The Evolving Role of IT Asset Management: Content from slides delivered by Jon Hall in a BMC/Forrester webinar on ITAM, in March 2013.

1. The evolving role of
IT Asset Management
Jon Hall
(content from BMC Software/Forrester Webinar, March 2013)

2. ITAM often evolved separately from ITSM...
Within IT Service Management
Within Finance
Directly reporting to CIO/CXO
Other
Source: The ITAM Review survey: “Where Does ITAM Sit In The Business?, Nov 2011
http://www.itassetmanagement.net/2011/11/25/itam-integrated-itsm/

3. Earlier ITIL versions did not really “get” ITAM
ITIL v2: “ASSET”
“Literally a valuable person or thing
that is ‘owned’.
Assets will often appear on a balance
sheet as items to be set against an
organization’s liabilities.

4. As IT evolves, so does the role of the Asset Manager
1980s to mid 2000s...
• Physical devices
• Install-based licensing
Mid 2000s to present...
• Virtualization
• Capacity-based licensing
Today’s megatrends...
• Internal and external cloud
• Consumption-based licensing
• Asset Management is not just being custodian of spreadsheets!
Photos used under creative commons license: Sources, Joel Franusic (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpf/230507381/); NeoSpire
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/neospire/3594831893/) ; Mendhak (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mendhak/5033806952/)

5. As IT evolves, so does the role of the Asset Manager
Equipment
Focused
IT
Focused
Business
Focused
ITAM Maturity
What is owned?
Where is it?
Who is it assigned to?
How much did we spend on it?
What does it support?
What is its role in our key services?
How can we control changes? How can we optimize its use?
How can we discover more?
IT is shifting right – and so is IT Asset Management.
Photos used under creative commons license: Sources, Joel Franusic (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpf/230507381/); NeoSpire
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/neospire/3594831893/) ; Mendhak (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mendhak/5033806952/)

6. ITIL v3 brings Service Asset Management into the picture...
ITIL v2: “ASSET”
“Literally a valuable person or thing
that is ‘owned’.
Assets will often appear on a balance
sheet as items to be set against an
organization’s liabilities.
ITIL v3: “SERVICE ASSET”
Any Capability or Resource of a Service Provider.
The ability of an Organization,
person, Process, Application,
Configuration Item or IT
Service to carry out an Activity.
Capabilities are intangible
Assets of an Organization.”
“A generic term that includes IT
Infrastructure, people, money or
anything else that might help to
deliver an IT Service. Resources
are considered to be Assets of
an Organization”

7. Case Study: Big Data in Medical Research
The organization is a leading, high-profile charity based in Europe.
They are a primary research organization, directly employing
doctors, scientists and nurses for frontline anti-disease research.
Big data requires specialist equipment.
Cloud is not an option in this case:
“The problem we’d have for active data is the
access speed – a single genome is 100Gb –
imagine downloading that from Google:
The constant growth of data and processing
limits the lifespan of this equipment:
We buy kit that’ll fit our needs, front-loaded with
three years support costs. Three years on, you’re
invariably needing bigger, better, faster“

8. Case Study: Big Data in Medical Research
Effective, cross-functional Service Asset Management enabled them to
find an significant opportunity that otherwise would have been missed:
“We used the old system for second tier data: desktop backups, old
data, etc. We were able to source third-party hardware-only support
for our old equipment”.

9. The Asset Manager is ideally placed…
• …to understand how the infrastructure supports the
business of IT.
• …to liaise and coordinate between different IT
functions, to find opportunities that will otherwise be
missed.
• …to learn about the core technologies in use in the
organization, and way they are evolving.
• …to help the organization understand its licensing
obligations, and how major decisions will affect them.
• …to be the trusted source of information to the CIO