June 20, 2005
(Computerworld)
The U.S. Navy has launched its first enterprisewide IT asset management initiative, which is expected to help it make more-effective decisions on the thousands of disparate systems it has deployed worldwide.
Since January, the Navy has been using hosted software from Mountain View, Calif.-based BDNA Corp. to scan the IP addresses of hardware and software residing in U.S. facilities on its sprawling MCI Inc. network.
The effort has enabled the Navy to identify and locate more than 250,000 systems installed in some 200 locations, said Capt. Chris Christopher, a leader in the Navy's Program Executive Office for Information Technology in Arlington, Va.
IT assets such as PCs, servers and routers were purchased and tracked by local IT managers prior to using BDNA's service, he said.
In the coming months, the Navy expects to extend the centralized network-scanning program worldwide to pinpoint at least 250,000 more systems deployed on bases and ships, according to Christopher.
Just last week, a group from BDNA began scanning U.S. IT assets on a regular monthly schedule rather than on an ad hoc basis, Christopher said. The data is stored in an Oracle repository, he said.
Christopher placed the annual cost of the BDNA asset-discovery services at "more than six figures." He declined to be more specific.
Worldwide Endeavor
Through the network-scanning program, the Navy hopes to get a better handle on its widely distributed IT assets. For example, the effort has already helped the Navy identify some obsolete operating systems that the group now plans to eliminate.
"We have every operating system that's been developed over the past 15 years, some of which I've never even heard of," Christopher said. "What we intend to do once we have our arms around everything out there is to look at what we have and make business decisions" about their use.
The program has yielded other insights. In evaluating the distribution of the Navy's operating systems, for example, Christopher's team discovered "that we have a good chunk of Linux out there." Because the Navy hasn't standardized on a particular version of Linux, "it would probably make sense for us to develop a standard policy," he said. "Scanning on a monthly basis will allow us to see those trends."
The Navy's centralized approach to scanning and identifying its IT assets reflects a trend that's starting to catch on with other organizations, said Barbara Rembiesa, president of the International Association of Information Technology Asset Managers Inc., a for-profit user association in Cleveland.
Still, she warned that centralized server-based discovery tools have limited effectiveness if organizations don't put the proper asset management processes in place beforehand.