Anyone know any good books on Asset Management?

In particular IT Asset Management?

Seems that is the way my job is taking me -- plus I got myself screamed at by my boss and his boss for poor documentation.

Oh the joy of being the low man on the totem pole.

Thanks in advance,

~Obdurate~

PS While I am at it -- any certifications for IT Asset Managment?

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Hyper-Me

I dont think there is that much to it, that would require a cert or even full books.

Basically, determine what information you need, find a product that does that and implement it.

forkvoid

Hyper-Me wrote: »

I dont think there is that much to it, that would require a cert or even full books.

Basically, determine what information you need, find a product that does that and implement it.

The question is more about the processes involved. What he's asking for is real-world experience, essentially. For example, what sorts of things need to be tracked? What details about those things need to be tracked? What systems exist for assisting in tracking these items? What's some best-practices for asset management?

To the OP: I have nothing else to add to this thread; I'm curious as well, though.

earweed

I looked on Books 24x7 (I have access) and found a really small book on IT asset management. It's mostly about keeping track of equipment/software and documenting everything. Most of it was templates for log sheets.
IT Asset Managementby Mike Sisco MDE Enterprises, Inc. © 2002 (40 pages) CitationWith frequent changes taking place and exposure to risk with unlicensed software becoming more severe, it is a requirement CIOs to keep track of the technical assets of the company. This book tells you what to track and provides several tools to help.

Unless you have books 24x7 this would be of no help as it's not on amazon and may not be in print anymore. As for what needs to be tracked and documented you could probably get more info by studying/reviewing a sec+ book. The Sybex book was pretty good about this.

As far as what needs to be documented: servers/software ( to prove not violating licenses)/network equipment

eMeS

Hyper-Me wrote:

I dont think there is that much to it, that would require a cert or even full books.

Basically, determine what information you need, find a product that does that and implement it.

Just when I think you've become wiser, you post something like this....

To the OP:

Amazon.com: Implementing ITIL Configuration Management (9780132425933): Larry Klosterboer: Books

And

Amazon.com: Service Transition Book (Itil) (9780113310487): Shirley Lacy; Ivor Macfarlane: Books

Configuration Management is above and beyond traditional asset management. There are many similarities, with the major difference being that in Configuration Management you are concerned with the relationships between the items whereas in asset management you are more focused on tracking items above a certain value.

MS

HeroPsycho

Hyper-Me wrote: »

I dont think there is that much to it, that would require a cert or even full books.

Basically, determine what information you need, find a product that does that and implement it.

You could oversimplify anything in IT using what you just said almost verbatim.

"Hey, I'd like to implement a geocluster, but that looks complicated!"

"Naw, all you gotta do is determine what your needs are, find a product that does that, and implement it!"

If that were that easy, we wouldn't have jobs...

eMeS

HeroPsycho wrote: »

You could oversimplify anything in IT using what you just said almost verbatim.

"Hey, I'd like to implement a geocluster, but that looks complicated!"

"Naw, all you gotta do is determine what your needs are, find a product that does that, and implement it!"

If that were that easy, we wouldn't have jobs...

With the exception of email; it really is just moving 0's and 1's to the right place, isn't it?

Just determine your needs, buy a product and you're done!

Obdurate

eMeS wrote: »

Just when I think you've become wiser, you post something like this....

To the OP:

Amazon.com: Implementing ITIL Configuration Management (9780132425933): Larry Klosterboer: Books

And

Amazon.com: Service Transition Book (Itil) (9780113310487): Shirley Lacy; Ivor Macfarlane: Books

Configuration Management is above and beyond traditional asset management. There are many similarities, with the major difference being that in Configuration Management you are concerned with the relationships between the items whereas in asset management you are more focused on tracking items above a certain value.

MS

Thanks for your help all -- I am going to go with the first book suggetion above; the second one is a tad too expensive ($125).

~Obdurate~

Hyper-Me

HeroPsycho wrote: »

You could oversimplify anything in IT using what you just said almost verbatim.

"Hey, I'd like to implement a geocluster, but that looks complicated!"

"Naw, all you gotta do is determine what your needs are, find a product that does that, and implement it!"

If that were that easy, we wouldn't have jobs...

Sometimes it IS that easy. I seriously doubt dude is needing to gather data on more than maybe even 100 machines. At this level I dont think one necessarily needs to go all ITIL crazy and stuff. Things are a lot more self explanatory and easier to implement when its on a tiny scale.

If he were managing systems for a multi city/state/country company with tens or hundreds of thousands of users and pieces of equipment, it would be a different story.

earweed

IT Asset Management By: Mike Sisco ( I referenced this book earlier) Found it on the authors site.
$29.95
http://www.mde.net/cio/page10.html
It's available on Books 24x7 if you had access. Simplifies it down to what you need to keep track of in an IT environment and give templates of "log sheets" for documenting your IT Assets.

eMeS

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Sometimes it IS that easy. I seriously doubt dude is needing to gather data on more than maybe even 100 machines. At this level I dont think one necessarily needs to go all ITIL crazy and stuff. Things are a lot more self explanatory and easier to implement when its on a tiny scale.

If he were managing systems for a multi city/state/country company with tens or hundreds of thousands of users and pieces of equipment, it would be a different story.

Typically when the term "asset" is used it's never a tiny scale. Furthermore, effective and efficient processes work well whether it's 1 or 1,000,000 assets that need to be managed.

Asset implies something with a depreciation schedule, which in turn interfaces with other higher-level accounting processes, even in the smallest organizations. Just tracking things you own in a spreadsheet is not asset management.

Think of ITIL as a menu at a restaurant. When you go to a restaurant you don't eat everything on the menu, do you? My point is that anyone can take whatever they need from the collection of best practices, be it 1 guideline or 1000. In many ways ITIL is a reflection of what many organizations already do. Even if you are a small organization, it's easy enough to pull one thing out of the collection of best practices that can help you. Only people who don't get "it" ("it" being everything under the sun) think in terms of all or nothing. Very little of the stuff that we (royal We) do or talk about on a daily basis is all or nothing.

Do you know why I don't respond to posts over in the Cisco forums? Because compared to many of the people here, I don't know anything about that stuff. You're welcome Cisco guys!

You really don't have to reply to every post someone makes. You have a tendency to reply to topics about which you seemingly know little or nothing. Your lack of insight is obvious, because you tend to minimize or belittle the activity or the effort involved. You've done this many times here, and it comes across not as knowledge or wisdom, but some form of posting diarrhea.

MS

HeroPsycho

Hyper-Me wrote: »

I seriously doubt dude is needing to gather data on more than maybe even 100 machines. At this level I dont think one necessarily needs to go all ITIL crazy and stuff. Things are a lot more self explanatory and easier to implement when its on a tiny scale.

If he were managing systems for a multi city/state/country company with tens or hundreds of thousands of users and pieces of equipment, it would be a different story.

Sweet! Didn't realize you were psychic and knew exactly what his needs are. My bad!

Hyper-Me

HeroPsycho wrote: »

Sweet! Didn't realize you were psychic and knew exactly what his needs are. My bad!

Its more likely that its a handful of machines rather than a global companys entire IT assets.

I guess I have terrible little experience with it. We needed "asset management" at my lost job. We outlined what data we wanted to harvest. Evaluted a few products. Puchased one. Installed it. and low and behold we had our data! Rather than reading a bunch books about it or taking a certification test on it, I focused on more important things...like keeping all that equipment working properly.

HeroPsycho

Hyper-Me wrote: »

We outlined what data we wanted to harvest. Evaluted a few products. Puchased one. Installed it. and low and behold we had our data! Rather than reading a bunch books about it or taking a certification test on it, I focused on more important things...like keeping all that equipment working properly.

Glad that worked out for you.

eMeS

Hyper-Me wrote: »

We needed "asset management" at my lost job.

Freudian slip? Did your approach to asset management have anything to do with this?

MS

Hyper-Me

eMeS wrote: »

Freudian slip? Did your approach to asset management have anything to do with this?

MS

rwwest7

By asset management, do you mean keeping track of serial numbers/asset tags? If so than Microsoft Excel is the program for you. Need to document your network layout, meet Microsoft Visio.

eMeS

Hyper-Me wrote: »

No

Just saying...you know, because the "a" and the "o" are pretty far apart on a QWERTY keyboard....

MS

eMeS

rwwest7 wrote: »

By asset management, do you mean keeping track of serial numbers/asset tags? If so than Microsoft Excel is the program for you. Need to document your network layout, meet Microsoft Visio.

Respectfully, one might use Excel to analyze information from an asset management system, but Excel in and of itself would not make a very effective asset management system.

There are attributes in addition to serial numbers that are related to those asset tags you see on computers.

MS

historian1974

Obdurate wrote: »

In particular IT Asset Management?

Seems that is the way my job is taking me -- plus I got myself screamed at by my boss and his boss for poor documentation.

Oh the joy of being the low man on the totem pole.

Thanks in advance,

~Obdurate~

PS While I am at it -- any certifications for IT Asset Managment?

Resurrecting an old thread, but I am heavy into asset management at my job as well... and it looks like my career is haded that way too, but I enjoy the work.

As far as certs go check out:

IAITAM provides knowledge, training & advice to IT Asset Managers worldwide

And there are a lot more (and better) tools than Excel, though it is a good starting point.

Devilsbane

rwwest7 wrote: »

If so than Microsoft Excel is the program for you.

Excel would do a pretty good job if you are working in a small company with only a hundred or two items to keep track of. I don't think excel would work well to document a thousand+ items.

I used to use excel to keep track of the computers brought into the computer repair program at my former school. Worked fine because it only needed to log 20-30 computers at a time, and being that it was a free program at a community college, money wasn't exactly falling from the ceiling.

N2IT

rwwest7 wrote: »

By asset management, do you mean keeping track of serial numbers/asset tags? If so than Microsoft Excel is the program for you. Need to document your network layout, meet Microsoft Visio.

I love HP asset manager too. I was in asset management for several years. I never really considered it IT, it was more well...... it
's asset management

The best advice I can give to you is learn your tools and learn the processes in which you work with. Dealing with procurement and other teams will be challenging at least it was for me.