IT asset management is the process of ensuring an organization’s assets are accounted for, deployed, maintained, upgraded, and disposed of when the time comes. It’s making sure that the valuable items in your organization are tracked and being used.
So, what’s an IT asset? Defined simply, an IT asset includes hardware, software systems, or information an organization values.
IT assets have a finite period of use. To maximize the value an organization can generate from them, the IT asset lifecycle can be proactively managed. Each organization may define unique stages of that lifecycle, but they generally include planning, procurement, deployment, maintenance, and retirement. An important part of IT asset management is applying process across all lifecycle stages to understand the total cost of ownership and optimize the use of assets.
In the past, IT departments were able to control assets within their own domain. Now, an organization’s asset management practice extends far beyond the hardware that’s issued with an official IT stamp of approval. Subscription-based software and employees expectation to customize the tools they work with through marketplaces and app stores, present new asset management challenges. The way modern teams work requires that IT teams be flexible and adapt their asset management process to best enable the business.
As various teams push to work with the tools that best fit their needs, asset management is an even more important part of an organization’s overall strategy and provides up-to-date information to reduce risks and costs. An asset management process creates a single source of truth when optimizing budgets, supporting lifecycle management, and making decisions that impact the entire organization.
As teams outside of IT begin to embrace service management, asset management has also become important to a variety of departments. We’ve heard of organizations using asset management software to manage things ranging from fleets, to fish, to insurance, to musical instruments.
For the security and compliance professional, it’s imperative to have access to a reliable and accurate asset inventory, especially when investigating security incidents and verifying and demonstrating compliance.
Qualys Asset Inventory works to continuously detect and protect your IT assets against cyberattacks, whenever and wherever they occur.
Here are the top 6 security use cases for cloud-based automated asset inventory:
- Pinpoint & prioritize vulnerabilities
- Find unauthorized software
- Discover and alert on policy violations
- Support forensic investigations
- Reconcile software asset licensing costs
- Support M&A integrations
Get all these IT asset management features immediately. Start your free trial of Asset Inventory today! Contact us!
