Glossary

Analytics	Dynamic, multidimensional data presentation identifying options and best courses of action. The quality of the options is based on accuracy of the information used in the process.
Assets	Information technology acquired and deployed within the enterprise. Currently Blazent software discovers and tracks hardware and software on desktops and servers.
BI	Business Intelligence is a set of concepts and methods to improve business decision making by using fact-based support systems to correlate complex, heterogeneous data.
Cleanse and Normalize	Process of identifying and categorizing like products. When data is discovered, it is identified by specific information within the hardware or software. Quite often, there can be similar but not exact naming conventions coming from different parts of the organization. For example, Microsoft Word might be identified as MS Word in one place and Word in another. Blazent can automatically clean up that confusion and ensure accurate categorization for viewing the data.
Data Warehouse	Global repository for integrated disparate data from multiple sources. In the case of Blazent, the data warehouse provides the IT and business data from which analyses and queries are made.
Discovery	Process for identifying end connections on the network. This provides identification of real existing assets and can be correlated to verify them with known assets.
Inventory	Process of gathering static information about what resides on the devices discovered on the network.
IT	Collectively, the hardware, software and personnel involved in an organization's computing and networking capability.
IT Intelligence	Form of business intelligence that is focused on the issues of effectively running an IT organization.
Lease	Negotiated contract involving the temporary usage of technology (usually hardware) between a vendor and an organization.
License	Negotiated contract involving the continual usage of software between a vendor and an organization. Software license terms can follow various forms including allowed number of installations, number of concurrent users, number of concurrent processors, etc.
PC	Any personal computing platform (desktop, laptop, etc.) that is directed for a single user or purpose.
Server	Any shared computing platform that is directly used by multiple users or functions.
Utilization	Most exact, real-time measurement of actual IT resource interaction by the end user. It answers questions such as: how often, at what time, in which department, by whom, how long, etc. This is critical to ensuring the absolute accuracy of the data and optimizing your business decision.
Usage	Measurement of IT resource use at a given point in time. Similar to a camera snapshot, Usage indicates, in true on/off style, if an asset has been accessed over a certain period of time.