During February 2017, Forrester Research published a report titled, “IT Efficiency Begins with Effective Discovery and Dependency Mapping,” sponsored by BMC, which focuses on the benefits of using discovery and mapping tools.
Blazent asserts that the value of discovery and mapping data is far more valuable if it is validated against multiple sources to improve accuracy and completeness. The list below draws from the top responses from a survey of 58 IT managers on the benefits they observed from using IT asset discovery and mapping technology. The top 5 responses, in ascending order and assuming validated data, are as follows:
5. Improved disaster recovery: An accurate inventory of systems and services to be failed-over or recovered in the event of an outage is essential for a successful disaster recovery. This is an important factor to consider when deciding how often to refresh any inventory. A daily or on-demand inventory refresh should be considered whenever a new service or new hardware is introduced or retired in a disaster-protected environment.
4. Improved ability to track and report on existing and new assets: Maintaining an accurate inventory improves service management, compliance, security and IT operations functions. Conversely, an un-validated asset inventory will hinder these functions.
3. Ability to reduce risk by upgrading software: Unsupported software creates a weakness in an organization’s armor that attackers can exploit. Software versions must be meticulously tracked and updated to contain exposures and control risk.
2. Better asset management: When managing the asset life cycle, delaying the recording of milestones, such as deployments, decommissions and changes in asset ownership, can be costly. In an environment which outsources the management of assets, inaccurate billing can occur, which is expensive, burdensome to reconcile, and reduces customer satisfaction.
1. Better able to address compliance issues: Compliance was the #1 reason to automate asset discovery, since incomplete or inaccurate inventories can lead to compliance audit failures and fines. The fines can be from vendors or worse, regulators who have the power to interrupt business operations.
Maintaining accurate asset inventories and service mappings is not easy. These five reasons are just the top of the list of reasons to maintain the accuracy of asset data. The end goal is to improve operational effectiveness, which results from the insight built on a foundation of accurate data.
Blazent helps organizations improve the quality of discovery data by intelligently aggregating multiple data sources. You can learn more from the white paper, “How Blazent Delivers Transformative Value Through Actionable Intelligence,” here. For more immediate assistance, please contact us at info@blazent.com, or call us at 248.735.0648.