CONNECTIONS_55-e

Trends
IT Asset Management
– It’s Worth It
It is impossible to manage a modern data center without a one-hundred-percent
real-time overview of the hardware. This is why automated IT asset tracking is essential.
There are a number of reasons why.
050.6711
IT asset tracking is a system for digitally
managing all IT assets of a company or data
center. This approach extends well beyond
just a snapshot of the current situation. It also
covers the management of the life cycle of
computers, memories, servers, networks and
everything associated with them.
An asset will typically pass through more than
a dozen areas of responsibility from being
purchased to being decommissioned. Along
Asset Management Process Overview
Identify the need
Several departments agree
on purchasing IT equipment
Deploy
Asset is racked and
in operation
Purchase
Equipment is shipped
to data center
Planning
Several departments agree
on where to put it
this path there can be misunderstandings,
inefficiency and mistakes. Only carefully
carried out asset management can reduce or
even exclude such problems.
Further reasons and benefits:
– Finances: Financial accounting requires an
overview of the company’s assets. IT asset
tracking helps to create overviews which
are as precise and as up to date as possible.
– Quality: Quality and asset management
Arrival at warehouse
Equipment is registered
as an asset
Tracking begins
Asset is entered in CMDB
(e.g. ISO 55000) require regular audits. An
IT department will cut a convincing figure in
every audit if it practices good asset tracking.
– Geography: Those responsible often work
decentrally or not where IT is situated.
They can still have an overview with asset
tracking.
– Outsourcing: More and more external
specialists are coming into data centers
because services have been outsourced.
Asset tracking supports monitoring in such
cases.
– Knowledge: The planning, operation and
control of IT are often based on the implicit
knowledge of just a few people. What
happens if these privileged few are not
available? Asset tracking makes detailed
knowledge available to all those responsible
at all times.
– Documentation: People responsible for IT
are still working with manual methods to
acquire operating data, share information
and manage capacities. IT asset tracking
with systems available today automates
this process.
– Decommissioning: Obsolete hardware is
simply ignored or forgotten about so as not
to have to disturb the operating procedure
or endanger service level agreements. This
decommissioning process would be taken
care of in a flash with continuous asset
tracking.
050.6713
Audit
Twice a year all asset
need to be audited
Redeploy
Asset needs to move in
case racks have to be
End of life
Audit detailing decommissioning
is required
050.5774
Dr. Jan Kupec
Innovation Project Manager
jan.kupec@rdm.com
32 10I2018–55 CONNECTIONS