IT asset management (ITAM)

IT Asset Management(ITAM) is the asset management related to information technology. This involves asset inventory, depreciation, product lifecycle management, and the costs of operation, maintenance, and repair. These factors are intended to support decision making for replacement and new purchases of IT equipment.

Assets in information systems include the software and hardware with all the resources such as the servers, storage systems, racks, the peripherals, the network, the resources, the network connectivity components, and various other equipment.

IT Asset Management (ITAM) is an ongoing process where asset data is continuously used and constantly optimized in terms of cost. The goal is to control costs, minimize risks and improve revenues. It is about making the best use of existing assets and resources, increasing their efficiency and reducing costs.

The International Standards Organization( ISO) has created an official set of standards for ITAM. This family of standards, ISO 19770.

ISO/IEC 19770-1: A process framework based on best practice solutions for ITAM. Through this standard, organizations have evidence that they are implementing ITAM according to standard requirements.

ISO/IEC 19770-2: A data standard for software identification labels.

ISO/IEC 19770-3: This standard deals with the detailed description of software for the assignment of rights.

ISO/IEC 19770-4: Enables standardized reporting of resource utilization.

ISO/IEC 19770-5: Provides an overview of the ITAM standards defined by ISO and the associated vocabulary.