ITAM, IT asset management Standards Committee – What it’s all about

Objectives

The ISO/IEC 19770 family of standards centers on IT Asset Management (ITAM) including managing Software Assets and Hardware Assets (SAM and HAM).

The objective of the standards is to give organizations of all sizes information and assistance with reducing risk and optimizing the cost of IT assets. Through implementation of the standards, these same organizations will acquire a competitive advantage through:

• Management of the risk of interrupted IT service delivery, breach of legal agreements and audit
• Reducing overall software costs through the implementation of various processes, and
• Better information availability leading to improved decision-making based on accurate data.

Published ITAM standards

The published standards are detailed below:

• ISO/IEC 19770-1 is a process framework to enable an organization to incorporate ITAM processes and policies sufficient to satisfy corporate governance requirements and ensure effective support for IT service management
• ISO/IEC 19770-2 provides an ITAM data standard for software identification tags (“SWID”).
• ISO/IEC 19770-3 provides an ITAM data standard for the details of software entitlements, including usage rights, limitations, and metrics (“ENT”).
• ISO/IEC 19770-4 provides an ITAM data standard for Resource Utilization Measurement (“RUM”)
• ISO/IEC 19770-5 provides an overview of the standards and vocabulary and is a free standard.
• ISO/IEC 19770-8 defines requirements, guidelines, formats and approaches for use when producing a mapping document that defines how industry practices map to/from the ISO/IEC 19770 series.

What is under development?

• 19770-2 Ed. 3: Software Identification Tags; Project Editor(s): David Waltermire
• 19770-3 Ed. 2: Software Entitlement Schema; Project Editor(s): Jason K. / John T. / Dorian C.
• 19770-5 Ed. 3: Overview & Vocabulary; Project Editor(s): Peter Beruk & Ramesh Jain
• 19770-6 Ed. 1: Hardware Identification Tags; Project Editor(s): Jason Keogh & Rick Shephard
• 19770-7 (TR) Ed. 1: Tag Orchestration; Project Editor(s): Rick S. / Steve K. / Jason K. / Steve O.
• 19770-10 (TR) Ed. 1: Guidance on ITAM Implementation; Project Editor(s): David B. / Jan H. / Geoff W.
• 19770-11 Ed. 1: ITAM System – Accreditation; Project Editor(s): Dr. Jan Hachenberger
• 19770-12 (TR) Ed. 1: ITAM for Software as a Service; Project Editor(s): Ritesh Dhingra
• 19770-13 (TR) Ed. 1: ITAM for Infrastructure/Platform as a Service; Project Editor(s): Ron Brill

In addition, there are following study groups aiming to create future work items:

How to join or follow the ITAM standardization work

ISO/IEC 19770 DAY-TO-DAY MANAGEMENT COMES UNDER ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7 WORKING GROUP 21 (WG21)

WG21 is responsible for developing, improving, and ensuring that market needs are met while creating new ITAM standards.

WG21 was established in 2004 and initially focused on Software Asset Management (SAM). Later the scope was changed to include all IT assets. Currently, the committee is made up of over 130 volunteer experts from about twenty countries with experience ranging from software companies, SAM tool vendors, consulting firms, end-users, media, analysts and more.

The needed step in Finland is to join the SFS’s standardization group SR314, which is the local mirror committee for subcommittee 7. Information about joining is available on SFS’s web site: https://sfs.fi/osallistu-ja-vaikuta/miten-voin-osallistua-standardisointiin/ .

BTW: It is good to remember that ISO – The International Standards Organization, was established already in 1947 and it is the only globally-recognized standards body. It has currently 168 member countries. The work is done within committees made up of experts who volunteer their time and expertise.

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