Improve your organization’s asset management, decision-making, compliance, security, and finances with an IT asset inventory tool like InvGate Insight.
Keeping things organized is crucial for any organization – big or small. And that is particularly true for IT assets, due to their cost and relevance. Having a detailed IT asset inventory not only has a positive impact on the day-to-day work, but also allows the company to have a clear view of their devices, make informed decisions, and ultimately grow.
In general, we can say that IT asset inventory consists of a comprehensive list of all the hardware and software assets within an organization. This includes everything from laptops and smartphones to software licenses.
But let’s take a closer look at it to discover its benefits and the steps to create your own with InvGate Insight.
What is IT asset inventory?
As we said before, an IT asset inventory can be quickly defined as a list of items. However, that doesn’t do it justice, especially because of its impact on an organization.
In general, the purpose of IT asset management (ITAM) is to plan and manage the full lifecycle of all IT assets. This helps organizations in several ways, such as maximizing value, controlling costs, managing risks, supporting decision-making, and meeting regulatory and contractual requirements.
To do all that, an IT asset inventory is not just a list. It’s a database filled with data on every piece of existing hardware and software within a company. Depending on the asset, it includes information on the device or license, the owner, its location, and the relationships between them.
What are the benefits of an IT asset inventory?
Now that we established that an IT asset inventory is at its core a database, it’s time to take a look at why it’s relevant to have one in place.
Here are six benefits of IT asset inventory:
1. Helps to keep track of hardware and software assets. In other words, you’ll be able to map your entire IT infrastructure.
2. Maximizes the utilization of resources. If you know what you own, and what’s the status of every asset, you can efficiently use and distribute your hardware and software.
3. Reduces the risk. An ITAM tool is a great ally to detect rogue assets in your network and find devices with vulnerabilities, which minimizes the amount of risk and threats.
4. Allows for better decision-making for IT acquisitions. Asset management software should provide you with reports and statistics to support your decisions.
5. Facilitates IT budgeting. By having a map of resources, you can detect underused licenses, as well as plan your budget ahead to replace outdated software.
6. Enables compliance with internal and external regulations. Tracking not only your assets but also every decision made regarding them, and every person involved in each asset lifecycle puts you in a great position to face an audit.
Now that we know the benefits, let’s see how to create an IT asset inventory with InvGate Insight in just a few steps.
How to create an IT asset inventory?
Creating an IT asset inventory may seem like a daunting task, but with InvGate Insight it’s quick and easy.
1. When you first open Insight, you’ll land on the “Dashboard” view. Here, you will find some general metrics: number of assets, a timeline of agents that are reporting, etc. On the left, you’ll find the main menu. Over there, click on “Settings.”
2. Once you’re there, go to “Network.” On this tab, you’ll find the step-by-step instructions on how to install the Insight agent on your devices. The agent is needed to retrieve information about the assets and the software within your organization.
On this screen, you need to select your device’s Operating System. Choose the method of installation: manually, remotely, or through a GPO. For the purpose of this article, we’ll pick the manual installation.
3. You can set a proxy, which is needed for devices that cannot connect directly to InvGate Insight, such as servers. For our quick setup, we’ll select the option to report directly.
All you have to do here is to download the install package on your device, open the console as admin, and run the installer. Make sure to repeat on as many devices you need to track.
4. Once you have all your agents installed on your devices, you’ll be able to see your assets listed on the “Explorer” view.
From here, you can access all the information from each device – including the data automatically reported by the Insight agent, and the information you upload, such as “status,” “owner,” and “location.”
And that’s it! Now you can track your complete IT asset inventory and monitor your hardware and software assets to make better IT decisions.
Bottom line
Having an IT asset inventory tool in place is a quality step forward for any organization. Asset management software has the power to positively impact teams, management, decision-making, compliance, security, and finances.
Hardware and software are already too expensive, but imagine how much their costs could go up if they’re not properly managed. Sure, it might seem a bit intimidating at first, but with a tool like InvGate Insight,the process becomes much more simple.
And the best part is that InvGate offers a free trial on Insight, so you can see what this is all about, and understand the actual impact the software would have on your company. If you opt to include an IT asset inventory tool, you can ease its implementation with asset inventory management tips and best practices.
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