This is my calling card to any business thinking about a holistic Asset management program. Every aspect in this paper needs to be answered in some way to have positive results from your asset management program.

1. TCO Total Cost of Ownership – Asset Management – Prequels to doing Asset
Management
Procedures and polices
TCO lifecycle
Introduction:
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.
a. Is there a master number like a project number, which will cover
multiple purchase orders?
b. Will there be one purchase order that inventory purchases will be
attached to?
c. How will multiple invoices inside a single PO be covered?
d. 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
a. Is a trouble ticket needed to move assets?
b. What is the central tracking key for IT assets?
i. Desktops, laptops and monitors are easy. What about servers where
there are multiple serial numbers inside a primary server rack?
Movement of machines

2. a. Need to track if a machine moves cost centers
b. 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?
c. Does finance need a monthly spreadsheet to show machines that had there
billing cost center moved needed?
d. 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
a. Is ownership by user or cost center?
b. Is ownership assigned at install statically
c. Is ownership dynamically assigned to the primary user of the machine?
a. This gives greater accuracy but will involve frequent updates to be
sent to the finance system
Lease tracking
a. If we are leasing machine do we only bill the monthly cost of the machine
to the end user?
b. Warehouse machines – if leased do we continue to bill the end business
unit until the machine is reassigned to a different user?
i. Do we assign a lease machine cost center to the warehouse when it
comes in from a trouble ticket
c. 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
a. 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?
b. 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?
c. Stolen machines – what auto detection tools do will have for internal or
Internet to scan for these machines.
Disposal
a. Do all computer workstations need to have the hard drive wiped?
i. Internal by employees or external vendor?
b. Donate end of life machines (EOL)?
c. Use an external vendor to pick up EOL machines?

3. d. User internal employees to ship EOL machines to a central location?
e. How much space will this require?
f. 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.
a. What classifies as pirate software?
i. Freeware?
ii. Music MP3’s
iii. Movies AVI’s, MPEGs, etc
iv. Business software copied from another users
workstation
v. Kaza, other music sharing websites.
2. Pirate software- how do we handle software that is installed without a
license.
a. What groups are responsible for ensuring that every piece of
software in the company has a license?
i. 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?
b. Where is the central repository for software licenses?
3. Reclaiming software not being used.
a. Altiris will tell you when the last time software was used.
i. How long is unused? Some software is only used at
certain times of the year.
b. 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
a. Is a built in module going to be purchased?
b. Once a product is purchased training needs to happen to all
users of the barcode product.

4. c. 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?
d. Wireless or wired barcode scanning. What security standards
are needed for wireless communication between scanners and
host computer?
2. RFID scanning
a. RFID has limitations on range. The smaller the RFID tag the
closer the RFID scanner has to be to the RFID tag.
b. What encryption does the RFID come with? Early versions of
RFID have been shown to have security concerns.
c. Cost of RIFD scanners can run up to $5000 per handheld
scanner and $20,000 for door scanners.
3. Tracking by human.
a. 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.
b. 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 will go into the mechanics of how Asset management can be done using
Altiris and SAP

5. y $
$
$
y
y
Order of New Purchasing
Systems based on machines
out of warrenty in altiris
Vendor
Receives and ships y
y Altiris reconciles disposal
to what was in field. Report send to finance order
Disposal Vendor PU's old machines
y
and send report what picked up
Logistics
y
Receives Order
Warehouse manages
PU of old retired machines
Instock at
y
Warehouse
y
Altiris
IT installs new machine Database
and removes old system.
Old machine awaiting pickup
y
Ship to
local site.
Finance DB
y
Altiris Notifies
Local IT that WS
90 days from End of
Warreny
Local
y VISIO CORPORATION
Inventory
$ y
Finance
Receives Monthly
Billing
Tech
y Install
y
Tech Assigns
End User
Billing
Install
Cost Center y