Experience with an IT Asset Management System

DESY has introduced an Asset Management System (AMS) as a central tool to support the management and maintenance of its technical infrastructure. The first release is in production since spring 2002 in the IT department, where it is used for software license management, for improving the purchasing of standard equipment, and as a central repository. The repository is the basic component of the AMS. It holds the inventory of DESY's IT equipment, and in addition for IP devices like e.g. computers, printers or switches, the network configuration. It is used for asset tracking, i.e. equipment moves, adds or changes. The software license management is built on top of a scanner, which recognizes the installed software and hardware configuration of a computer. The scanner data is imported into the repository, and the AMS creates reports on software usage (and diversity) in departments and compares the installed applications with available licenses. The paper describes the AMS solution, shows example data (reports) and summarizes experience. An outlook is given to following releases, which are planned to extend the scope to safety equipment or accelerator components.