“On two occasions I have been asked, ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.”

—?Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, 1864

Good Decisions Require Good Information

Garbage in, garbage out. It’s been a challenge since the earliest days of computing, and mathematics before that. In short, whatever the processing system, the quality of its output is entirely dependent upon the quality of the data being processed.

More recently, modern computing has expanded the scope of the challenge. As some cynics have observed, increasing dependence on computing has transformed “garbage in, garbage out” into “garbage in, gospel out.” Decision makers are prone to taking output from computing systems as “the truth,” whatever the quality of the input used to produce the output.

This challenge has significant implications for those attempting to manage critical, expensive IT assets. To gain greater control over those assets, many enterprises rely on a configuration management database, or CMDB. But as with all other processing systems, if the information in the CMDB is inaccurate, out of date, or inconsistent, inadequate asset management is a constant risk. And the costs of that risk can be considerable, including the expenses of failed software audits and software license “true-ups.”

Ivanti License Optimizer for Clients and Servers: Better Information for Better Asset Management

Fortunately, Ivanti License Optimizer for Clients and Servers can optimize the quality of asset information and maximize the business value of your CMDB. It does this in three ways.

  • With Ivanti License Optimizer for Clients and Servers, the CMDB can be populated and appended with normalized discovery information across your entire environment, ensuring all assets in the enterprise are captured and recorded.
  • Ivanti License Optimizer for Clients and Servers can also supplement the data held in the CMDB with additional information about assets, such as warranty information pulled live from online warranty data stores.
  • Ivanti License Optimizer for Clients and Servers can also add supplemental but critical decision making data to asset records, such as software license information, software end-of-life dates and category information.

In addition to these benefits, Ivanti can act as an information gatekeeper for your CMDB, by normalizing all incoming data and ensuring that your records conform with a standardized, common data set. Together, these features replace “garbage in, garbage out” with the most consistently accurate, timely, and complete asset information available for your CMDB.

Improve Your Asset Management Decisions with Ivanti

You need to pass every software audit, comply with every regulation and business requirement, and avoid expensive software license or hardware maintenance contract reconciliations. To achieve these goals, you need consistent access to the most accurate and comprehensive information about your critical IT assets. The combination of your CMDB and Ivanti License Optimizer for Clients and Servers makes it possible to do all these things, and to make the best asset management decisions possible, across the entire lifecycle of those assets.

Read the Ivanti License Optimizer for Servers data sheet. Then, get a free demo, or request a quote, and start making your CMDB the most valuable asset in your IT asset management toolkit.