Contents

Section 1......................................................................................................................................................2
Introduction.............................................................................................................................................2
Overview of the report.............................................................................................................................2
Section 2......................................................................................................................................................2
Problem Domain and Research Question................................................................................................2
Research Questions.................................................................................................................................3
Section 3......................................................................................................................................................4
Background.................................................................................................................................................4
Objective.................................................................................................................................................5
Summary of the Literature Reviews........................................................................................................6
Section 4......................................................................................................................................................6
Project Requirement Analysis.................................................................................................................6
Asset Cataloging Strategy........................................................................................................................7
Sticker Code generation...........................................................................................................................7
Asset Tracking.........................................................................................................................................8
Prediction Analytics and performance monitoring..................................................................................8
Software..................................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................10
Section 1
Introduction
IT assets management is to manage the IT assets of a business. These assets can be the risk an
old database, records of files, records of employees, financial performance sheet of the company
and many other assets which are needed to be handled online. IT asset management can keep the
record of a company's assets. The management can also help a company to manage the risk, extra
cost and the tax associated with the products and assets. IT assets are so complex to manage that
we cannot do that manually. We need software to support and manage a company's assets. These
type of software are costly to get and maintain. Therefore, the IT team of a firm have to take
care of all the IT resources and choose an IT asset management software which suits best to their
requirements [1].

Overview of the report

The following has been written to discuss the facilities provided by the IT asset management
technology. There is four section of the report, each covering different aspects of the IT asset
management. The first section will cover the brief introduction of the report. The second section
will define the problem domain, which will further elaborate the problems encounter by the
clients with the use of their current asset management software. In the same section, some
research questions will also be questioned which are according to the topic and the client’s
demand. Next section of the report will cover the background of the topic which will include the
work done on this technology so far. This section will also address the key objectives of this
report and a brief summary of the literature review. The 4th section of the report will cover the
project requirement specification and a comparison between two IT asset management software.
The last section of the report is References which cover the latest IEEE published papers.

Section 2
Problem Domain and Research Question
As the IT market is evolving, the types of database storage for an organization is also increasing.
A company can have a relational database, it can have a columnar database, it can have a NoSQL
database and much more. These databases are counted in the IT assets and it necessary to
manage them. For example, the client needs a record which exists in the NoSQL database but the
system does not know this thing. The client will run a query and the system will first check the
relational database then columnar and in the end, it will look for the NoSQL database which will
consume a lot of time of the client. Although he will get his record in the end yet the database
can be organized to make the search quicker.

Another problem people are facing is the increasing number of storage records for their systems.
Without any IT assets management system, there will be a lot of random and haphazard data
which is dumped into the database without any order. If such records dumping continues for a
long time, the company will have to pay more for the cloud storage. If such data can be put in an
organized manner, the price of buying a new database can be avoided.

The security of the data present in a company's database is the major issue facing by the clients.
The data put in the database is always on a stake. Any hacker can easily login to the private
database and pick the required information they want. If the proper IT asset management is not
used, the data cannot be secured.

If a company somehow can manage the database of the records, how they can distribute the
database into the peers since they database entries are usually in thousands. This thing cannot be
done automatically and a company needs a software which can dump the data into an appropriate
database.

Research Questions
Following are the research question arises from the Problem Domain.

1- How IT asset management software can ensure the safety of the data?

The IT asset management software stores and organize the data as well as they ensure to keep the
data safe. This software implements special protocols which can give complete protection to the
data and it give access to only authorized users. Each and every person in the organization have
to proof his/ her identity before accessing the data and that’s how it will ensure the safety of data.

2- How much time it will take to process a query in IT asset management software?

There is no specific mention time a query will be processed but it will be 100 times less than a
common database processing. Since the IT asset management organizes the data in the ascending
or descending order, it becomes a lot easier for the software to find out the required records
within seconds.
3- How IT asset management will solve the issue of decentralization of data?

IT asset management software will solve the problem of decentralization by putting the database
in the required storage. For example, if the data is related to the employees, it will put it into the
employee database. It will further break down the data by looking at the database and identify
whether it is the male database or female database. There are a lot of tactics which will simplify
the division of the data. Similarly, the database related to the salary of the employees is kept
separate. In this way, all of the data is brake down to the related databases [2].

Section 3

Background
In the start when there was no automatic system to organize or put the data, people were
compelled to use the manual system. They wrote down everything on paper and save it in the
form of the file. Then they made a library of the organization where they stored the files in the
form of sections. Section was made on year basis, e.g. 2017 data was stored in one section and
then this 2017 section had numerous subsection. If a person wants to look for employee data for
2017 and he had to go to the library and for the record sub section wise. The data wise stored in
the alphabetical order yet the process of very time consuming and sometimes it took hours to
find a single record. Another issue with this system was the integrity of the data. Anyone can
steal a page while looking at the data or anyone can steal the whole file and no one can track it
down.

To solve this problem, computers were introduced. At the start, people use excel spreadsheets to
store their company data. They started to fill a lot of MS Excel spreadsheets and save in the
computer Hard drive. The problem associated with the spreadsheet was to enter the records
manually which was a time-consuming process. Besides entering data in the spreadsheet, the
processing of query was also slow. For example, if an excel sheet or simple a SQL database is
carrying thousands of data. A person wants to extract the data from 9 thousand and ninety-ninth
positions. The person does not know exactly where the file will be. What he will do, will simply
write a query to extract the following data and the processor will start to look down the database
from A to Z. After much time, it will reach the 9,999th position and give the result to the person.
Although he got his result in the end yet it was a very time-consuming process.
The problem with the database preference although can be handled with simply writing the data
at the exact location yet the problem of handling interrupts cannot be handled without an IT asset
management tool. For example, a CPU has been given the command to print a 1000 pages which
are not necessary at that time. The printer is shared among the organization's computers and all
of a sudden the CEO himself wants to print an important document. He gives the command to
print the document yet he has to wait for his turn. He can wait up to 15 minutes to get his paper
ready.

So, there was a serious need to solve such kind of IT management issues for a firm. These issues
were addressed and successfully solved by the IT management software [3].

Objective
We need a system for the organizations which do not needs any manual works. It should be able
to automate everything in the system and automatically generates the error if something is going
to wrong with the system. For example, if a printer is doing its job and the toner or pages is about
to end, the system should generate alarm before the toner or pages end not after the toner and
inks end. Similarly, there's a machine in an organization which requires the mandatory updates
within every 2 years. The IT asset management system will be capable to generate alarm before
the end of 2 years so that the company can complete the updates within time.

Our system will utilize the IoT technology. All of our assets will be controlled automatically as
well as remotely. A mobile application will be developed and it will be linked to the system so
that the status of the devices can be checked even by sitting home at the mobile app.

The IT asset management software will be based on the cloud storage. The main objective to
keep the database in the cloud is the unlimited storage the cloud can offer. There is a lot of
security which can give confidentiality to the company's data by keeping it in the cloud.

The main objective of this IT asset management software is to digitize the assets which mean the
assets will be available on the internet in a secure way. The purpose of digitalizing the assets is
the easy access to the database even when the office is shut and the CEO wants to access the data
from his personal laptop by sitting at home.
The IT asset management tool will be based on real time and it will offer quick solutions to the
queries. For example, if a person wants to get the record from 10 thousands of data, it can
display the result of the query within seconds.

Summary of the Literature Reviews

The literature review has been covered by the latest IEEE publications including the conference
paper and general papers. Since there were numerous papers on the IEEE portal we have only
chosen the publication with the highest citations record and on the basis of the research factor
acquired by the author.

In this start, when did not have the automated software for IT asset management or to track down
the physical system, the world has used the manual system to keep the record of their assets.
Papers and files were used to cover the assets data of issuing, date of expiry and the data when it
will need the update. Since a human mind cannot memorize much stuff, most of the assets were
wasted just because they were not updated on time. To bring improvement in this system, the
computer system was introduced which include the inclusion of assets dates and their expiry.
The computer system was capable of generating alarms before the expiry of assets yet the entry
work was very time to consume.

The need of the hour was to develop such a system which can update the assets on time and enter
the information of the new assets automatically. Software like SolarWinds and Assets Panda
were introduced which were capable of keeping the track of the digital assets automatically and
enter the information of a new product. To eliminate the manual work and to suppress the human
involvement in tracking the software was the key objectives of this software which they have
achieved in the current age. By deploying such software, one can avoid the risk of wasting their
devices [4].

Section 4
Project Requirement Analysis
The IT asset management software will solve the problem of data congestion and data
redundancy in the database. It will operate the query of the database within seconds and the
system is capable of accepting multiple queries to process. The system will do the asset
management efficiently such that if any asset of the company run out of stock or it is about to
expire, the system will generate an alarm to notify the error in the machinery.

Asset Cataloging Strategy

The asset cataloging strategy should be such that it should not take time to analyze the query. For
that purpose, the software can adopt ascending order stragety or desceindg order strategy. In
ascending order strategy, software can catalog the assets by starting it from the A and ending the
Z assets at the last place. Similarly, the software can make a catalog list by database wise. For
example, it can arrange the relational database first then after relational database it can place
columnar and in the end it will catalog NoSQL.

Sticker Code generation

There are several methods which can generate a sticker for the asset of an organization. Since
our product needs automation in every field of life, the sticker code generation process should
also be an automatic process so that it can generate a sticker code for a new item added to the
assets of the company.

There will be a portal of automatic sticker code generation on the website to generate the code
for the new item. For example, one printer is not enough for the whole organization computers,
so the company has decided to attach a new printer. Now the IT asset management software
should also have the record of that printer so that it can notify the errors. What will the system do
now? First of all, it will automatically assign the barcode to the printer by choosing what type of
barcode it should get which is usually predefined in the database of the software. For example,
whether it should belong to Code 128, EAN 13 or Code39 etc. Next, the software will assign the
necessary properties to the chosen barcode. For example, the value of first barcode, the last
barcode its prefix, its suffix etc. Once these parameters have been decided, the system will
generate the barcode for the printer and it will be included in the asset management database.
Similarly, any new device which will be added to the system will have an automatic bar code.

Asset Tracking
The asset tracking refers to track and keeps the records of your assets in your database. Asset
tracking can be a costly method, therefore, it should be included. It can be done by scanning each
document. Softwares like SolarWinds are offering the solution of automatically Asset tracking.
The first step is to create an up to date list of the hardware and software you have purchased for
your company. Since to track the assets manually is a time-consuming process, SolarWinds like
software have the ability to collect the assets details automatically. This kind of software can
warn us before the expiry date of a software or if a database is running out of storage. Asset
tracking can also tell that particular asset needs replacement or update.

Prediction Analytics and performance monitoring

Prediction analytics is to analyze the software and generate an automatic message about when
the software will expire or when it will get the next update so that any important work can be
saved before the system has been shut down. The IT asset management software has also the
capability to monitor the performance of the assets on regular basis. If any software is not
working according to its requirements, it will instantly generate a message about its working or it
will solve the problem automatically. For example, the simplest example is the printer. If the ink
of the printer or the pages is running out of stock, the system will generate the message or if the
extra papers are already attached, it will automatically send them for printing [5] [6].

Software
Software like SolarWinds and Microsft Azure both can be used to track your IT assets
automatically. Both can track down the assets and updates the status of every device connected
to a network. Both of the software are offering a user-friendly interface and a digital dashboard
which can display the performance of every asset. Both of the software are offering their cloud
storage plans where the data can be stored on their cloud as a backup [7].
Following are some of the differences between SolarWinds and Microsft Azure.

SolarWinds Microsoft Azure

Provide online database Provides SQL database
It can provide remote monitoring if the assets. It does not provide remote monitoring
It provides the protection to the website of the It is used to build website with the help of
assets programming languages
It provides the virtual machine monitoring It provides the virtual networking
It provides the tracking of the location of each It does not provide the location tracking of the
assets assets
It provides backup if buys online storage It does not provide secondary backup
plans.
REFERENCES
[1] S. Hagner, "Optimizing transmission asset health with IT/OT integration," 2016 Saudi
Arabia Smart Grid (SASG), Jeddah, 2016, pp. 1-6.

[2] H. Desai, D. Guruvayurappan, M. Merchant, S. Somaiya and H. Mundra, "IoT based grocery
monitoring system," 2017 Fourteenth International Conference on Wireless and Optical
Communications Networks (WOCN), Mumbai, 2017, pp. 1-4.

[3] A. Muftinisa, Rosalina, R. Ginanjar, R. B. Wahyu and N. Hadisukmana, "Development and

implementation of fixed asset management system," 2017 Second International Conference on
Informatics and Computing (ICIC), Jayapura, 2017, pp. 1-6.

[4] X. Gu, L. Yang, Y. Liang and S. Cao, "Design and implementation of digital assets
management system based on wechat," 2017 IEEE 2nd Information Technology, Networking,
Electronic and Automation Control Conference (ITNEC), Chengdu, 2017, pp. 394-398.

[5] D. Nasui, A. Cernian, V. Sgarciu and D. Carstoiu, "Cloud-based mobile asset management
solution," Proceedings of the 2016 6th International Conference on Electronics, Computers and
Artificial Intelligence (ECAI), Bucharest, 2014, pp. 71-74.

[6] V. C. Wijaya, R. I. Desanti and S. Lukas, "A web-based IT Asset Management application
using Fuzzy Logic in vendor selection process," 2013 International Conference on Computer,
Control, Informatics and Its Applications (IC3INA), Jakarta, 2015, pp. 249-253.

[7] J. Hernantes, G. Gallardo and N. Serrano, "IT Infrastructure-Monitoring Tools," in IEEE

Software, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 88-93, July-Aug. 2015.