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Article taken from ITAssetManagement.org

  Asset Management What Is It, and How Can It Help Me?

What is Asset Management?

These days, nearly every organization uses computers, printers, fax machines, and other assets. In most organizations, the IT department (the department in charge of the organization's computers and information processing) handles the assets.

The IT department must keep track of these machines. The IT department should know, for example:

• What software is installed on which computers.
  
• The license expiration dates for the software.
  
• All software available to the organization.
  
• How much paper is left in each printer.
  
• The hardware installed on each computer.
  
• A list of software/hardware suppliers.
  
• Each asset's owner and users.
  
• Each asset's physical location.
  
• Warranty expiration dates.
  
• Last maintenance dates.
  
• Any other information necessary for the organization.
  

If an organization owns only several assets, the IT department would be able to keep easy track of them. What about organization that own thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of assets?

To manage all this information, IT departments in large organization use asset management software. Good asset management software scans an organization's network, providing IT the information it needs. IT managers can see information such as listed above without leaving their offices.

How Does Asset Management Software Work?

In large organizations, effective asset management software must retrieve assets' information automatically. Simply listing data in a spreadsheet is insufficient. One cannot expect IT to manually list all assets, the assets' details, and changes the assets go through.

Therefore, asset management software should do the following:

• Automatically detect assets on the organization's internal network.
  
• Regularly scan the network for asset changes (such as changes in hardware and software).
  
• Provide whatever information IT managers require.
  
• Be able to answer specific queries, such as “How many assets are using Windows XP?”.
  

Some asset management software also allows IT to remote control assets. Thus, from his or her office, an IT manager can control a PC anywhere on the network. This can allow him or her to solve problems from afar.

Good asset management software is also effective, quick to set up and install, and easy to use.