IT Asset Inventory

American Appraisal performs physical inventory services to support Information Technology Asset Management (ITAM) and Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) initiatives. We maintain a dedicated program office team focused on physical wall-to-wall inventory for IT assets. Our comprehensive project planning uses Project Management Professional (PMP®) methodologies, certified PMP professionals, committed data quality control managers, customized data collection programs and sophisticated IT data capturing and processing tools.

Business Drivers
American Appraisal provides IT inventory services related to a variety of business needs and goals:

• ITAM and ITSM
• Asset management software implementation and configuration management database (CMDB) build-out
• Traditional fixed asset inventory and reconciliation (physical and financial)
• IT outsourcing of support services and ownership of assets
• Deployments, upgrades, refreshes, platform consolidations and migrations
• Procurement, repurposing, retirement, disposal and utilization
• Help desk, maintenance and break/fix support
• Security of corporate assets and data, governance; SOX, HIPAA and FERC
• Mergers and acquisitions, divestitures and spin-offs, moves and consolidations
• Risk management and disaster recovery
• Lease management, financial management and accounting
• Service Level Agreements (SLAs), independent audit and compliance management
• Budgeting and forecasting
• Data center management (energy, space and maintenance)

Scope
American Appraisal begins with a broad scope list and works with each of its customers to ascertain a specific scope of asset inventory that best meets their needs in terms of relevant assets to track, support and/or reconcile. The final list of in-scope assets and tagging protocols are then detailed in the comprehensive project management plan for proper reference.

Typical in-scope items may include:

•  Desktop / laptop / tablet / workstation / thin client
•  Server / midrange / mainframe
•  Storage / backup (tape drive / array, DASD, hard drive / array)
•  Monitor / display / terminal
•  Printer / plotter / scanner
•  Network (switch, router, hub, transceiver, KVM, firewall)
•  Mobile Devices
•  Telecom (PBX, IP phone, CSU/DSU, radio, analyzer, modulator, combiner, rectifier, amplifier, signal processor)
•  Office infrastructure (copier, fax, UPS, scale, projector, power supply, patch panel, cabinet, data center rack)
•  Specialized equipment (point of sale system, check reader, ticket printer, wireless access point, time clock, badge reader, security camera, ATM)

Data Elements Collected
We analyze each customer’s data requirements, typically through a review of the current or expected asset management data repository, configuration management database or IT asset management software tool.  We custom program our data collection, data processing and data delivery tools to then manage to these data points.

Typical data elements may include:

• Location
  • Address, city, state / province, post, country
  • Site name, site code, building name
  • Floor, room / cube / area / column, rack, grid, rack unit, slot
•  User demographics
  • Employee first, last, middle name / manager name
  • Telephone, email, network ID, employee ID
  • Business unit, department, cost center, chargeback
•  Survey data
  • Company assets at home
  • Company-provided mobile device
  • Responsible for multiple assets
  • Contractor / contractor company
• External data
  • Asset tag #, parent asset tag #, legacy tag #, RFID tag #
  • Description, manufacturer, product name, model #, serial #
  • Computer name, host name, IP address, MAC address, ports
  • Status, ownership, configuration
•  Internal data / hardware
  • OS, OS service pack, total disk, free disk
  • CPU vendor, model, speed/physical memory
  • Bios vendor, version, date
  • Network IP, MAC
• Internal data / software
  • Company, product, version, file name, directory

IT Asset Inventory Services
American Appraisal provides a diverse and flexible offering of inventory services to meet variable customer needs. Our services include:

• Bar code and RFID tagging
• IT asset inventory (ITAM / ITSM physical inventory)
• Fixed asset inventory and reconciliation
• Book to floor/floor to book – data reconciliation and financial reconciliation
• Cycle inventory / quick scan / preload / sample inventory
• Internal hardware discovery / internal software discovery
• Data center inventory
• Digital photo capture
• Data mapping / data scrubbing
• Cell tower audit
• Site survey
• Home worker and mobile asset self-inventory web page
• Specialized inventory services

Since 1994, our consultants have inventoried more than 20 million IT assets in over 70 countries. We use advanced technological tools that enable precise data collection within corporate, technological, manufacturing and healthcare environments. We actively participate in the development and implementation of our clients’ asset management initiatives.