote workers which fitted perfectly with Certero’s latest product, PowerStudio™.

At that time, PowerStudio™ was in development, so Diodes Incorporated took part in Certero’s beta testing programme. The PowerStudio™ software works across PCs and thin clients to identify daily, monthly and annual trends of computer power usage. The advanced software helped Diodes set centralised power policies in accordance with user activity to prolong the life of computer equipment, reduce electricity consumption and meet environmental computing targets.

Diodes Incorporated trialled PowerStudio™ for eight weeks across a sub-set of PCs, which ran in audit mode to allow Diodes to collate and monitor the savings made. "We needed policies and simulation runs to be reliable and match our needs without having an impact upon the user experience – it’s all about creating a sweet spot. For example, we initially set non-intrusive rules like automatically turning PCs off at night."

Baxendale continues, "Once out of beta, and we were happy that our set policies delivered results and did not impede our users, we used the software delivery function of AssetStudio™ to roll out PowerStudio™ across 350 PCs in the UK. Using PowerStudio™, we were able to work with individual groups in the organisation to assess how they used their PCs and create specific policies that would suit their working style and not impact their daily routine."

Electrifying results

Certero’s AssetStudio™ has enabled Diodes Incorporated to effectively manage its current software licences and maintain its position as being 100 per cent compliant. Diodes has also benefitted from reduced costs and time savings from the suite’s network discovery functionality that uses a multi-protocol discovery tool to identify and provide asset, resource and system information.

Baxendale says, "This information has enabled us to identify unnecessary software, as well as licences, and reduce the associated maintenance costs. Previously, we had a number of separate tools for software management and deployment and, with AssetStudio™, we have been able to consolidate these into one. This makes it easier for us to administer our IT estate, saving time and manpower so the team can focus on core responsibilities and deliver IT as a strategic and cost effective business tool."

Certero’s PowerStudio™ application helps Diodes to measure power utilisation of its PC users. From implementation and policy setting, PowerStudio™ has shown how power usage levels have dramatically decreased, improving carbon emissions for green computing targets.

"Thanks to PowerStudio™, we have reduced our power usage without affecting our users and their productivity. We’ve set numerous profiles in place but the biggest individual power saving policy for us is one that automatically turns all PCs off overnight," explains Baxendale.

PC users at Diodes Incorporated are encouraged to contribute to the company’s green agenda and reduce their individual carbon footprint through a point scoring system within PowerStudio™, which awards and deducts points dependent on each person’s habits.

Looking to the future

Baxendale says, "We have been very impressed with Certero. Both projects were deployed on time and the team at Certero welcomed our input along the way and acted upon the feedback we gave them, which was great. For instance, we suggested Certero made changes to their user interface management system, which they tailored according our needs."

"We look forward to working together in the future as Certero continues to expand its asset management offering," concludes Baxendale.

For more details on Diodes Incorporated visit www.diodes.com