IT asset tracking, says Gartner research VP William R Snyder, is a difficult and expensive activity that requires collaboration across IT organisations.
“IT asset management (ITAM) programmes must include a clear understanding of the multiple and sometimes diverse reasons for managing asset inventories and attributes to deliver successfully the correct information to ITAM audiences,” he says, in a report entitled: Understand the Drivers for Asset Tracking and Inventory to Ensure Success.
According to Snyder, there are three main reasons to track assets: ITAM, system management and design, and security. “Each reason for tracking assets has unique data and information needs. Asset data has overlapping uses, and ITAM programmes must recognise this requirement and must focus on ensuring the needs of ITAM constituents are supported properly.”
He goes on to make the following recommendations: “Don't expect operational staff to record and maintain cost information. Ensure that ITAM programmes have processes in place to be certain that pertinent asset data (for example, licence counts and costs) is kept at acceptable accuracy levels. Carefully align data input with constituents who have vested interests in data accuracy.”
Snyder says inventory is a key element of successful ITAM programmes, but confusion about data needs and support responsibilities creates problems in ITAM project and programme management. Best-practice organisations, he states, must manage data commonalities across the IT organisation, while ensuring the proper departments support the unique requirements.
“Reducing the inefficiency of gathering similar data for many different purposes can be a key advantage of a co-ordinated asset-tracking programme. ITAM programmes must co-ordinate with larger organisational inventory needs, while delivering on the unique ITAM requirements of financial management and licence compliance.”
Further, he says, IT organisations often overlook the fact that there are several complementary reasons for tracking assets that have different constituents with different data demands. “Unfortunately, this issue often doesn't become apparent until well after ITAM programmes have begun to mature beyond inventory tracking and trying to support better reporting and analysis.
“The result of this dynamic is that core constituents don't get the information they expected, which results in the perceived failure of the programmes. ITAM programmes become the clearinghouse for data and its transformation into meaningful business metrics. ITAM can analyse and use this data intelligently to meet business objectives and to improve the effectiveness of IT within the enterprise. By understanding all the possible use cases for the data, the co-ordinating influence of an ITAM programme can create opportunities to improve IT efficiency and effectiveness.
Rationale
“We've found that an inventory of assets is necessary for three fundamental reasons: asset management, system management and design, and security. Asset management is the discipline of understanding an asset's life cycle, cost and contract/licence compliance in an organisation. System management and design are the disciplines of managing systems robustly and proactively. Security is the discipline of keeping systems and data secure.
“To keep inventory accuracy as high as possible,” Snyder says, “responsibilities for updating data should align primarily with the different process owners and their respective information consumers. The key data updates associated with asset management (for example, product, vendor and cost) should be the responsibility of asset management programmes, generally captured in the procurement or invoice verification process. From a configuration point of view, the final step of the change process should include updating and verifying configuration (augmented by automated discovery) to ensure the data reflects the most current state.
“Generally speaking, asset version, cost and count are the most important pieces of information for establishing an ITAM inventory. These building blocks form the foundation for the analysis and decisions that enable IT organisations to become more effective and efficient,” he concludes.
* Report courtesy of Gartner. Information sourced from: Understand the Drivers for Asset Tracking and Inventory to Ensure Success, William R Snyder, 21 December 2007.
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