The other day I received a phone call from a very large, prominent company in San Jose, California U.S.A. looking for an IT Asset Manager (ITAM). Of particular concern is the hardware and software for the data center(s). This call reminded me of an article in ComputerWorld by Julia King titled, Sidebar: How to get started with asset management. The article states that Companies that launch a comprehensive software asset management program can expect to save 8% to 30% of their total software budgets, according to Dave Dworkin, director of product management at Isogon. Best of all is that the bulk of savings are located in one convenient place -- your corporate mainframe.
This phone call reminded me of another very large prominent company in San Jose with whom I spoke two years ago that wanted to start an ITAM program by auditing it’s data center servers. This company wanted the ITAM to audit each server in each data center, in person. Since ITAM is a specialty field in and of itself, this request raised the eyebrows right off my face! During my 12 years in ITAM, working in IT departments, I don’t know of a data center manger who would allow me to audit each of the various kinds of servers in person. ITAMs are not usually certified in the server types. The job of an ITAM is to work with the data center people to obtain audit data.
Some of our members have experienced great savings for companies by eliminating unneeded or redundant server applications, as well as unused or unneeded support and upgrade costs. What are your thoughts and experiences in this? Would you allow an uncertified person to audit your servers?
Another thought that crossed my mind during the recent phone call is that in very large companies, one person could be very busy managing just data center hardware and software. The licensing for servers can be very complex. Another person could have their hands full managing desktop hardware and software. Staff requirments depend on the size of the company and the effective level desired.
