With the current economic downturn in progress, IT organizations are under tremendous pressure to reduce costs yet still increase the value of the services they are delivering. IT asset management (ITAM) is a way of doing this.

ITAM is a management discipline that involves optimizing the value-yield of IT assets. Due at least in part to the nebulous coverage of assets in ITIL v3, groups who either have ITIL processes in place, or are pursuing ITIL, are struggling to understand the differences between ITIL’s Service Asset and Configuration Management process and the ITAM discipline how the two work together. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll refer to Service Asset and Configuration Management as “configuration management” for the balance of the article.

Configuration Management

The configuration management process is tasked with providing an accurate and timely view of IT to other process areas. A key element of this is to understand relationships of one configuration item to another and how they are assembled to provide IT services. Configuration items (CI) can be thought of as record types needed by IT to provision services. CI types include hardware, software, facilities, documentation, and so on. The detailed data fields in each CI table are known as “attributes”. These could include aspects such as the version identifier of a software package, the amount of memory installed in a server, processor speed, and so forth.

The value that configuration management provides is by serving as a data repository and provider of information to other ITIL process areas such as Change, Incident and Problem Management. In ITIL v2, data was stored in a configuration management database (CMDB) and as that version aged the definitions of CMDBs and were extended and diverged from one another. New to ITIL v3 is the concept of the configuration management system (CMS), which is far more extensible and allows for multiple repositories.

ITAM

In comparison to configuration management, ITAM is a management discipline spanning multiple functional areas in IT and the business. In fact, to be successful it must not be an initiative pursued only by IT. Also, to be clear, it is not about fixed-asset management wherein accounting is concerned with tracking all assets over a defined value for depreciation purposes.

Fundamentally, ITAM is concerned about maximizing value and as such is involved with activities throughout the lifecycle of assets extending from strategy to purchasing, receiving, storage, moves, adds, changes, salvaging of software licenses and ultimately the disposal of assets. To do this, it touches many aspects of IT and intersects with a number of ITIL processes. A good example is that both areas need to rely on change management to maintain the accuracy of the CMS.

ITAM is a proven means to manage costs and improve the quality of services provisioned by IT, not to mention better risk management by avoiding potential software fines. In fact, the vast majority of organizations see true ROI within a year’s time and then on-going savings from there. Note that these numbers are based on real accounting savings and not consultant hocus-pocus or stretches of the imagination that do not affect the bottom line.

With the current economic downturn in progress, IT organizations are under tremendous pressure to reduce costs yet still increase the value of the services they are delivering. IT asset management (ITAM) is a way of doing this.

ITAM is a management discipline that involves optimizing the value-yield of IT assets. Due at least in part to the nebulous coverage of assets in ITIL v3, groups who either have ITIL processes in place, or are pursuing ITIL, are struggling to understand the differences between ITIL’s Service Asset and Configuration Management process and the ITAM discipline how the two work together. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll refer to Service Asset and Configuration Management as “configuration management” for the balance of the article.

Configuration Management

The configuration management process is tasked with providing an accurate and timely view of IT to other process areas. A key element of this is to understand relationships of one configuration item to another and how they are assembled to provide IT services. Configuration items (CI) can be thought of as record types needed by IT to provision services. CI types include hardware, software, facilities, documentation, and so on. The detailed data fields in each CI table are known as “attributes”. These could include aspects such as the version identifier of a software package, the amount of memory installed in a server, processor speed, and so forth.

The value that configuration management provides is by serving as a data repository and provider of information to other ITIL process areas such as Change, Incident and Problem Management. In ITIL v2, data was stored in a configuration management database (CMDB) and as that version aged the definitions of CMDBs and were extended and diverged from one another. New to ITIL v3 is the concept of the configuration management system (CMS), which is far more extensible and allows for multiple repositories.

ITAM

In comparison to configuration management, ITAM is a management discipline spanning multiple functional areas in IT and the business. In fact, to be successful it must not be an initiative pursued only by IT. Also, to be clear, it is not about fixed-asset management wherein accounting is concerned with tracking all assets over a defined value for depreciation purposes.

Fundamentally, ITAM is concerned about maximizing value and as such is involved with activities throughout the lifecycle of assets extending from strategy to purchasing, receiving, storage, moves, adds, changes, salvaging of software licenses and ultimately the disposal of assets. To do this, it touches many aspects of IT and intersects with a number of ITIL processes. A good example is that both areas need to rely on change management to maintain the accuracy of the CMS.

ITAM is a proven means to manage costs and improve the quality of services provisioned by IT, not to mention better risk management by avoiding potential software fines. In fact, the vast majority of organizations see true ROI within a year’s time and then on-going savings from there. Note that these numbers are based on real accounting savings and not consultant hocus-pocus or stretches of the imagination that do not affect the bottom line.

With the current economic downturn in progress, IT organizations are under tremendous pressure to reduce costs yet still increase the value of the services they are delivering. IT asset management (ITAM) is a way of doing this.

ITAM is a management discipline that involves optimizing the value-yield of IT assets. Due at least in part to the nebulous coverage of assets in ITIL v3, groups who either have ITIL processes in place, or are pursuing ITIL, are struggling to understand the differences between ITIL’s Service Asset and Configuration Management process and the ITAM discipline how the two work together. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll refer to Service Asset and Configuration Management as “configuration management” for the balance of the article.

Configuration Management

The configuration management process is tasked with providing an accurate and timely view of IT to other process areas. A key element of this is to understand relationships of one configuration item to another and how they are assembled to provide IT services. Configuration items (CI) can be thought of as record types needed by IT to provision services. CI types include hardware, software, facilities, documentation, and so on. The detailed data fields in each CI table are known as “attributes”. These could include aspects such as the version identifier of a software package, the amount of memory installed in a server, processor speed, and so forth.

The value that configuration management provides is by serving as a data repository and provider of information to other ITIL process areas such as Change, Incident and Problem Management. In ITIL v2, data was stored in a configuration management database (CMDB) and as that version aged the definitions of CMDBs and were extended and diverged from one another. New to ITIL v3 is the concept of the configuration management system (CMS), which is far more extensible and allows for multiple repositories.

ITAM

In comparison to configuration management, ITAM is a management discipline spanning multiple functional areas in IT and the business. In fact, to be successful it must not be an initiative pursued only by IT. Also, to be clear, it is not about fixed-asset management wherein accounting is concerned with tracking all assets over a defined value for depreciation purposes.

Fundamentally, ITAM is concerned about maximizing value and as such is involved with activities throughout the lifecycle of assets extending from strategy to purchasing, receiving, storage, moves, adds, changes, salvaging of software licenses and ultimately the disposal of assets. To do this, it touches many aspects of IT and intersects with a number of ITIL processes. A good example is that both areas need to rely on change management to maintain the accuracy of the CMS.

ITAM is a proven means to manage costs and improve the quality of services provisioned by IT, not to mention better risk management by avoiding potential software fines. In fact, the vast majority of organizations see true ROI within a year’s time and then on-going savings from there. Note that these numbers are based on real accounting savings and not consultant hocus-pocus or stretches of the imagination that do not affect the bottom line.

For example, many organizations buy copies of productivity suites every time an employee is hired to keep things simple. While there may be an implicit understanding that when employees leave the organization those licenses should be recovered, the reality is that they are not. Formal procedures are not developed to harvest this data or to audit effectiveness. As a result, organizations can be spending tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars per year unnecessarily.

Another example, relates to groups conducting data center consolidations. In order to effectively and efficiently consolidate, a great deal of work needs to be done to understand who is using what, capacity needs, etc. These are classic inventory and capacity planning functions. ITAM then extends beyond this to the planning and tracking of the actual movements into the consolidated data center, standardization of hardware and software, recovery of no longer required licenses, disposition of obsolete hardware and software, etc.

In the end the point of this article is to show that the two domains—ITIL and its Service Asset and Configuration Management, and ITAM—are complementary. Configuration management provides a means to store some, if not all, of the data that ITAM needs. The ITIL v3 view of a configuration management system, that is has multiple repositories, lends itself well to this as ITAM’s requirements can, at least in part, be viewed as a presentation layer drawn from the various sources.

ITAM, on the other hand, is the discipline that interfaces with various IT process areas and the business to ensure that value is realized from the asset investments made. ITAM, if anything, needs data that is stored in the CMS to understand where assets are, who is using them, and so on.

In tough economic times the need to focus on cost reduction and the maximization of organizational value is critical. IT organizations under pressure to manage costs will be well served to assess how to leverage both areas to improve the quality of their service offerings.

For more information visit the International Association of Information Technology Asset Managers (IAITAM) -

http://www.iaitam.org/.

George Spafford is a principal consultant with Pepperweed Consulting and a long-time IT professional. George's professional focus is on compliance, security, management and overall process improvement.