How Asset Management works

Overview

Matrix42 Asset Management helps you keep track of and manage the devices used in complex IT infrastructures, such as hardware, software or peripherals. The devices are called assets and are classified into different categories in Matrix42 Asset Management.

Matrix42 Asset Management provides transparency by consolidating and recording the distributed information from commercial and technical systems such as ERP, Human Resources or software distribution.

Asset Management greatly facilitates in completing tasks pertaining to:

• Location or shortage of an asset.
• Contact details, department or cost center of an asset's user.
• Configuration, installed applications, system requirements and associated peripherals of an asset.

Matrix42 Asset Management creates automatic reports that allow quickly identifying possible deviations. For example, you can use the reports to identify "dead assets", i.e. computers that have not logged on to the network for a defined period of time. With little effort, you can subsequently get rid of these computers and thus correct the inventory.

Asset categories

Matrix42 Asset Management provides the following asset categories.

Environments

It is an object used for grouping software products, users and devices.

Workplaces

Spatial division not only by offices, but also by desks, for example. Used to define which devices are assigned to a workstation and which employee sits there.

Complex systems

Containers in which multiple assets, services, and software can be bundled into a complete system (e.g., an Exchange server).

Stock keeping units

A stock keeping unit (SKU) is the grouping item for a warehouse or inventory management system. In asset management, it represents individual device models that are used to classify assets that have been procured for the organization.

Example:

You have 1000 notebooks in your company. In order to have the best possible overview of your inventory, you should distinguish these 1000 computers by manufacturer and model. Accordingly, they are assigned to different SKUs based on their models:

• 10 x Dell, Latitude D610
• 250 x Dell, Latitude D620
• 140 x Dell, Latitude D630
• 600 x Lenovo, ThinkPad T61

Endpoint devices

Endpoints used in your organization, such as desktop computers, laptops, servers, virtual machines, and mobile devices (such as cell phones, smartphones, tablet computers).

Peripherals

Devices that are used in conjunction with endpoint devices, such as monitors, printers, scanners, or portable storage devices (USB sticks or external hard drives).

SIM cards

The SIM card (Subscriber Identity Module) is a chip card that is inserted into a cell phone, notebook or PDA, and is used to identify the user in the network. Mobile communications providers use them to provide subscribers with mobile telephone lines and data connections.

Network devices

A network device is a HUB, router or switch.

Universal assets

A universal asset is a device or equipment that cannot be classified under any other asset category. You can define the type of a universal asset more precisely by linking it to the corresponding stock keeping unit. For this stock keeping unit, on the General dialog page, select Universal Asset in the Configuration Item field and then select the Type value.