IT Asset Management: A Packet Survival Guide

IT Asset Management (ITAM) is the set of business practices that join financial, contractual and inventory functions to support life cycle management for elements found in the business environment, namely software and hardware.

Build your hardware asset listing first: Software is one of the most critical elements of information and communications technologies and most organisations have huge investments in software, whether internally developed or external procured. However, with a major objective of IT Asset Management usually being software licence control, it is essential to first establish a comprehensive hardware asset listing, as software is always installed on a device. Therefore, without knowing the extent of your hardware assets, you cannot be fully aware of what software is installed where, which could cause under-licensing issues.

Investment WILL deliver a return: Rewards to be gained from effectively implementing Asset Management are many and worthwhile. Although investment in an Asset Management project may not deliver an instant return, as the project starts to mature, opportunities to make savings will become apparent.

IT Asset Management: A Pocket Survival Guide is a quick reference style guide, addressing such serious issues with a fresh and pragmatic approach. Aimed at IT professionals who have been tasked with putting in place Asset Management disciplines, it first provides a commonsense introduction to the key processes outlined in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), before proceeding to explain the various milestones of an Asset Management project. It will guide the reader through

• building a hardware asset listing
• managing software asset inventory effectively, so compliance with software licences is achieved
• how to get senior management buy-in
• how to define, enforce and control procedures to manage IT assets more effectively for maximum savings.

About the Author

Martyn Hobbs has been working in the IT industry for over 20 years. He has held many roles including managing large support centres, service desks and service delivery functions and has also held various consultancy and pre-sales roles, working within a broad cross section of industries. At present, Martyn is a senior partner in an IT consultancy business specialising in Service Management and associated toolsets, from his base in Cambridgeshire.