ITIL Asset Management
From SNCWiki
| ITIL Implementation |
|---|
|
| Related Topics |
 Get the Book |
Contents |
Overview
IT Asset Management (ITAM) is the set of business practices that join financial, contractual and inventory functions to support life cycle management and strategic decision making for the IT environment. Assets include all elements of software and hardware that are found in the business environment. The IT Asset Management function is the primary point of accountability for the life-cycle management of information technology assets throughout the organization. Included in this responsibility are development and maintenance of policies, standards, processes, systems and measurements that enable the organization to manage the IT Asset Portfolio with respect to risk, cost, control, IT Governance, compliance and business performance objectives as established by the business.
IT Asset Management integrates the physical, technological, contractual and financial aspects of information technology assets to enable a holistic and proactive approach to achieving the objectives. ITAM business practices have a common set of goals:
- Uncover savings through process improvement and support for strategic decision making
- Gain control of the inventory
- Increase accountability to insure compliance
- Enhance performance of assets and the life cycle management
- Risk reduction through standardization, proper documentation, loss detection
Asset Management Process
In order to fulfill these goals, the ITAM business practices must be process driven and matured through iterative and focused improvements. Most successful ITAM programs are invasive to the organization, involving everyone at some level, such as end users (educating on compliance), budget managers (redeployment as a choice), IT service departments (providing information on warranties) as well as finance (invoice reconciliation, updates for fixed asset inventories).
IT asset management generally uses automation to manage the discovery of assets so that inventory can be compared to ownership information. Full business management of IT assets requires a repository of multiple types of information about the asset as well as integration with other systems such as supply chain, service desk, procurement and HR systems.
Auto-Discovery
The key to any Asset Management business practice is the initial and on-going inventory or discovery of what you own. Service-now.com provides three options for auto-discovery:
1. Our separate and highly robust Discovery product.
2. Service-now.com provides a lightweight native discovery tool, Help the Help Desk, as part of the overall IT Service and Asset Management platform. Help the Help Desk enables organizations to proactively scan their network to discover all Windows-based PCs and the software packages installed on those PCs. This WMI-based discovery is included in the core Service-now.com functionality, in the Self Service application, at no additional cost.
3. For organizations that want to leverage the discovery technologies they already have deployed (SMS, Tally NetCensus, LanDesk etc.), Service-now.com can support integration to those technologies via Web Services. Scanned data can be mapped directly into the CMDB.
Hardware Asset Management
Hardware Asset Management is a term applied to the management of the physical components of computers and computer networks, from acquisition through disposal. Common business practices include request and approval process, procurement management, life cycle management, redeployment and disposal management.
ITIL's CMDB describes technical information about an asset or CI; information that is relevant to ITIL's Service Support processes such as Incident Management, Change Management, Release Management, etc.
Example computer: CMDB perspective - (Notice the technical nature of the data elements displayed)
Example computer: ITAM perspective - (Notice the financial, contractual and operational nature of the data elements displayed)
Software Asset Management
Software Asset Management or SAM is a term applied to the business practices specific to software management. These business practices include software license management, configuration management, standardization of images and compliance to regulatory and legal restrictions, such as copyright law, Sarbanes Oxley and software publisher contractual compliance. Use of software legally in an organization is enforced by the compliance industry by companies such as Business Software Alliance, SIIA and FAST.
Contract Management
In addition to the in-built contract database, it is possible to install the Software Asset Management Extensions Plugin to get warnings as contract expirations approach.
With the Field Service Management Plugin, these contracts can also be related to service orders.
