Looking for a way to get your arms around your hardware and software inventory? Juice reader sdmayhew created this exhaustive checklist of things to check and things to consider as you start counting.

The goal is to manage all of our IT assets. Lets think of all IT assets; desktops, laptops, monitors, printers, servers, routers, switches, copiers, and software.

Inventory or asset tracking, of network assets is very easy to do with products like Altiris. The goal is Asset management of all IT assets.

To get to asset management we need to have procedures and policies in place to support our goals of managing IT assets.

Purchasing

Before we can start tracking assets we need to agree upon what is going to be the key that all assets will have. That key needs to stay the same through the whole asset tracking process or tracking time will increase.

• Questions to ask.
  • Is there a master number like a project number, which will cover multiple purchase orders?
  • Will there be one purchase order that inventory purchases will be attached to?
  • How will multiple invoices inside a single PO be covered?
  • What keys will we need to attach serial numbers to invoices, then invoices to Purchase orders.
• If purchases are across multiple states, what will the state of ownership be for the resident states or where the IT assets are purchased?
  • If machines are resident in the state does property tax need to be tracked?
  • How does inventory data showing machines moving across state lines get back to the finance system?

Hardware Tracking

Most questions apply to purchase and Leased IT assets. A few separate questions are leasing specific.

Install of machines

• Is a trouble ticket needed to move assets?
• What is the central tracking key for IT assets?
  1. Desktops, laptops and monitors are easy. What about servers where there are multiple serial numbers inside a primary server rack?

Movement of machines

1. Need to track if a machine moves cost centers
2. Assigning a billing cost center to a machine - will it be static? How do we change it? Do we do it dynamic so that the cost center changes every month to the primary user of the machine?
3. Does finance need a monthly spreadsheet to show machines that had there billing cost center moved needed?
4. Monitors - With a product like Altiris we can track if a monitor moves from cost center to cost center. Do we change cost centers it belongs to? What about if a monitor moves cost center groups and the 1st cost group doesn't know about it. Do we notify the first cost center group? What disciplinary actions do we take, if any, against the person who took the monitor?

Ownership

1. Is ownership by user or cost center?
2. Is ownership assigned at install statically
3. Is ownership dynamically assigned to the primary user of the machine?
4. This gives greater accuracy but will involve frequent updates to be sent to the finance system

Lease tracking

1. If we are leasing machine do we only bill the monthly cost of the machine to the end user?
2. Warehouse machines - if leased do we continue to bill the end business unit until the machine is reassigned to a different user?
3. Do we assign a lease machine cost center to the warehouse when it comes in from a trouble ticket
4. Leasing need to track if a machine moves form cost center to a different cost center. We will need policies to let us know how finance wants to handle this.

Stolen

1. Stolen machines. If purchased, do we simply note them in the database as stolen? Making sure they had the correct encryption on them. Do we send a report to local police?
2. Stolen machines lease- how do we notify the vendor that a machine has been stolen. What marking do we put in the database for our own internal tracking? Will we buy out stolen machines off the lease at the time that it is stolen? Will we just note stolen machines in the lease database and let them run out to the end of the contract and buy them out then?
3. Stolen machines - what auto detection tools do will have for internal or Internet to scan for these machines.

Disposal

1. Do all computer workstations need to have the hard drive wiped?
2. Internal by employees or external vendor?
3. Donate end of life machines (EOL)?
4. Use an external vendor to pick up EOL machines?
5. User internal employees to ship EOL machines to a central location?
6. How much space will this require?
7. How to get all disposal records to Finance to ensure IT assets are written off the books correctly

Software Tracking

Inventory tools like Altiris can track software loaded on a workstation. They can also track if that software is being used. The question becomes how do we manage our software licenses to avoid fines from vendors. Also how many copies installed on workstations are being used? If they are not being used do we want to reclaim them?

Policies issues raised by software tacking that need to be address by management.

1. Pirate software- how much discipline should be done to an employee for having pirated software on their company owned workstation.
   1. What classifies as pirate software?
      1. Freeware?
      2. Music MP3s
      3. Movies AVIs, MPEGs, etc
      4. Business software copied from another users workstation
      5. Kaza, other music sharing websites.
2. Pirate software- how do we handle software that is installed without a license.
   1. What groups are responsible for ensuring that every piece of software in the company has a license?
      1. How are paper PO's and shrink-wrap software tracked? Is there a policy for software that is purchased locally, to be reported to the central repository for software licenses?
   2. Where is the central repository for software licenses?
3. Reclaiming software not being used.
   1. Altiris will tell you when the last time software was used.
      1. How long is unused? Some software is only used at certain times of the year.
   2. If you remove software from a client how fast can you redeploy it the end user.

Off-Line Tracking

How are all the off-line assets going to be tracked?

1. Barcode scanning
   1. Is a built in module going to be purchased?
   2. Once a product is purchased training needs to happen to all users of the barcode product.
   3. How does the barcode product integrate with the primary asset database? Will custom forwarding and schedules have to be written? Internally who will support this?
   4. Wireless or wired barcode scanning. What security standards are needed for wireless communication between scanners and host computer?
2. RFID scanning
   1. RFID has limitations on range. The smaller the RFID tag the closer the RFID scanner has to be to the RFID tag.
   2. What encryption does the RFID come with? Early versions of RFID have been shown to have security concerns.
   3. Cost of RIFD scanners can run up to $5000 per handheld scanner and $20,000 for door scanners.
3. Tracking by human.
   1. Logistics workers manually write down serial numbers and asset tags and enter them into database. Very inaccurate but many companies still do it this way.
   2. Need to acknowledge up front a 5%-10% error rate

High Level View

The preceding questions and items are things that need be planned for before the mechanics of asset tracking can be solved. If asset tracking systems are put into action and a master plan is not adhered to several things can happen.

• Assets can go missing because there will be no authority for a logistics group to have business groups turn in abandoned assets.
• Software license counts can also stray into large unlicensed numbers if users are allowed to install any software without proof that they own it.
• Hardware warranties can run out and cost incurred to fix machines

Part 2 in this series will go into the mechanics of how Asset management can be done using Altiris and SAP.