In my previous article, If Your Data Center Swings Between Availability & Efficiency, You May Need DCIM, I briefly discussed IT Asset Management (ITAM). I’d like to explore this feature in a DCIM solution a bit more, as this is one of the most important features in a Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM).
What is ITAM? According to TechTarget, ITAM takes all of an organization’s hardware, software and network assets information to make informed business decisions about IT-related purchases and redistribution. The need to find accurate and up-to-date asset information is critical when managing IT Assets.
How reliable and up-to-date are your Visio diagrams and spreadsheets? If they’re outdated or non-existent, you need to discover IT assets in data centers, the network, virtual environments, and cloud-based solutions. How can you do this?
DCIM, such as our software netTerrain DCIM, pulls this information into a centralized repository through network discovery, spreadsheet import, and/or connectors to your other data sources.
With this information, organizations can get a list of all of your IT assets and track where they are located. You can add as many data fields as needed for any of your assets, and keep track of:
- Purchase/lease date of each asset
- List of all spare parts
- Date when an asset was last patched
- Information such as warranty/service coverage information can help you with planning and budgeting
- When to purchase replacement hardware
ITAM brings in all relevant departments, such as: network admins, support desk, and audit/compliance, and finance. Each department can visualize and understand their own data and keep track of each IT asset.
What are the benefits of having ITAM in place?
- With ITAM, it’s easy to track the cost of an asset: initial cost, depreciation schedule, and any expenses
- You can eliminate zombie assets that waste data center space and power consumption that serve no purpose (and repurpose or decommission them)
- Make more informed decisions
- Reduce costs, improve ownership of assets, and be in compliance
How does DCIM help you with ITAM?
- DCIM allows you to discover assets through agentless network discovery
- Integrate with third party data sources and existing toolsets to create a single source of truth
- Improved capacity planning for all sites and locations, including remote sites….
…and DCIM gives you the ability to manage resources effectively:
- Track space, power and weight Availability in a Data Center
- Plan for capacity: view ports, cabinets, rooms, and buildings
- Work orders to keep track of changes to any IT asset, with the ability to tie into existing Service desk tools such as ServiceNow
- Run reports on any data fields, such as what assets are under warranty — and add as many data fields, like cost, service contract, warranty
With an effective ITAM strategy in place…and the right software, you can bring in big cost savings and eliminate questions like “why are we paying for maintenance for equipment that we got rid of years ago?”