IT Asset Management: By the Numbers - Introduction

Part 1 of 5: Introduction to Effective Asset Management

The key to the effective and efficient management of an organization’s data center lies with the ability to capture and understand a comprehensive picture of what data center assets exists, where each asset is located and how each individual asset is connected to other assets.

As the complexity of a given data center increases – multiple aisles, multiple high-density cabinets, containing thousands of individual servers and storage devices – the task of capturing asset information becomes increasingly complicated. Simple solutions, such as noting serial numbers in static spreadsheets, become less reliable and costly as hundreds of man-hours are spent wandering a data center looking for asset tags.

Data center IT professionals need holistic data center tools that are designed to track infrastructure assets and facilities assets as well. Some examples are RPDUs, PDUs, CRAHs and UPS. Although these items rarely if ever move, they must also be audited and maintained. ITAM tools must be able to help users to automate and streamline this process.

Ultimately, a programmatic approach based in science and using reliable, repeatable and cost-effective tools and systems is the best solution. IT Asset Management is that solution. As with any other business system, data center professionals and company executives question the cost justification behind the solution. In this series of posts, we will take a look at IT Asset Management by the numbers and we will explain how to determine the return on investment for an ITAM solution.