ABSTRACT
Because so much technology is now in use in just about any company and due to the sheer size and extent of today’s enterprise IT department, managing server hardware and software has become more important than ever. In particular, attention must be given to inventory and license management, often referred to as IT asset management. In this chapter, we first take a detailed look at the asset management field and its value, the installed base, leading products, and more. We take a look at various asset management approaches, including the deployment of Microsoft Systems Management Server, as well as simple tools that take care of server hardware and software asset management without taking up much in the way of time and resources. This is an area anyone involved in server disk management really needs to know about; otherwise, you are unlikely to know exactly how many disks you have, where they are, and what type they are. Asset management software helps IT staff stay on the top of the game and in touch with the current deployment of disks, space quotas, and more throughout the enterprise.
