IT Asset Management Overview

IT Asset Management

• IT Asset Management (ITAM) involves protecting and managing valuable assets such as people, information, infrastructure, finances, and reputation.
• Effective ITAM requires identifying assets and knowing their locations.
• Assets are more difficult to protect if location is unknown or ownership is unclear.
• The document provides a table showing areas to review for IT Asset Management, along with questions to consider in each area, including hardware acquisition plans, hardware acquisition, and IT asset management.
• Questions to consider regarding hardware acquisition plans include alignment with business and enterprise architecture, synchronization with business and IS plans, criteria for hardware acquisition, adequacy of the environment to accommodate future hardware needs, specifications and lead times for planned acquisitions, and alignment of acquisitions with the acquisition plan.
• Questions to consider regarding hardware acquisition include: if the acquisition plan is in line with existing acquisition policy statements, if procedures and forms are available to facilitate the acquisition process, and if the acquisition is accompanied by cost-benefit analysis and compliance with tendering requirements.
• Concerns regarding IT asset management include asset tagging, designated owners, asset locations, and contract/SLA documentation.

Preventive Maintenance Schedule

• Preventive maintenance schedules should adhere to vendor recommendations.
• Maintenance should be performed during off-peak periods, avoiding sensitive application processing times
• Sufficient scheduling is needed to meet workload and user requirements.
• Schedule flexibility for preventive maintenance is necessary to accommodate required maintenance.
• IS resources should be readily available during critical application periods.
• IS management should review hardware malfunctions, reruns, abnormal system terminations, and operator actions.

IT Asset Inventory

• The first step in ITAM is creating an inventory of IT assets.
• Inventory records should include owner, custodian, specific identification, assets' relative value to the organization, loss implications and recovery priority, location, security/risk classification, and asset group (part of a larger system).
• Initial inventory creation can involve consulting purchasing systems, reviewing contracts, and examining installed software using tools like Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, Spiceworks, and ManageEngine.

Skill Building Activity

• The activity involves explaining IT Asset Management concepts to a seven-year-old sibling.

Understanding and Keys to Correction

• Six areas need to be reviewed for effective IT Asset Management.
• The first step in IT Asset Management is establishing an inventory of owned assets.
• IT Asset Management is fundamental for a meaningful security strategy.
• Common inventory-building methods include consulting the purchasing system, reviewing contracts, evaluating the installed software using tools (like Microsoft, System Center, Spiceworks, etc).
• Assets are valuable, tangible or intangible items such as people, information, infrastructure, finances, and reputation that need protection.

Lesson Wrap-Up

• Review of learning targets and achievement.
• Addressing questions and clarifying concepts.
• Review session notes on capacity management, monitoring and other hardware reviews.
• Evaluate hardware performance reviews based on historical data and analysis of processing schedules, job accounting reports, preventive maintenance.
• Continuous review of hardware and system software performance capacity.

Teacher-Led Activities

• Specific activities for the day include distributing course outlines, discussing subject overviews, grading and course requirements, filling the student directory, establishing group chats and house rules.
• Standard instructions for teachers, including in-class and at-home activities such as allocating time for consultations, administering assessments, facilitating discussion, and offering support materials.