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Contents 
Introduction
Benefits and implications
The push to centralise
Australian ITIL
AAD sheds light on frozen assets
Executive summary |
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- You probably don't know what's out there. And you will never find out without the help of an automated IT asset management tool. Find one with auto-discovery capabilities, stick it on your network, and you'll be surprised what's connected to your network.
- Rolling, rolling. Any IT staffer who's upgraded hundreds of PCs via sneakernet -- walking from PC to PC with an installation disk in hand -- can tell you what a waste of time it is. If you have more than a few dozen PCs, get an automated deployment tool that can automatically install patches or new applications from afar.
- IT assets can be redeployed. If you can find them, that is. Once you know how long a device has been installed, you can figure out when it needs to be replaced -- or reused. Ongoing IT asset management will tell you exactly whose PCs need to be replaced or changed to dumb thin clients.
- Know your fixed and variable costs. While IT asset management tools focus on keeping your PCs and servers running, conventional fixed asset systems (like those built into ERP systems) handle the nitty-gritty of depreciation, maintenance contracts, upgrade schedules and the like. Link the two together to both manage fixed costs, and to reduce variable costs associated with your IT equipment.
- Ferret out inefficiency. Servers are the worst culprits here: you install a new application, buy a few servers to support it, then find out they're sitting idle most of the time. Monitoring performance trends using IT asset management tools will point out the lazybones in your environment, then let you slash costs through virtual servers that combine logical functions onto a single piece of equipment.
- Consolidate logically, if not physically. Most companies track fixed assets in registers within the finance department, while PCs are the IT department's responsibility. In the name of efficiency, these should be combined into a single asset database -- or through a separate application with links into both independent systems.
- It's about policy, not just technology. Finding out what's in your environment is one thing, but you'll never know whether it's within limits if you don't have any. Make sure you have robust policies to ensure that asset management system metrics can be tracked against business objectives. For example, you may never know why that order processing service is logjammed until your asset management system points out that the application doesn't have enough server CPUs available.
- Licences cost. It may sound like a good deal at the time, but buying software licences in bulk is a surefire way to waste your IT budget. Companies do it all the time, and invariably the majority of their licences remain unused -- but it still costs money. Asset management agents will track actual usage against licences to help you whittle down licensing expenses.
- Components are assets, too. Few people give them much thought, but software objects -- the building blocks of all corporate applications -- are assets too. An enterprise application management framework should provide a means for archiving, tracking, upgrading, and monitoring the usage of these components, or at least link with a system that does, so they can be measured in economic terms and tracked through their lifecycles.
- ITIL brings meaning to a good idea. Perhaps the hottest trend in service management is ITIL, the UK-derived guidelines that tell companies how to ensure they deliver good IT service. Effective asset management is critical to ITIL success, and following its recommendations, is a great way to frame your asset management efforts in a meaningful context.
This article was first published in Technology & Business magazine.
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