Agencies take inventory of IT assets

 

Connecting state and local government leaders

How can you secure what you don't know you have?

How can you secure what you don't know you have?Few agencies had satisfactory answers when Rep. Adam Putnam routinely posed this question at congressional hearings over the past two years.Putnam, former chairman of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census, found in his November 2003 cybersecurity report that only five of the 24 largest federal agencies had completed inventories of their IT hardware and software.And although the Florida Republican has moved on to a new congressional committee, the question still looms over many agencies.The government's emphasis on enterprise architecture and better overall IT management practices is prompting CIOs to improve the way they manage their hardware and software assets.'Asset management often is the trigger to make better use of consolidated information,' said Gene Leganza, vice president for government research at Forrester Re- search Inc. of Cambridge, Mass. 'The Office of Management and Budget is forcing agencies to have better business cases, and to do that you have to know what you have.'Several government and industry experts predict that over the next year, agencies will increase their efforts to track IT assets more accurately and use that information more strategically.'There is more of a focus on property and managing it than in the past,' said John Saracco, project manager for the Labor Department's E-Property initiative. 'In the past, the General Services Administration was concerned about the disposal of government property, but there is an increasing emphasis on managing property more efficiently.'GSA's continued push with the SmartBuy initiative, a program to establish a series of enterprise software licenses for use governmentwide, is one example of the administration's emphasis on asset man- agement. The White House has also added federal property asset management to the President's Management Agenda scorecard.OMB and the Homeland Security Department are leading an interagency working group on cybersecurity that looks at a variety of factors, including IT inventories, said Karen Evans, OMB's administrator for e-government and IT.'Agencies have to develop a manageable way to handle their inventories,' Evans said. 'We have added specific reporting requirements under the Federal Information Security Management Act that deal with configuration management. We want agencies to accurately say they have secured 100 percent of their systems.'OMB is taking a three-step approach to making asset management a priority:

Labor uses bar codes and readers to keep track of its IT assets, the department's John Saracco says.

Rick Steele
























  • GSA will continue to award SmartBuy contracts to consolidate software licenses.

  • Agency enterprise architectures will provide the road map of future hardware and software needs, and those needs could be rolled into SmartBuy.

  • The interagency working group may develop governmentwide recommendations for asset management standards.

  • 'We are seeing more agencies look at lifecycle asset management,' said Robert Kaehler, general manager of Sunflower Systems of San Ramon, Calif., an asset management software vendor. 'The goal is total asset visibility, so you know at a moment's notice what you have and where it is.'

    GSA's Office of Governmentwide Policy is forming an interagency team to develop best practices for managing IT assets. The objective is to create a database of IT assets so agencies can make unused hardware and software available for use by other federal offices.

    Officials also said agencies' attention to inventories will improve their patch and configuration management. Robert McNeil, a senior analyst for management services with Forrester, said organizations buy 5 percent to 10 percent more software licenses than they need. But with better asset management, agencies should have a better handle on their IT work, human resources and finances'and therefore be able to better target their buys, he said.

    Although many agencies are falling short on their inventories, a handful of agencies, such as the Labor Department and Social Security Administration, have IT asset efforts well under way.

    No codes'radio

    At SSA, for instance, officials are testing radio frequency identification tags to track IT assets on 128 desktop systems and 15 servers at the Office of Property Management in Baltimore.

    Gary Orem, an SSA IT specialist, said RFID tags are replacing the bar codes employees previously used to mark hardware and software.

    Using an RFID scanner, SSA employees can collect in a matter of seconds 128 to 200 characters of information about each device, including manufacturer, serial number and name of the user.

    'This will save us at least 40 percent just in the time it used to take to read the bar codes,' Orem said.

    Labor's asset management system, like SSA's, is saving time and improving accuracy. The department's CIO Office has installed Oracle Assets software, which more than 400 employees use. The application relies on bar codes, which are scanned or manually typed into the database. Labor IT workers finished installing the system in June, replacing 25 separate systems.

NEXT STORY: OMB issues new marching orders

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.