COUNTRY FOCUS : EAST COAST
Access databases . Since then , the team has been promoting Service Management across the many city departments , implementing ITIL best practices and keeping pace with the changes resulting from the ever-evolving IT consolidation .
Leveraging ITSM processes and full Asset Lifecycle Management
Seattle IT currently leverages ITSM processes across many of its operations . Key areas the Seattle IT Service Management organization handles include :
• Service catalog management
• Service level management
• Incident and request fulfillment
• Change management
• Knowledge management
• Service asset and configuration management
• Problem management
• Process evaluations
According to Rock , tracking assets in their ITAM repository with Ivanti will enable Full Asset Lifecycle management and improved use of discovery tools to link assets with each other as well as with users , departments and locations .
“ The opportunities with this new solution are endless .” Rock said . “ We ’ ll also be able to see how much we spend each year to maintain our technology solutions and determine if we need to adopt cloud-based solutions , for example , in place of an on-premises solution to save money .”
When physical inventories are taken , it ’ s much easier for teams to find assets and verify information for them . This also helps internal Service Management teams work together more closely , because workflow and processes provide a clearer picture of what ’ s expected for any given request or incident .
Progress by the numbers
Already , Seattle IT ’ s Service Management organization has loaded 42,200 city records in the Workstation CMDB , powered by the Ivanti Neurons for ITSM and ITAM solutions .
The CMDB consists of about 17,000 items in surplus or pending surplus , and about 21,000 deployed items , with the remainder in other various states – in stock , being prepped or staged for deployment , with the vendor for repair , etc .
This includes user devices , training room equipment , testing machines , shared devices and loaner stock .
Rock said that within Ivanti Neurons for ITSM , there are 26,000 employee records , more than 15,000 of which are active , including contractors , temporary employees and interns . And given the movement of personnel in and out of the city government and the shift to remote work , the team ’ s CMDB devices have a lot of movement as well .
“ For example , we have about 7,900 laptop computers , 2,000 tablets and 12,000 desktop / specialty workstations in use ,” she added .
One of the most important fields added in this effort was the ‘ Custodian ’ field , which is required when the
Device support and deployment teams soon learned the benefits of having the data in one place and the accountability it provided .
asset isn ’ t deployed to an owner or isn ’ t designated as surplus .
“ This meant that if your name was on it , you ’ d better know where it was and be able to produce it at any
point you ’ re asked to ,” Rock said . “ Device support and deployment teams soon learned the benefits of having the data in one place and the accountability it provided . Everyone is now responsible for the data , and no one wants to be the custodian of something they can ’ t prove they have .”
Rock and the Service Management organization are now in the process of expanding the Ivanti Neurons for ITSM and ITAM deployment to include servers , databases , infrastructure devices and communications devices , and they ’ ve seen departmental interest in using it for traffic devices or other IoT devices .
“ We are also looking at tracking software licenses , entitlements , warranties and contracts , and this will be added into our overall processes where previously they were all managed as individual processes ,” she said . p
www . intelligentcio . com INTELLIGENTCIO NORTH AMERICA 51