Management Practice. An interaction between ITSM and ITAM

Transcription

1 Management Practice. An interaction between ITSM and ITAM Abstract Russia saw a number of IT asset management projects completed in the last six years. In addition to ITSM, a new IT management methodology abbreviated to four-letters ITAM appeared and took hold besides ITSM. Everybody knows what ITSM and ITIL are. Many companies have implemented certain ITSM processes. Many publications highlight theoretical and practical issues of using ITSM methodology in Russian environment. Many IT-managers have heard about ITAM. But in practice, ITAM processes have been deployed by few. And publications on ITAM written by practical specialists are extremely scarce. In this work we will try to find out, how ITSM and ITAM are related, and what the benefit of their joint use is. ITAM. IBPL. Global Experience. There are multiple IT asset management knowledge sources. They can be grouped in three categories: Industrial standards; Accumulated structured experience of independent companies; Theoretical data submitted by vendors developing IT asset management software. Among them IBM, Microsoft, HP. This work is based on our own practical experience and IBPL 1. IBPL is the library of best practice of IT asset management developed and improved by the International Association of Information Technology Asset Managers 2. What is interesting about it is that it has been being developed for over 13 years and is used as a platformindependent methodology of IT asset management. 1 IBPL IAITAM Best Practice Library. 2 IAITAM International Associates of IT Assets Managers.

2 Timeline Matters Historically ITAM approach has grown from needs of general company management day-to-day accounting tasks. That is from bottom up. While the idea of ITSM is to provide IT-services, and ITSM was developed from top to bottom. When saying from bottom up or from top to bottom we mean abstraction level of describing the methodology and the level of decision making for the IT management. ITSM and ITAM processes can be implemented in organizations with different maturity levels and are being developed separately for a while. The most interesting things happen when they intersect. No Mature ITAM Processes without ITSM IT asset management processes in one form or another can be found in any company. They close up issues related with financial, contractual and accounting aspects of management. These processes may be called differently, or form a part of general processes of an organizations asset management, but they always exist. No commercial entity works without them. At some point, the company faces the need to enhance their maturity or create a common information space. There are different reasons for emerging or maturity enhancement of IT assets management in the company. The most enabling conditions for ITAM emerging is a company with a high maturity level of process management. With stable work aimed to create and provide IT services up and running, IT managers face the task of cost-efficiency management. For that reason an IT finance management process is built and that s the right moment to implement IT asset management. As an example we can hold up representative offices of western companies in Russia, financial institutions, hi-tech enterprises, companies that have already gone or about to go public. Another common situation is when neither ITSM nor ITAM of a company is mature enough. But business sets a challenge to IT that can be met only by a combinatory use of ITSM and ITAM processes. A good example is establishing IT department from scratch that would render outsourcing IT services within the holding company. Once the task is solved, the customer has a set of ITSM and ITAM processes that tightly interact with each other. Anyway, if you enhance the IT asset management maturity, you can t avoid their integration with other IT management processes and ITSM in particular. Similarities and Differences between CI and IT Asset The names speak for themselves: ITSM deals with IT service management, while ITAM deals with IT asset management. ITSM and ITAM solve different tasks. Let s put forward some general suppositions to draw parallels between ITSM and ITAM. 1. In terms of technology, an IT service consists of the interrelated set of CIs; 2. CI may be either an IT infrastructure element or an accountable logical

3 element; 3. IT asset is often understood as accountable software or hardware 3. If ITSM and ITAM processes run simultaneously, accountable items that correspond to physical elements of IT infrastructure may be both CI and IT asset (see Figure 1). Figure 1. ITSM and ITAM managed objects In this case we see IT infrastructure element from different angles from the point of view of CI accounting and IT asset accounting. Concerning IT asset, data on financial, contractual and accounting aspects of management are collected. In case of CI, data of technical characteristics and availability of IT infrastructure elements are collected. To illustrate this duality take a cell phone. Speaking of CI, a cell phone is an IT infrastructure element designed to deliver mobile communication services from a provider to a user. Its technical characteristics and availability matter for providing mobile communication services. On the other hand, a mobile phone is an IT asset with its cost items (purchasing, maintenance, etc.). These costs summed up to mobile communication expenses comprise an overall cost of mobile communication service. In terms of accounting, both CIs and IT assets are similar so far as they relate to activities run and tools used, but differ as they relate to accounted attributes. Similar but different It depends on the enterprise history of process management development and its mission whether to consolidate the process of IT asset management and configuration management or not. As a matter of our experience, these processes are usually dispersed, but integrated with each other. It is not only at the process level but also at the level of data storage systems that accounting aspects are divided. ITSM CMDB usually encompasses a restricted number of CI categories and its inventory is not detailed enough. It is filled in course of the configuration management process. According to IBPL, none of ITAM processes is similar to configuration management 3 Depending on the set tasks, IT asset may also include IT services in addition to software and hardware.

4 process. But it contains a set of processes that fill in ITAM CMDB with different data. Often, it makes sense to integrate ITSM CMDB and ITAM CMDB in order to eliminate the risk of double data entry during inventory and data updating, because CI and IT asset lifecycles intersect (see figure 2). Other aspects of similarity and difference of processes of IT asset accounting and configuration management are observed in another work 4. Figure 2. CI and IT asset lifecycle Let s take two examples. IT asset management was implemented in a management company of a large holding. Actually, under the guise of deploying IT asset management the tasks of configuration management were also solved. The customer wanted to arrange CI accounting to accumulate incident management statistics. As a result, the deployed process has coped with the tasks of configuration and IT asset management. In 2012, we completed the project of deploying a group of IT asset management processes in a large holding. ITSM processes, including configuration management, had already been up and running. Thus the deployed group of IT asset management processes was integrated in the existing process structure. Currently configuration management and IT asset management coexist in the customer s company, and all the data are stored in a single storage. ITAM complements and enhances ITSM Often IT asset management is integrated with company s business and management 4 Click here to learn more about similarities and differences of processes of configuration management (ITSM) and IT asset accounting (ITAM)

5 accounting which needs to ensure corresponding level of detail of IT accounting. Key differences between ITAM and ITSM: ITAM accounting detail level is higher than that in ITSM; ITAM accounts data that are beyond ITSM, but can be used for decisionmaking; ITAM processes are integrated with enterprise asset management processes, thus forming single horizontal processes across all company departments. To illustrate how ITAM supports ITSM, let s take a project real-life situation (see figure 3). The project scope included the task to ensure IT assets were provided to users in a timely and efficient manner. At first sight providing IT asset is a simple operation referred to ITSM area of responsibility and solved by Service desk. But if you take a closer look, you will discover an additional level within ITAM responsibility. Figure 3. Flow chart of IT asset provision procedure Description of IT asset provision procedure: A user registers IT asset request [1]. Firstly it is agreed by the user s line manager [2],

6 who determines, if it is possible to fulfill the user s request. Then the request is agreed by a technology expert [3], who determines, if the requested IT asset model may be provided to the user. After that it is checked, if the user s department budget has funds to provide an IT asset of the requested model to the user [4]. To assess available budget funds, the department must have a budget with all financial transactions and the balance being tracked in real time. For each IT asset request, the user s budget funds (or a part of IT budget referred to the user department) are assessed. If required funds are available in the budget, it is checked, if the IT asset is in stock [5]. This requires up-to-date information of IT asset balance in stock, of state and availability of IT assets. If the required IT asset is not available in stock, and the user has funds for it, it is purchased [6]. Procurement is performed under current framework agreements, or new agreements may be concluded. Anyway, an accurate and reliable information of current agreements and arrangements with suppliers is necessary to make a decision on procurement [7]. When IT asset is purchased, it must be accounted in IT and business accounting even before it will be supplied to the warehouse [8]. One way or another, IT asset will be delivered to the warehouse and provided to the user [9]. After that, IT asset request can be closed. Thus, ITSM is closely related with ITAM and uses results of ITAM processes to enhance accuracy of informed decision-making in ITSM operations. Conclusion To conclude, let us state main specific features of IT asset management development in a company: 1. IT asset activity can be met in any business oriented company. These activities are often insufficiently mature, insufficiently dynamic or simply they do not include IT. 2. Implementing IT asset management or enhancing its maturity an organization rises financial, contractual and accounting transparency of IT management. 3. Though ITSM and ITAM complete different tasks, they overlap in accounting. 4. In ITAM detail level and the scope of the accountable items are higher than in ITSM. Besides, they account different data. 5. ITAM processes provide detailed and accurate data for ITSM processes which is required for successful decision-making; 6. ITAM processes utilize ITSM data to calculate Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of IT services, IT projects and IT assets. Is it possible to live without mature IT asset management? Yes, it is. But if you need to ensure IT management transparency, first of all financial monitoring, if you need to comply with internal and external standards, if your company aims at enhancing efficiency and reducing risks, then mature IT asset management in the company is inevitable. Vitaly Lashchenov, I-Teco