Revolutionize Your IT Environment With ServiceNow’s Hardware Asset Management (HAM) Strategy
Hardware Asset Management (HAM) is an area of ITAM which covers the actual IT hardware required for business operations – everything from printers and scanners to projectors and headsets.
HAM is an integrated hardware lifecycle management solution, which enables organizations to easily track, optimize, and secure hardware assets while mitigating risks and cutting costs.
Real-time Visibility
Hardware Asset Management (HAM) strategies hinge upon their ability to offer an objective view into the complex maze of equipment that makes up an IT environment. HAM acts as an invaluable compass through this maze, providing real-time visibility that encompasses laptops, servers and network devices located worldwide as well as inventory data that is key for business operations.
Modern businesses’ IT infrastructures often encompasses an expansive collection of devices like printers, scanners, keyboards, projectors, headsets, cables and adapters – commonly referred to as peripherals – essential to running an efficient operation. At HAM we work hard to make these peripherals easily accessible by creating an accurate catalog of company equipment so no devices become lost or misplaced during usage or storage; protecting revenue while mitigating risk.
Organizational hardware requirements depend on several variables, including priorities, customer and business data, incidents, compliance needs and budget constraints. But ultimately the decision about what hardware to purchase comes down to answering two specific questions: which hardware fulfils business requirements at what cost; and is funding available. During HAM’s Request Stage these concerns are addressed and hardware solutions identified before requests for purchases are submitted.
Once IT teams have installed and deployed necessary hardware, they must monitor it to ensure optimal performance. Therefore, Health Analytics Management (HAM) should be integrated into IT and security operations workflows to keep an eye on each piece of equipment’s health; doing so helps mitigate against aging hardware impacts, unexpected assets appearing across networks unexpectedly, and risks due to obsolete software updates.
ServiceNow HAM suite provides robust and scalable functionality for managing all hardware assets throughout their IT lifecycle, from physical device discovery and inventory, enabling IT and security personnel to manage a global hardware estate from a single platform, as well as detailed reports on asset usage, status and configuration. When combined with ServiceNow Configuration Management Database (CMDB), this comprehensive approach yields greater results for organizations.
Cost Control
Tracking hardware assets can be an enormously complex endeavor for companies with multiple locations and employees. Without formal Hardware Asset Management (HAM) strategies in place, employees may rely on ineffective, time-consuming processes to monitor hardware. With formal HAM policies in place, employees are better able to utilize their time efficiently while anticipating hardware issues before they arise and automating many asset management procedures.
Manage IT hardware is key to any modern business’s success, from printers and scanners to projectors and projectors – not to mention headsets and cables – all must work harmoniously for maximum productivity in an office. However, hardware asset management (HAM) processes can often go overlooked. A robust HAM process enables businesses to provide quality IT services for employees at reduced waste costs while creating a seamless customer and employee experience.
ServiceNow’s Hardware Asset Management (HAM) solution offers unprecedented control and visibility over physical technology supporting IT operations. Comprised of both IT service management and configuration management features, HAM helps teams identify all equipment in an organization including those out-of-commission, in transit or sitting idle on shelves; purchase/transfer assets between offices/stockrooms; schedule blind audits as well as track the lifecycle of hardware assets from departure to disposal.
Your team needs visibility of where every piece of hardware resides in order to deliver an effortless IT experience, which means having access to a single pane of glass dashboard that displays their status and location across your environment. ServiceNow ITAM for HAM provides this visibility with its prescriptive workflows which automate hardware management processes.
This three-day interactive course focuses on the implementation of hardware asset management (HAM) capabilities within ServiceNow platform. Participants will get hands-on practice through lab exercises. They’ll access their own student instance that contains demo and test data for safe practice and reinforcement.
Course participants receive instruction from an experienced ServiceNow instructor and participate in real-life scenarios during this training course, and upon demonstrating all skills and knowledge learned they receive a certification of completion upon successfully completing it.
Optimization
Lack of an effective hardware asset management system often forces employees to handle and track assets in an ad hoc fashion, making it hard for critical equipment to reach its destination when needed – which in turn hinders service delivery timelines and diverts resources that could otherwise be put towards higher-value projects. Companies can implement best practices for hardware asset management to automate certain processes and streamline internal workflows allowing employees to focus more time on value-add tasks than managing physical assets manually.
NIX United can help your business leverage ServiceNow’s HAM platform, so your business can efficiently catalog and distribute hardware assets as required. Furthermore, this framework enables your IT crew to monitor equipment in any environment as changes arise in real-time – for instance if your office employs mobile devices with GPS tracking capability then monitoring can alert IT of their movement before alerting users when something stops performing optimally or sending back into lab for maintenance and testing.
HAM is designed to streamline hardware deployments while tracking each piece of IT hardware from procurement through decommission. This enables IT professionals to manage the estate while controlling costs by adhering to IT security and regulatory compliance standards. Furthermore, this platform offers prescriptive automated workflows to facilitate return merchandise authorization (RMA) procedures and reduce manual labor.
HAM can integrate with software asset management (SAM) to oversee all IT equipment and technology – desktops, laptops, servers, network infrastructure and medical devices alike – under its purview. Furthermore, IT license management capabilities allow IT administrators to oversee multiple antivirus licenses across 100 laptops or Windows Server licenses across several servers.
To maximize HAM and SAM’s potential, existing ServiceNow customers must carefully migrate over to these modules when migrating existing systems from other environments. Data normalization must also be part of this initial implementation to increase scalability while avoiding expensive cleanup costs down the line. For more information on taking full advantage of HAM and SAM solutions contact NIX United ITAM specialists now.
Scalability
With IT hardware constantly changing, hardware asset management (HAM) is an integral component of optimizing IT infrastructure. By using ServiceNow’s hardware asset management processes, organizations can manage inventory growth while overseeing every piece of equipment from birth through retirement and beyond.
HAM can save organizations money by eliminating ineffective and time-consuming manual processes that impede IT hardware management workflows. Furthermore, automating asset management allows enterprises to approach investment and utilization more intelligently while using best practices from HAM for asset risk and cost reduction while giving employees access to appropriate hardware for their specific work requirements.
ServiceNow HAM provides IT teams with an accurate picture of their entire hardware estate, including current ownership and usage details. This enables IT teams to make more informed decisions regarding vendor contracts, maintenance agreements and replacements while also identifying any security vulnerabilities. Furthermore, an effective hardware management strategy enables organizations to maintain an accurate catalog of fixed assets while simultaneously decreasing inventory risk through automated processes.
Tracking IT equipment’s physical movements is essential to protecting and increasing the value of an asset portfolio. This is particularly crucial with regard to peripheral hardware like scanners, printers, monitors, keyboards, headsets, projectors, cables, scanners and printers. With HAM systems organizations can create an inventory of all their auxiliary equipment-both active and in storage-and reduce risks by assigning ownership, tracking location of assets and assigning tags accordingly; additionally identifying unneeded items helps prevent theft or other losses from occurring.
Hardware asset management allows organizations to safeguard their IT assets more effectively by ensuring only authorized users access approved equipment. A central IT hardware inventory allows security teams to rapidly identify unapproved hardware and take immediate corrective action if necessary.
Leidit’s IT hardware management solutions powered by ServiceNow HAM provide an expansive view of all assets while streamlining asset management processes. Our certified experts can implement an asset tracking system tailored to your unique business requirements – contact us now and learn how we can optimize and transform your IT infrastructure!
