ITAM Insights Blog - ITAM Forum

ITAM & FinOps. How it works in real life

September 18, 2023

You may not have noticed, but everyone’s talking about FinOps. The so-called “ITAM of the cloud” is on every ITAM practitioner’s mind right now. The question isn’t, “does ITAM need to get involved with FinOps?”, but, most importantly (away from the books, pundits, and webinars), “what does this look like in real life?”.

We recently hosted a webinar, FinOps + ITAM: How it works in ‘real life’, to find the answer this question. The event, hosted by the ITAM Review’s Rich Gibbons, tapped the knowledge of a global panel of ITAM & FinOps Certified Practitioners:

George Arezina, ITAM & FinOps Consultant, and SAM & SaaS Trusted Advisor
Ron Brill, Chairman; Anglepoint
Salome Hugo, Head of Enterprise ITAM; FNB South Africa
Sergio Molina, Cloud FinOps and Digital Transformation Lead; financial services company
Wuming Zhang, Lead Cloud Architect; Helvetia Versicherungen Schweiz

Convergence of SAM and Cybersecurity can bridge the data gap

SAM + Cybersecurity can bridge the data gap

August 29, 2023

Author: Rebecca Horton
Managing Director and Business Lead, USU

Cross-functional collaboration between Cybersecurity and ITAM has never been more essential for risk management and to mitigate IT vulnerabilities.

Modern IT estates are complex and multifaceted. Organisations are transitioning to off-premises cloud landscapes and breaking systems into components in containers. With thousands of applications and services scattered across hundreds of providers, environments, and platforms, leading analysts see a double-digit growth of public cloud services (BPaaS, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) and an increasing migration away from computing in an on-premises corporate network. Read more

Organisationally savvy IT asset mangement

Organisationally savvy IT asset management

August 18, 2023

Author: Keiren Tilbrook
Head of Business & Data Analysis, The Mastermind Group

The ITAM function typically sits between business and IT operations, which can be an uncomfortable place. Worst case is where the ITAM team becomes isolated with a foot in neither camp. Best case is where the team engages with – and has the respect of – all teams involved in IT asset lifecycles. So how do ITAM teams achieve this? I interviewed IT asset managers in three of our biggest and best customers to find out.
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ITAM’s important role in Ransomware

August 9, 2023

Author: Elise Cocks
IT Asset and License Management – Director; Freddie Mac

What is Ransomware?

The FBI states that malicious software, known as malware, called Ransomware prevents users from accessing their computer files, systems, or networks and demands a ransom for their return. Regardless, ransomware attacks can cause costly disruptions to operations and the loss of critical information and data.

Common attack vectors include:

Email campaigns known as “phishing” where a malicious file or link embedded in an email deploys malware when clicked.
Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) vulnerabilities: cyber criminals obtain user credentials to access company systems and deploy malware internally.
Software vulnerabilities: cyber criminals leverage weaknesses in common software to gain access to internal systems to deploy malware internally.

Why FinOps should be intergrated into IT Asset Management

July 18, 2023

Author: Sherry Irwin
Founder of Technology Asset Management Inc; ITAM Forum Trustee, ITAM Forum Canada Chapter Lead

According to the FinOps Foundation Technical Advisory Council, FinOps is “an evolving cloud financial management discipline and cultural practice that enables organizations to get maximum business value by helping engineering, finance, technology and business teams to collaborate on data-driven spending decisions.”

Indeed, other sources describe FinOps as a cost management paradigm shift, which “…strives to bring together technology, business and finance professionals to better understand cloud costs and make more informed decisions”.

Most, if not all, of the coverage suggests that FinOps is a new focus and function, typically driven by and located within the financial organization; and, with its own principles, framework, phases, maturity model and practices (capabilities).

Implementing sustainable ITAM practices

June 26, 2023

Author: Jaroslaw Richert
ITAM Forum Trustee; Senior Management – IT Asset Governance, Schneider Electric

This article is the perfect read for ITAM practitioners looking to improve their ITAM practices, especially within sustainability. The data within showcases the ITAM practices and advice in improving your sustainability approaches.

Indeed by incorporating environmental and sustainability criteria into IT Asset Management, Schneider Electric has demonstrated how companies can unlock additional potential to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions within its internal IT.

IT Asset Management —overseeing an organization’s investment in IT, with its knowledge of the IT estate, usage, configurations and business value — has a pivotal role in delivering sustainable IT.

We gained wisdom last week at Wisdom EMEA 2023

June 22, 2023

Last week, Wisdom EMEA was back in person and with a bang. It’s excellent agenda filled with interesting sessions (lead by a wide range of ITAM industry experts) made it hard at times to choose which breakout room to enter.

Below are six of our top takeaways from Wisdom EMEA. We tried to keep this list to five, but there simply was too much good information.

Reinventing ITAM for the Future:

Shadi Khoshab from SoftwareOne addressed what ITAM needs to manage (thinks Saas and FinOps), how it needs to operate (think value-driven), and what it needs to cover (think closer relationships with IT Service Management, Operations Management, Infosecurity and Sustainability – “Who better than ITAM to help avoid wastage.”). Furthermore, with the technology landscape evolving at an incredibly fast pace, there’s a real opportunity for ITAM to step up and evolve. Oh no, no, no…ITAM is certainly no longer just about license management.
Read more

Sustainability: How ITAM can make a difference

Sustainability: Where and how ITAM can make a difference

June 12, 2023

This blog first appeared on the Angelpoint website. Angelpoint is an ITAM Forum Certification Patron.

Last week we invited members of the ITAM community to our London office to discuss a topic close to our hearts. Sustainability in ITAM. These regular roundtables are designed to be a place to share common challenges, questions, and ideas about the pressing issues of our industry. And this one brought up lots of questions.

There’s no doubt sustainability is a hot topic these days. Get a group of CIOs together to talk about what’s on the horizon and no doubt it will be at the top of the agenda.

Attendees also commented that they are seeing more customers asking about sustainability. Meanwhile, they are seeking help to create systems where they can provide sustainability reports as part of their ITAM function.
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