Introduction to ServiceNow Modules: ITAM | with Mahad Rashid & Adan Saqib | Mind Byte
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00:00hello everyone uh welcome to our mind byte series presented by tech man i am your host today and my
00:23name is mohamad she's good and today's session is about service now i.t service asset management
00:31and today's speaker is uh on behalf it's adan june and mahad rashid and they both are very you
00:39know competent and certified service knuckle sentent as well as trainees by the techman academy
00:47and also you can watch us our session live on youtube linkedin facebook and dailymotion
00:54and let's talk about our strategic partners today we are having collaborating with our tech solution
01:01ogmc and ozmark and let me give you the overview of upcoming sessions we have uh following this month
01:11and the next month uh the first one we will be having on august 21 uh about the introduction of
01:19hrst then we have our next session on 4th september about introduction on grc and 18 of september we
01:28have been introduction of spm and second of october we have an introduction on csm and the last one is
01:35on 16th of october on uh introduction of apm and all these sessions are free that is uh you can watch
01:44and you can look into our official website techman.academy and about today's session there will be two
01:53phases and the first phases will be introduction from adan jone and the second phase will be having
02:00question session with mahad rashid and also you can write your questions in the youtube section and
02:07over to you but then
02:13thank you and good afternoon i'm adan sakib and today here at techman we're going to be discussing
02:19it asset management
02:30okay so the agenda for today is firstly we're going to discuss what exactly is it asset management
02:37and what's what's our what are assets what are cis and how it is management is delivered inside
02:46service now after that we're going to discuss the key concepts of service now item and some of the
02:54core modules and in the end we're going to have a q a sessions so
03:01let's start with something basic what exactly is an asset think of an asset as anything your organization
03:10owns or pays for or basically responsible for that could be anything ranging from a laptop on
03:18somebody's desk to your company's servers or it it can even be something intangible like software licenses
03:26or a cloud subscription okay now the important part is that when we talk about assets in it we're not
03:33just listing stuff that we have like desktops or servers we're actually tracking them as a
03:40business and financial entity so an asset record in whichever table there are many tables classified
03:48in service now regarding assets so when we take an asset record it tells us where the asset came from
03:56how much does it cost what contract it's tied to or things like even things like how long it's expected
04:05to last and even we look at a financial entity point of view it can also tell us the depreciation value
04:11of that specific asset which can be configured to your personal needs as well so why exactly does that
04:21matter uh because every asset has a life cycle you buy it you use it you maintain it and eventually you're
04:30going to end up into retiring the asset so that's the life cycle of an asset if you're not tracking
04:36that journey very closely you can't answer simple but very critical questions about your organization
04:42so questions like do we need to replace this equipment or are we paying for unused licenses that's
04:50actually a very big problem for organizations paying for unused licenses
04:55for example when you give different softwares or licenses to employees and when they leave
05:03if you're not tracking those licenses properly they're going to go redundant and they're going
05:08to just drain your finances
05:15okay now one thing that often confuses people when working with item and item
05:20is the difference between asset and ci this is a concept that i even struggle with a lot
05:28differentiating between both of them so they both represent things in your it environment but they
05:37exist for different purposes and live in different parts of service now so they're more or less the same
05:42thing except for the fact that their core use or their core function is different so let's look into an
05:49asset asset asset is basically all about ownership cost and life cycle management and the data related
05:58to that stored inside service now is think purchase dates warranties vendors depreciation and disposal dates
06:06etc so all of this asset data helps us in finance procurement and compliance to track the business side of
06:15of hardware and software assets either one of them so let's take an example
06:23take a laptop as an asset so it would tell you who the asset is assigned to who the laptop is assigned
06:30to and how much does it cost when would it need replacing and what budget it came from that's the kind of data
06:38that's stored in an asset record so but on the other hand a ci is all about functionality and relationships
06:46in your it environment it lives inside the cmdb and it stores the technical details instead of what asset
06:54stores uh ci stores data like ip addresses or operating system versions dependencies what services it supports
07:03things like that or it also maps the dependencies so ci's matter when you're troubleshooting or mapping
07:13dependencies that's the main function of ci's that differ from asset so when we take the example of the
07:21same laptop and when that record of the laptop is stored as a ci it would tell you what network it's on
07:28what applications it's running and what would break if that specific asset went offline so in practice a
07:37single physical device can have both an asset record and a ci record linked together the asset tells us a
07:45financial story and the ci tells us the operational story of that asset so put simply but uh asset
07:52management answers who basically who owns and what's the value of that asset and cmdb answer what does it
08:00do and how is it connected to other things so next we have it asset management in service now
08:11now that we know what an asset is let's define asset management in service now and why does it exactly
08:17matter added score id asset management is the process of tracking and managing the financial and life cycle
08:25details of every asset in your organization so because of that functionality it has many uses and many
08:34benefits pros for your organization some of which are firstly it helps you control your costs
08:42it helps you avoid over purchasing and manage depreciation also get the most value out of what
08:49you already own through many different features and many different functionalities that service now item
08:54provides secondly it helps you reduce risk it helps you stay compliant with software licenses warranties
09:02and regulations which in turn helps you avoid many drawbacks like fines or reputational damage to your company
09:09it also helps you improve decision making by because it has data on when to repair replace or relocate assets so it
09:20helps your company's decision makers make appropriate decisions regarding those assets
09:28now how is asset management different from inventory tracking uh inventory tracking
09:35is simply knowing what you're uh what you physically have and where is it right now
09:42like counting laptops in a storeroom or tracking stock levels of spare parts instead asset management on
09:49the other hand is much broader than that it's not just counting it's including the financial and
09:56contractual context of those assets as well like the cost depreciation and vendor terms even like lease agreements and
10:05you know when they're planning to retire or dispose and the strategies regarding that as well
10:12so simply but inventory is just a like snapshot snapshot of what is here right now and asset management on
10:20the other hand is the full story from purchase to end of life cycle and including everything in between
10:26all the values and risks and related to that asset
10:33so next we're going to look into briefly look into what service now offers i how service now offers
10:40ids management and what kind of packages they have usually they provided in tiered packages
10:47typically starting from standard then professional and enterprise
10:51each of their tier package builds on the last one starting with basic asset tracking and compliance
10:59then adding automation inside in automation and optimization inside the next tier and in the top one
11:07they provide you with ai-powered analytics and spending management as well these are some of the
11:13modules they give you so they basically make these in tiers because not your company doesn't need all of
11:22the functionalities all at once so instead of buying the biggest package and letting most of the
11:28functionalities go to waste and it helps you prepare and scale your company with a service now so it helps
11:38you get the best roi also the pricing of it asset management isn't made public because it's based on
11:45your organization size and asset volume and your contract terms that you negotiate with service now
11:54so now that we have an introduction of it asset management we're going to look into some key
11:59concepts that those are related to item firstly there is asset life cycle management
12:06when we talk about uh asset life cycle in item we're basically mapping the journey of an asset from
12:14the moment it's just an idea and you're planning to buy it to the day it leaves the organization and
12:20you retire the asset so the entire life cycle looks like this uh firstly the first stage is planning in
12:29which you identify the need of that asset whether you need it or not then comes budgeting
12:35where you basically manage the finances of procuring that asset then you look if it's actually aligned
12:45with your business goals you do you need it will it help you grow scale your company etc that's what
12:51comes in planning so after planning comes the procurement stage which is basically the purchasing or leasing
12:58of an asset most time many times you don't actually purchase the asset and you lease it because some are
13:07like large-scale assets that you can't exactly buy and weren't purchased so leasing also comes inside this
13:14category it helps you capture vendor contracts and details regarding those leases as well
13:22third stage is deployment after you actually procure that asset then comes the deployment stage where you
13:30assign it to a user or a location or a service depending on the asset and you integrate that asset into your
13:40it environment inside this stage after that comes usage after you deploy that asset comes the day-to-day
13:49operation of that asset in this stage you track the performance yeah any incidents and changes related to that
13:58asset and basically uh and also reporting and performance analytics comes into this stage as well
14:07after that is the maintenance part where applying updates or repairs or any preventive care to extend the useful
14:14life cycle of that specific asset is done in this stage and in the end there is removing it from servers
14:24and secured securely wiping the data related to that asset from your company's database and or reselling or
14:32recycling that asset as well so why does all of this uh managing and tracking the life cycle of uh asset actually
14:44matter because without life cycle tracking assets get easily lost or underutilized or even replaced too early
14:53when they still have some value left to give to your company so when you track each stage you can control
14:59the cost of uh those assets by maximizing the asset lifespan
15:07and it also helps you stay compliant like i mentioned before with regulations and warranties and contracts
15:14it also helps you support sustainability by reusing those
15:18assets or recycling those assets responsibly instead of just disposing them off
15:23so service now makes this entire process much easier by automating stage transitions through workflows and
15:33flow designer and many features by linking life cycle events to both the cmdb and financial records of those assets
15:46okay next key concept that we're going to talk about is the types of assets that are stored inside service now
15:53so when we talk about assets in service now item we're not just talking about servers and laptops this
16:01actual scope of the asset stored is much wider than that so firstly we're going to look into hardware assets
16:11this is the most familiar category it covers everything from laptops desktops and servers to network gear like switches and routers
16:21basically anything that's basically anything that's physical and tangible and a part of your it infrastructure
16:25is stored inside hardware related tables inside service now which is uh the name of that table is
16:32alm hardware it service now provides you with many tables of asset management it has and those asset
16:40tables have many child tables like alm hardware alm software tables or alm cloud management as well
16:48so the next um type of asset is software asset
16:55this includes not only installed application but it's also the licenses and subscriptions of
17:01specific softwares your company owns
17:04item helps you track those and how many licenses you own how many are actually in use and it helps you compare
17:11them to figure out whether you're over or under license
17:16the next type of asset is cloud asset or virtual asset so basically in today's world a huge part of
17:22our infrastructure is virtual so
17:28this category stores virtual machines like cloud storage and sas platform like service now itself it's a
17:34sas platform then there are assets these are also assets considered to a company and they need tracking
17:42for cost compliance and security as well and finally uh even though it's kind of unconventional and
17:49rarely done there are non-it assets some organizations use this platform to manage things like office
17:57furnitures vehicles or lab equipment as well it's optional but it shows how much flexible this service
18:06now application actually is and how it can mold into your environment so by classifying these assets
18:14into different categories you can apply the right processes for compliance checks and other things to
18:21each type without mixing them all together it has different processes for different types of
18:28assets specific processes for those assets
18:35next we are going to look into the core modules of service now item
18:39first we are going to look into ham or hardware asset management so this is all about tracking your
18:49physical assets like laptops desktops or network gear from the moment you plan to buy them until like
18:58i said they're retired or disposed of it plans it tracks everything from that point to the end point and
19:05everything in between so ham in service now uh doesn't just actually keeps a static list it actively and
19:13dynamically manages the assets that means uh it records when it's purchased who it's assigned to and
19:21who when it's located and automatically changes that uh information as the asset is relocated or
19:28or given to someone else or disp disposed of anything that happens it dynamic it can dynamically access that
19:38information so another key point uh regarding ham is ham integrates tightly with cmdb that means you're
19:46not only seeing what assets you have but also how they're interconnected to each other what depends on
19:52which asset and how the dependencies are going to affect each other as well do the services and systems
19:58they support so if a server fails we can take a server as an asset and if it fails you can immediately
20:08understand the impact it would have on your business what applications are going to go down what databases
20:14are going to fail because of that server going down and things like that so from a business perspective
20:22ham is what keeps your it asset investments under control avoiding unnecessary purchases
20:28and making sure that nothing disappears without a trace because assets often get misallocated or
20:34misplaced or misused even so that causes a harm to the company and ham helps you prevent that ham or
20:45hardware asset management
20:48so after hardware asset management we have software asset management or sam it's one of the main modules of
20:54itam if ham was about managing physical devices sam is about managing the software world of your
21:03it infrastructure it keeps records on your licenses subscriptions even entitlements and the actual usage
21:12across your organization of those specific softwares or licenses
21:16services with sam in service now you can see exactly which software is installed right now inside your
21:26devices how many licenses are you entitled to and also whether you are under licensed or over licensed
21:34this is very crucial for compliance because software vendors love audits and those audits can be very
21:42expensive for you if you're not prepared if you don't have accurate data it can cause you much harm in fines and
21:51breach of contracts etc but sam isn't just about avoiding those penalties it's also about saving money for your
22:00company for example if you discover that you have hundreds of unused licenses for different certain apps
22:08you can reclaim them and finish them off or you can reassign those licenses to other employees that are
22:14looking for that need those so instead of buying more you can reassign reallocate those and save your money and costs
22:25and in turn which would end up helping you increase your revenue as well
22:30so service now sam all also connects to discovery data so it's not just guessing about how many assets
22:40you own how many softwares you own it's actually pulling actual data and installation records giving
22:46you a clear trusted picture of your software landscape so in short software asset management helps you stay
22:53compliant with vendor agreements and other licenses and get the most out of every dollar you spend on your software
23:04so that was basically items software asset management
23:10next we're gonna go to the q a session with mr mahal
23:14so the first question i see on my screen is how do you track and manage
23:39hardware assets in an organization yeah so that's a really good question
23:47um tracking and managing hardware assets starts with visibility and ends with control
23:54so the key steps i use is discovery and inventory where i use tools like service now discovery
24:03intune and some other tools to automatically detect assets in the network
24:09secondly there is asset tracking
24:12every device gets a unique asset tag so that it can be linked linked to its record and can be managed easily
24:22thirdly there is life cycle stages so what we do is what we track from procurement
24:29deployment uh deployment maintenance and up till retirement the first one is um integration with
24:38the cmdb like ensure asset data is tied to configuration items so that incidents and change
24:47are linked to the right devices and then last but not the least regular audits like reconcile
24:54records with physical audits and automated scans so that you know what's what's in the inventory
25:01so i'll give you for ex for for instance you know in a recent project we implemented uh automated
25:09updates from procurement systems into service now so the moment hardware was purchased it was
25:17visible in the asset database cutting down onboarding time for new assets by like
25:2470 percent uh thank you so much mahat for the answer uh let's move in with the next question we have
25:33from muhammad tania uh the question here is can you explain the concept of asset normalization
25:41okay so i would say like asset normalization is essentially process of standardizing asset data
25:49so that it's consistent accurate and meaningful across the organization uh let's say you have 10 records
25:58for a laptop and one says hp elite book 840 5g the other one says hp elite book 840-5g and the last one
26:10says like hp laptop so technically they are the same model but if the data isn't normalized the system would
26:18think that you have three different laptops so normalization involves standardizing naming conventions
26:26like brand model version serial number that has to be same across all the assets
26:33then the mapping to authoritative sources like uh such as vendor catalog so if a device
26:39is the manufacturer of the device is the manufacturer of the device is hp or a apple it has to be in its catalog
26:48then removing duplicates and correcting errors through the uh across the cmdb and ensuring consistent
26:56categorization between the assets so that laptop always means the same thing in the cmdb the benefit
27:04of all of this is that decision making becomes more accurate so you can see exactly what's deployed
27:13you can manage life cycle replacements negotiate better contracts with your vendors because you know
27:19exactly what you have um yeah i agree with you you know it is important to maintain your cmdb health as well
27:26with those normalization steps so yeah let's move into the next question with mohammed umer uh how do you
27:34handle dispensary in asset inventory uh yeah so discrepancies happen when there's like a mismatch between
27:44what's in the system and what exists physically or virtually so how do i handle it uh what i do is
27:52identify the gap compare cmdb data against discovery scan scans or audit reports to see where you find the
28:00gaps uh then you go to categorize discrepancies so that missing assets in cmdb missing assets in cmdb but
28:11exist physically okay you you see there like assets exist and then assets exist in cmdb but they are not
28:20physically in the warehouse so wrong details location ownership model all of these things you just can
28:28you just categorize all those like what um categorize on the basis of like what's going on in the inventory
28:36then you investigate the cause was it a human error or process gap or unauthorized removal of those assets
28:43um once we are done with all of those we fix the cmd we fix the cmdb records or mark asset for retirement
28:56or disposal if that's required uh we improve processes such as like require check in and check out of those
29:05assets so we know like what uh what's coming in what's going out uh if some of the assets are like
29:12replaced or like uh retired from our inventory so uh on a real world note i would say like i once found
29:22like 15 percent of our missing laptops were actually in storage because someone forgot to mark them as
29:30returned so this is commonly known error across most of the organizations um absolutely you know it is
29:39this occur when you know you have multiple data sources as well you may be having discovering from a
29:46discovery out of the book so maybe you are getting from the transform map or maybe a cloud infrastructure
29:52so it happens but you can also implement the you know ira engine for the identification and
29:58reconciliation rules so you know uh that's really to manage you know all those assets so yeah moving to
30:05the next question uh iqbal and the question is how do you ensure compliance with asset management policies
30:18uh okay so compliance start with having clear documented policies but the real work is in making them part
30:28of your daily operations so the steps i take is define clear policies example like every new device must be
30:38tagged before it is deployed then automate reinforcement like build workflows so assets can't be deployed
30:47without required fields populated then you stream the stakeholders educate your it staff and users about
30:55their roles in asset management and then audit quarterly so quarterly checks to ensure like policies are followed all
31:05your previous steps are being like carry on and last one it would be report to leadership so you you would
31:16get a dashboard showing all the compliance rates exceptions what's going on throughout your dm cmdb so when
31:25policies are automated in the tools the tools people already use compliance becomes natural so it's not
31:34in extra step uh whenever you're following the compliance um yeah absolutely you know it also depend on
31:44the organization you know business need uh like you mentioned the reports it's also have some indicators and
31:51metrics according to the need of the output from the business side so yeah policies you make sure you have
32:00right yeah the next question we have uh aslan chowdhury what are the risks of unmanaged it assets so
32:10unmanaged it assets are like uninvited guests so they become they consume resources create risk you don't even know
32:19what they're what they're what they are why they are there okay so the risk includes like security
32:26vulnerabilities because unpatched or unknown devices are prime targets for cyber attacks then there is
32:34licensing penalties so over or under licensing software can result in fines and added costs just like
32:43other than mentioned previously then there is financial waste paying maintenance for unused or
32:49obsolete devices so you don't want to pay those extra fines and fees um there's operational inefficiency
33:00because time wasted tracking those uh assets during incidents cannot be bought again
33:07then last but not the least would be data breaches because the retired devices not properly wiped before
33:15disposal can cause a major data breach within the organization so i would end this with an example where
33:25there was an organization i worked with which discovered like 200 plus shadow it devices after a network scan
33:34these weren't just costing money but they were storing sensitive data without encryption so i think this is
33:42uh most of the time very uh ignored but yeah it's a major part of the uh item cycle life cycle
33:50yeah and also it gets a great threat to the cyber security as well oh yeah totally yeah and the last
33:57question we have for today uh it's item is expensive to implement as compared to the other competitors tools
34:07uh yeah it depends so it depends like how you weigh your organization security
34:15okay and like whatever tools you're bringing in how many workforce are there for
34:23uh for uh for you to manage all of this so i think it's a good investment for your organization to have item
34:32so you can um manage uh from the very first stage the very last stage of the item life cycle and manage
34:40your devices and assets through this absolutely thank you so much for the question and answers mahab and
34:51as well thank you for the presentation it gives brief introduction about the asset management life cycle
34:58and also different between the asset and the cis it was a great information and uh any organization
35:07you know who is implementing it asset management with the service now uh service now is you know giving
35:14you a key role to automate all your asset life cycle management you don't need to have to do all those
35:19stuff manually your team is automated that is the big advantage why we you know utilize the service so
35:27yeah let's move on to the uh our strategic partner let me share you my screen as well today
35:37i hope you guys can see my screen okay so this is the ogmc website here you can look into the it asset
35:56management books we have specifically for the asset management and then also if you are looking for any
36:04of the module or maybe any other technology of the books you can look into the ogmc website and you can
36:11find the link in the youtube section comment as well as we have our tech uh rtd sg company uh integrated we
36:23have uh different services and service now we are providing service now administration development
36:28implementation uh presentancy support and all these you know service now trainings we have as well and
36:38in the last again i will be you know telling you the events we have upcoming for this month and the next
36:44month it's on i guess 20 of the high impact project management office they are just not on the service now
36:52they are on the project management cyber security sessions we have and thank you so much for joining
37:00today and please keep watching and also subscribe our youtube channel thank you have a good day bye
37:22thank you
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