Q&A - What is a technology asset management repository?

Q.) What is a technology asset management repository and how can it help my company save serious money? How will a repository optimize software asset management? In what ways will a well-implemented repository reduce my exposure to copyright compliance and software piracy audits? How does all this work? This single brief article can save you tens of thousands of IT dollars--even for the small enterprise--significantly more for the larger corporation.

Read on for answers and access to additional cost cutting--risk reduction--materials. Our goal is to put money back in your pocket, not psuh you into spending even more...
A majority of companies starts out with a simple file cabinet and progresses to a combination of spreadsheets and/or simple databases. Unfortunately, depending on size and complexity, most asset management processes tend to fragment as individuals and departments each decide that their method is superior to the methods of others within the enterprise.

Another factor that frequently contributes to strategic data fragmentation is that technicians are not generally responsible for, or interested in, physically tracking every software or hardware asset--much less the agreements that govern them.

The most critical issue regarding the asset management repository (database) is to ensure that it contains a minimum of the following strategic information:

- Each product you have purchased,
- Where and when the product was purchased,
- The name and strategic information regarding the manufacturers of each product,
- All proofs of purchase, authenticity documents, and licenses,
- The products actually being used in your environment,
- Where each product (by name, version, and release) is being used,
- Who is using each product,
- Any additional agreements that may relate to a given product (support or maintenance, etc.).

Consider this serious caution: Do not rush out and purchase a cutting edge proprietary repository. A majority of companies that purchases one of these products goes way over-board on both priceand complexity.

Comments

RSS

Only registered users can write comments!