Tag Archives: Asset management

Sep
24
2012

5 Tips for Getting Started With Asset Management

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Christopher Blake

1. Set goals – what is it that you are looking to achieve with your new IT Asset Management on the K1000 Appliance? This can be an effort to improve support resolution, respond to an audit request, or simply a need to know which assets you have across your networks, what condition is in and who owns it. Set the goals and targets for your program so you can measure how your Asset Management efforts are progressing and be able to report on this progress.

2. Get buy-in from the business side – Asset Management is a business process, so get a buy-in from the business side of the house. Communicate your plan with senior management and get their support for your new Asset Management process and the investment, and make sure they are actively involved with exploring the improvement opportunities. For example, renegotiate your maintenance contracts, reassign assets or modify your IT usage policies and eliminate redundancy of Assets on your Network. IT Asset Management will most likely drive significant cost saving and help improve your IT efficiency – set your management expectation accordingly.

3. Prepare for the long term – Your business and your IT systems are constantly changing and keeping them aligned is an ongoing effort. An effective Asset Management plan requires ongoing review to allow you to maximize the value of the K1000 Appliance. The ongoing process of IT Asset Management is a source for a constant flow of improvement opportunities which you could adopt to extract even more value from your assets. Examples include reassigning licenses not being used, renewing warranties early for discounts, retiring machines that are costly to maintain, and so on.

4. Definition and the Final Plan – Once you define the goals and requirements for your IT Asset Management Plan you can begin to start the process of designing your K1000 Appliance Asset Management Module.  Your K1000 Server Appliance is the perfect tool that will support your ongoing efforts, help detect improvement opportunities, and will not create a significant administrative overhead. You will be able to track up-to date inventory; Software inventory and usage as well as physical assets such as printers, monitors A/V equipment, and everything else.

5. Establish a baseline – Every good plan starts somewhere. For asset management- an accurate baseline of your assets is the foundation of a successful IT Asset Plan. Your baseline should include an accurate inventory of your chosen assets and include financial records such as contracts and software licenses that your company owns. Once you have established a baseline, the K1000 Appliance will help you keep your inventory accurate so you can gain long-term value from your newly deployed IT Asset plan.

 

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Jun
21
2012

Three Key Elements to Managing your IT Assets

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Christopher Blake

Asset Management is a tool that we offer to our customers who are serious about building screenshot of K1000their IT investment for the future. Asset Management is often perceived as only a negative.   Asset Management matters not only to promoting effective financial accountability, but it also enables informed decision making in managing your physical and logical Information Technology Assets.  It can be used to understand and reuse some of your assets and leverage vendor relationships. It is not just about tools, it is not just an IT problem, and it certainly is not just about processes. Asset Management puts People, Processes, and Technology in place for effective management and control within your organization throughout all stages of their lifecycle.

There are three key Elements to managing your IT Assets.

  • Physical: Inventory management, Electronic Distribution, License Tracking, Usage Monitoring and Refresh/Retirement and to kill redundancy across your network.
  • Financial: Reporting for Procurement of new equipment, creating your IT budget and Operational Efficiencies.
  • Contractual/Logical: License Compliance, RFP Preparation and review, Negotiations, Supplier Management and Service Level Management.

Tracking your IT Assets can help you assess which assets have proven beneficial plus highlight where upgrades or new programs or equipment may be needed.  Serious problems can affect the damage your computers and entire networks are suffering in areas you may not be aware of.

The first step in the process in setting up your IT Assets in the K1000 Appliance will require you to make some decisions on what Assets to track.  Which Physical Assets do you want to track and which Logical Assets do you want to track.   Physical Assets being: Hardware, Desktop Network Devices, and Mobile Devices to name a few.  Logical Assets: Cost Center, Warranties, Vendors, Locations, Technical Support, Licenses, and Service Agreements for a few examples. Every business has their own special needs and priorities.  Some major questions to ask yourself and your team to get started are: What do I have? Where is it? What condition is it in? What is its useful life and value?  How does it relate to other Assets? What might be useful to know about this asset someday?

The K1000 Appliance offers you a flexible system for keeping track of resources that your organization uses throughout the life of the resource itself.

  • View the present state of history of resources you currently use in your organization. For example not only can you track how many printers you have, you also can more easily track how many are due to go out of warranty and when. You can setup automated email alerts when the warranties become due.
  • Create Peer-to-peer and parent child relationships between assets and track them together.  This allows you to track an asset you purchased by its PO, Location, Department, Project, and any other characteristics.
  • You can tie Assets into the Service Desk module for even better tracking when it comes to justifying procurement of new equipment.

How do you track your Assets now?  If you currently track your Assets in spreadsheets, or another product that the data can somehow be exported- your K1000 appliance supports .CSV file imports! As long as you have already defined the asset type, you can import a new asset of that type without manually entering it in the K1000 Appliance.  The K1000 Asset Management Module will allow you to change existing assets as well as create additional information you want to track.  You can change and customize our Asset Module to contain all the information you may need or want to change. Do you want to additional information?

Americas KKE – Am I Compliant? – Effectively Using Your K1000 for License Compliance

Europe KKE Series – Getting Started with Asset Management

K1000: Managing Computers and Other Assets with your K1000

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Jul
14
2011

An Eloquent Systems Management Solution for the SMB Market

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Marty Kacin

Marty Kacin Co-Founder of KACEGetting IT costs under control is one of the biggest challenges facing small and medium businesses. Often overlooked and underserviced, Dell KACE sees an incredible need in the SMB market. That’s why we engineered the Dell KACE M300 Asset Management Appliance. For the first time, small businesses (from 50 to 200 employees) will have an easy, cost-effective and reliable solution for routine IT tasks such as: hardware and software inventory, software license compliance and asset tracking and management. The new Dell KACE M300 Asset Management Appliance is one of the most unique products on the market because for about the price of a laptop computer, IT administrators get visibility into the exact state of their computers, servers and peripheral equipment. The M300 is the first in a new series of systems management appliances specifically designed and tailored for the SMB market. Key features include:

  • Device discovery and inventory for easy real-time assessment of hardware and software on all devices network-wide.
  • True compliance assessment permits IT administrators to manage multiple software titles with various licensing structures and reconcile software installations with license ownership.
  • Patch inventory tracks installed security updates and Windows service packs on computers connected to the network.
  • Dell warranty integration automatically retrieves warranty information for managed Dell computers and alerts administrators of pending expirations.
  • Alerts and notifications of PC inventory and software license compliance issues and the automatic creation of a “to do” list for achieving compliance.
  • Dashboards display network activity including recent changes and outstanding tasks.
  • Plug and play deployment allows the appliance to immediately begin providing hardware and software inventories.
  • Intuitive Web-based user interface accessible from the convenience of any desktop, laptop, or mobile device.

With the M300, even for a novice IT professional can be up and running in less than five minutes, and that’s just the beginning. An intuitive user interface allows IT Front view of the KACE M300 Asset Management Applianceadministrators to streamline IT procedures with just a few points and clicks of a mouse. If you manage IT resources for a small business you can’t afford to miss taking a closer look at the M300. You’ll be amazed at how much time and money you save.

Join me for a live in depth web event and a closer look at the M300.

Register Now For the Event:
Thursday, Jul 21, 2011
10am PT, 12pm CT, 1pm ET

Find out more about the Dell KACE M300 Asset Management Appliance

Watch the Dell KACE M300 Asset Management Appliance in action

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