Understanding IT Asset Life Cycle Management

ITALM is a structured approach to manage the life cycle stages of IT assets within an organization. It provides visibility into the various life-cycle stages of resources, helping managers make informed decisions based on real-time data.

Tracking assets helps determine their usability, when to replace them, and when to dispose of old equipment. Such an approach ensures that end users experience zero downtime and consistent IT services.

Why is ITALM Important?

A robust ITALM system offers the following benefits:

• Forecasting Needs: ITALM – IT Asset Life Cycle Management helps organizations anticipate their technological needs based on current asset status.
• Informed Purchases: By tracking life cycles, businesses can make better purchasing decisions.
• Resource Replenishment: Knowing when an asset is about to retire ensures timely replenishment.
• Quality IT Services: By being proactive, organizations can ensure a seamless IT experience for users.
• Total Cost Insight: Organizations gain a clearer view of the total cost of ownership (TCO) for each asset.

How Does Dalos Assist in ITALM?

Dalos is an integral tool that streamlines ITALM with the following features:

Procurement

• Draft and manage purchase orders.
• Use pre-set PO workflows.
• Link purchases to cost centers, helping maintain budgets.
• Oversee PO approvals.
• Once purchased, seamlessly add assets to the inventory.

Deploy and Discover

• Transition assets from ‘inventory’ to ‘in-use’.
• Scan the network to discover hardware and software inventory.
• Assign software to corresponding hardware assets.
• Build relationship maps for a comprehensive view of assets.

Maintenance

• Plan scans and access audit history.
• Ensure complete tracking of asset ownership.
• Manage software licenses and remain compliant.
• Calculate asset depreciation.
• Gain insights into the total cost of ownership.

Support

• Manage and maintain asset contracts.
• Alert technicians about upcoming expiry dates.
• Use dependency mapping in the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) to determine impact.
• Link software license agreements directly to the associated software.

Retirement and Disposal

• Update asset status to ‘expired’ or ‘disposed’.
• When you dispose of an asset, the system automatically un-allocates any allocated software.

IT Asset Life Cycle Management as an Essential Practice

ITALM is an essential practice for any organization aiming to optimize its IT resources. By leveraging tools like Dalos, companies can ensure efficient procurement, deployment, maintenance, support, and retirement of IT assets. This not only saves costs but also ensures that IT services are consistently of high quality.