Asset performance management still on track

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: DENNIS DROGSETH ON NETWORK/SYSTEMS
MANAGEMENT
08/29/05
Today's focus: Asset performance management still on track

Dear networking.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* Asset performance management revisited
* Links related to Network/Systems Management
* Featured reader resource
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by HP
FROM THE NETWORK CORE TO THE NETWORK EDGE

Traffic management becomes critical as your network
infrastructure expands to support different types of traffic and
users. Most traffic management solutions have serious
limitations: too expensive, difficult to use, and overly taxing
on bandwidth. However ProCurve Networking by HP addresses these
requirements, overcomes the limitations of other solutions, and
gives you valuable insight into LAN performance.
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=111678
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_______________________________________________________________

Today's focus: Asset performance management still on track

By Dennis Drogseth

Three years ago I wrote a column on asset performance
management, anticipating that service management and asset
management would need to come together in a new discipline with
a distinctive set of interdependencies. Today let's check on how
this discipline is evolving.

One might liken traditional asset management to describing an
Olympic athlete in terms of height, weight and clothing size.
Asset performance management would address the same athlete in
terms of the speed with which he or she can run the 100-yard
dash, for instance, what events he or she participates in, and
how he or she interacts with the rest of the team.

In IT, assets "perform" based in large part on how they're
configured. Changing service demands often require configuration
changes. Similarly, understanding an "asset" beyond amortization
means looking at how it's utilized, and its track record in
terms of mean time between failures (MTBF) and mean time to
repair (MTTR). I have even seen some IT shops keep records of
utilization, MTBF and MTTR by brand and model to make more
informed purchasing decisions.

Chargeback accounting is another area where asset management and
service management come together. Chargeback accounting can
provide dynamic insight into how and when services are consumed,
as well as who's consuming them, and the impact on the
infrastructure. While few IT shops have tackled chargeback
accounting in a meaningful way yet, it is clearly a wave of the
future. Ultimately, what could be more empowering than to know
how your services are actually used and what it's costing you?
When you map this to service quality, you have my recommended
golden triangle: Quality, Cost and Demand.

There is a lot going on in the industry to support my still-high
level of enthusiasm for asset performance management as a new
phase in industry and IT evolution. The interest in ITIL's
configuration management database (CMDB) is one example of
activity, both among vendors and IT adopters. The CMDB
represents the collapsing of IT disciplines into a set of
interrelated processes, rather than fragmented silos. Through
the CMDB and effective auto-discovery, an IT organization
willing to approach asset management in terms of asset
performance management can potentially get multi-dimensional
views of the same configuration item to support management in
terms of lifecycle costs, asset utilization, relevance of the
asset to a given set of services, ownership and responsibility
for the asset, configuration history, and current states of
availability/performance health of the asset, and so forth.

"Well, you might say, "that's not really asset management
anymore, is it? It sounds a lot more like management in
general." Bingo! Asset performance management can become a model
for approaching virtually everything IT does, once all the
interdependencies are understood. It provides the
dollars-and-cents or financial-impact perspective to complement
technical metrics and QoS measurements.

Is it all asset management then? I suppose not, strictly
speaking. Asset performance management will require a team of
professionals to work together in planning across multiple
disciplines - change management, configuration management,
service planning, and of course asset management itself. This
team will be responsible for IT financial planning overall, or
as ITIL calls it, "Financial Management for IT Services." This
team will directly inform and be informed by more real-time
requirements to implement change when, for instance, poorly
performing assets at end of life need to be transitioned out for
new infrastructure assets as seamlessly as possible. In this new
model, asset management becomes both a central point of
reference, and - potentially - a coordination point for managing
the day-to-day and long-term dollars-and-cents implications of
everything IT does as it supports its business clients.

The top 5: Today's most-read stories

1. Windows XP also has plug-and-play vulnerability
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnsm5948>

2. 2005 salary survey
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnsm3898>

3. The ROI of VoIP
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnsm3663>

4. IT staff shortage looming
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnsm5289>

5. CLECs play a new tune
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnsm5762>

Today's most-forwarded story:

Police 'futurists' walk fine line between goals and liberties
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnsm5949>
_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Dennis Drogseth

Dennis Drogseth is a vice president with Enterprise Management
Associates <http://www.enterprisemanagement.com/>, a leading
analyst, market research and IT consulting firm based in
Boulder, Colorado, focusing exclusively on all aspects of
enterprise management. Dennis has extensive experience in
service level management and network management platforms and
products. He is actively researching trends in management
software and changing IT roles internationally. His 22-plus
years of experience in high-tech includes positions at IBM and
Cabletron. He is widely quoted in the press and is a speaker at
many industry events. He can be reached via e-mail
<mailto:drogseth@enterprisemanagement.com>.
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by HP
FROM THE NETWORK CORE TO THE NETWORK EDGE

Traffic management becomes critical as your network
infrastructure expands to support different types of traffic and
users. Most traffic management solutions have serious
limitations: too expensive, difficult to use, and overly taxing
on bandwidth. However ProCurve Networking by HP addresses these
requirements, overcomes the limitations of other solutions, and
gives you valuable insight into LAN performance.
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=111677
_______________________________________________________________
ARCHIVE LINKS

Archive of the Network/Systems Management newsletter:
http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/nsm/index.html

Management Research Center:
http://www.networkworld.com/topics/management.html
_______________________________________________________________
FEATURED READER RESOURCE
IT STAFF SHORTAGE LOOMING

Outsourcing. Automation. Downsizing. The industry has been awash
in unemployed IT pros. But experts are now predicting an IT
staffing crunch is just around the corner, and the implications
for U.S. technology innovation are sobering. What might be
causing the shortage and what might need to be done to prevent
it? Click here:
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnsm5764>
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