ITAM Primer - The Program Manager's Guide to IT Asset Management

IT ASSET LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT

ACQUIRE

ITAM starts when someone thinks they need an IT asset. Ideally, ITAM is asked to match the user’s requirements with what is currently part of the IT portfolio.

The request process will take one of two paths depending on whether the request is for an asset that is part of the IT standards. If the request is for a standard asset, the Visio application for example, then the approval is based on the user’s entitlement which is driven by the user’s assigned role.

Suppose the request is for a non-standard IT asset. In that case, the request is evaluated for business value and assessed to determine its impact on the organization. It includes all parties with a vested interest, as described in the prior section, The IT Asset Ecosystem. Based on the recommendation of those parties, the appropriate individual denies or approves the request, and the asset is procured.

RECEIVE

All IT assets follow a well-defined receiving process that records the receipt after the asset passes the acceptance criteria. The receiving process applies to all assets, not just those owned by the organization, including vendor-provided assets and BYOD employee-owned assets. All assets entering the organization’s network must be recorded. IT assets not ready to be deployed immediately are stored securely. All information associated with an IT asset is stored in the ITAM repository.

DEPLOY

The deployment process is critical because the asset must be configured appropriately for the end-user, IT, and IT Security. The installation process records the asset’s location, end-user assignment, department, and cost center.

IN-USE

Bad things can happen to IT assets after they are deployed. The asset can be moved, lost, or stolen. The asset’s configuration can change. A perfect example is software. Software is constantly being updated, changing the system’s configuration. These updates can break functionality or introduce new security issues. The move, add, and change processes must accurately record changes made in the ITAM repository.

RECOVER

The purpose of the Recover phase is to recover IT assets that are no longer in use. There are several benefits to recovering assets that are no longer needed including:

• The asset can be placed in inventory, making the asset available for redeployment. This increases the ROI of the asset.
• The asset is secured and is not at risk of being lost, stolen, or misused.
• Data stored on the asset is backed up if required and secured.
• IT assets related to the asset being recovered are also recovered. For example, the recovery of a smartphone will also include the recovery of its related assets – the cellular plan and any allocated server licenses.
• Finally, the recovered and related IT assets are securely stored in inventory for future redeployment. The assets’ status is updated in the ITAM repository.

DISPOSE

The final phase of an IT asset is the Dispose phase, and it is just as critical, if not more critical, than the previous phases. The phase is similar to the Recover phase, with identical Secure Data and Recover Related Assets processes. The Finance process “closes the books” on the asset, including final calculations for ROI and TCO. The asset is formally retired, meaning hardware assets are appropriately processed, and all other asset types (software, cloud, etc.)  follow the disposal process defined for that asset type. A request is made to finance to determine if the asset is being depreciated. If the asset is being depreciated, then the asset is placed in secured storage for the appropriate term. All other parties, including users, IT, IT Security, and vendor management are notified the asset has been disposed.

The Disposal phase also supports the “disposal” of vendor and employee-owned IT assets. Of course, these assets are not being disposed of traditionally, but they are leaving the organization, so data must be secured and related assets recovered.

How involved is ITAM in each phase?

Which phase has the strongest ITAM presence?

Which phase has the least support from other departments?

IT asset data is collected from multiple data sets (databases), including finance (invoices, P.O., cost centers), legal (contracts), IT (service desk tickets, network assets), HR (end-users), and IT security (asset data). The data is organized in a flat structure (file) or database. For the IT Asset Manager, it is better to think of IT asset information as a network of data, and information is a path through multiple network nodes (data).

Each phase transition is a gate the IT asset passes through, providing an opportunity to verify the data collected about the asset is accurate and that the asset itself has passed through the earlier gates. This offers an excellent opportunity to identify rogue IT assets. IT assets can generate a lot of valuable information during their life. Information can include configuration changes, location changes, user reassignment, cost center changes, performance, reliability, running ROI and TCO totals, terms of use changes, warranty terms, taxation, and availability. This information is of interest to different functional areas, each with varying levels of purpose and importance. Retaining this information is why ITAM is sometimes referred to as the organization’s memory.

Which department’s data is the most trustworthy?

Which department’s data is the least trustworthy?

How much of the IT asset’s lifecycle is managed by ITAM?