What is unknown can neither be secured nor managed economically. IT asset management therefore creates a reliable overview of which devices, programs and contracts are in use in the company, to whom they are assigned and what condition they are in.
Technical data such as serial number, operating system and installed software is linked with commercial information such as purchase date, warranty, cost center and license agreement. Such an inventory is the basis for security, budget planning and audits. Standards such as ISO/IEC 27001 also call for an inventory of information assets.
How does IT asset management work?
Data collection is largely automated: inventory agents, network scans and the connection to device management systems such as Microsoft Intune continuously supply up-to-date data. What no device knows by itself is added manually, such as location, responsible person or contract term.
Each asset goes through a lifecycle: demand and procurement, inventory, issue to employees, operation with maintenance and updates, return, and retirement with verifiable data deletion. An important subarea is software asset management (SAM), which compares installed and used software with the purchased licenses.
Typical examples
- When an employee leaves, it is immediately clear which devices and licenses must be returned, see IT onboarding and offboarding.
- A critical vulnerability becomes known, and IT specifically finds all affected devices and software versions, an important step in vulnerability management.
- Before a license audit by a software vendor, a reliable overview of the installations is available.
- Devices whose warranty is expiring are scheduled for replacement in good time.
What companies should keep in mind
- Define a single, authoritative data source for assets instead of maintaining several lists in parallel.
- Also take into account cloud subscriptions, network components and private devices with access to company data.
- Have data updated automatically and check deviations regularly.
- Actively track down unknown devices on the network, for example by comparing network scan results with the inventory.
- Document data deletion at retirement, also with regard to data protection.
How it differs
A configuration management database (CMDB) overlaps with asset management but has a different focus: it describes how systems are technically connected and which services depend on them. Asset management looks more at ownership, costs, contracts and lifecycle. In practice, both draw on the same inventory data.
View hardware and licenses