practical-itam.co.uk

SIM Cards
SIM Cards hold the circuitry that provide the physical and electronic link between the telephone and the physical device. Not long ago, they were quite expensive and it could be difficult to reprogramme them so they were connected to a different phone number. These days, however, it is possible to programme them remotely (which [...]

In the last couple of posts, I’ve talked about the basics of mobile devices, and the risks they present to the organisation. Over the next two posts I’ll bring the discussions together and talk about what we want to manage, and how we should go about doing it.
This post will look at options for managing [...]

I’ve recently been working intensively with Microsoft CLARET reports, so I thought I’d outline some of the lessons I’ve learned – often the hard way!
But please don’t consider this a definitive guide.
Microsoft CLARET reports are a tool that Microsoft has designed to display an organisation’s entitlement, including software assurance. The information in CLARET Reports is [...]

These are some exception reports / managing by exception processes that I think are particularly worth taking the time to carry out:
SAM
PO/Invoice reconciliation
Simply put, this process involves ensuring that an invoice is received for every software and maintenance purchase order raised. The reason we focus on invoices is because they are legal proof that the contract [...]

Sorry to go all theoretical on you again, but I find it quite helpful to bear in mind the DIKW heirarchy when planning exception reporting.
We have data in abundance in IT, and exception reporting can be very powerful in moving us beyond data to create information – answering the “who”, “what”, “where” and “when” questions, and allowing [...]

I was thinking about ITAM tools today, triggered by a conversation with someone who ran an ITAM user group. She mentioned that she regularly held user-group get togethers where they would discuss ITAM related topics, and although she tried to encourage policy and process related discussions, the talk always seemed to come around to the [...]

Let’s cover some of the reasons why we track ‘assets’ even though Finance doesn’t particularly care about them.
As asset managers working in an IT department, we actually should be concentrating on keeping systems up and running, and enabling the organisation or business to grow and be successful.
We need to focus on providing accurate data to help [...]

You’ve made the decision to buy an asset! Congratulations! But what do we mean by an ‘asset’, and why do we make a distinction between assets and other things?
Baldly, an asset is something that, if your company went bust and was wound up, would be sold to repay your creditors and shareholders. Sound shocking? Probably because [...]

I started this blog with the intention of writing about IT asset management, and have so far a total of 6 posts about data management! So far so boring.
I didn’t intentionally plan to do it that way, but I guess it was a case of ‘begin at the beginning’… and ITAM is fundamentally about data. [...]

So we have a rule, which is that data should be stored only in one place.
We identified one exception to this rule, which is that we sometimes need to store data in more than one place if it helps link databases together. Are there any other exceptions?
Yes, of course! There are always exceptions!
The other exceptions [...]