Context

Asset Management is an important financial process that identifies, collects, maintains, and reports inventory and financial information about IT (Information Technology) assets throughout their lifecycle.

Asset Management maximizes the value obtained from and optimizes the lifetime ownership cost of technology assets. It supports informed IT decision making at both the strategic and tactical levels, and reduces exposure to risks associated with IT assets. Further, it ensures compliance with legal, industry and corporate standards, and requirements related to IT assets.

IBM® Accelerator for Service Management for asset management is a services offering that provides well-defined processes, guides, skills, and implementation procedures required in the execution of asset management.

This services offering for asset management solution service product provides an effective and efficient customer-specific solution at a reduced cost percent of the cost of a non-accelerator solution. This solution consists of fully ITIL®-aligned Asset Management process, role implementation, customized respected vendor products, and a well-designed roll out methodology.

Details

The IBM Accelerator for Service Management for asset management services enables fast roll out because it contains a completely prebuilt set of customer deliverables and workshop materials, all of which can be easily customized.

Asset Management provides a physical and financial view of the infrastructure by identifying, controlling, maintaining, and verifying existing assets and the financial liabilities associated with these assets.

The physical view provides the identification, recording and reporting of IT components, including all versions, constituent components, and relationships.

The financial view identifies the financial liabilities of those assets from initial acquisition through disposal.

Offering components and deliverables

The key deliverables of the offering are two process references that document each aspect of the processes to the operational level. The documents include high-level and detailed process flows, tasks, activities, inputs, outputs, key performance indicators (KPIs), role definitions, role mappings, and reference data. Some examples include incident priority, impact, urgency, status codes and status transitions, and resolution target levels. These process references thoroughly document the role definitions and role mappings that allow for both the implementation of these processes in an operational environment and the relationship to the organization in question.

The main documents in the IBM Accelerator solution include:

• Solution overview
• Solution installation guide
• Solution configuration guide
• Procedure guides (user guides)
• Predefined code
• Predefined reports
• Training material

In addition to the base tool sets, the deliverables and services provided by the IBM Accelerator solution include:

• Project plan
• Organization considerations planning workshop
• Base code validation procedures
• Maintenance activity review
• Technical support procedure
• Model training plan
• Completed personalization worksheet
• Organization change management considerations
• Personalization collection workshop
• Bill of materials
• Model organization communication plan
• Customized code
• Personalized code installation
• Solution architecture
• Solution document
• Teach the teacher training workshop
• Technical support

For the deployment of the solution, a predefined project plan defines the tasks, schedule, milestones, and assigned resources. This project plan is tailored to your engagement at the beginning of the project. A sample excerpt of the project plan is shown in the table.

1. Acceptance from client

2. Solution validation

2.1 Prepare asset management solution validation workshop

2.2 Facilitate asset management solution validation workshops

2.3 Review asset management solution validation findings

3. Organizational considerations

3.1 Prepare for organizational asset management readiness planning workshop

The IBM Accelerator roll out methodology deployment flow is shown in the diagram. The activities in yellow are customer led, the blue are IBM led, and those in green indicate a joint effort. Although the activities in blue are IBM led, customer participation and support is required.

The roll out process focuses on four major workshops:

I. Solution Validation Workshop (2 days): This workshop introduces the customer to the IBM Accelerator for Service Management services offering Asset Management solution. During the workshop, the IBM consultant presents all aspects of the process and the accompanying documentation, conducts a solution walk-through to illustrate the different process execution paths, and provides an introduction to the solution's personalization opportunities.

At the end of the workshop, the core team has a complete understanding of the solution and the customization options to fine-tune the solution to meet customer-specific requirements.

2. Organization Considerations Planning Workshop (1/2 day): This workshop describes the roles required to effectively use the IBM Accelerator for Service Management services offering Asset Management solution. It examines the tools to help implement organizational changes to support the solution, and reviews organizational change issues and considerations.

At the end of the workshop, the core team and the executives have a complete understanding of the predefined roles, their responsibilities in implementing the solution, and the impact this solution will have on the existing organizational structure.

3. Personalization Data Collection Workshop (2 days): This workshop is for collecting the personalization information required to complete the IBM Accelerator for Service Management services offering Asset Management solution.

At the end of the workshop, every fine-tunable parameter is clearly defined to match a customer specific environment. This configuration is then used in the Solution Personalization phase to create the environment.

4. Solution Training Workshop (2 days): The teach-the-teacher workshop provides additional education to the (customer) project core team using the material that will be used to train the users of the Asset Management solution.

At the end of the workshop, the core team has the skills to offer training workshops to their user community within the customer's organization.

Obtaining more information

See attached document for details on this accelerator AcceleratorTivoli Asset Mgmt.pdf

For additional information, contact your IBM Global Services representative or visit these Web pages:

• IBM ITIL Accelerator Solutions
• How IBM supports ITIL and provides ITIL-based capabilities and solutions
• Infrastructure Resource Management