KPIs are important in all sorts of contexts, and if you’re responsible for overseeing a range of IT assets within any organization, tracking and analyzing different facets of the infrastructure’s performance will be particularly vital.
The first step to doing this effectively is knowing what metrics to monitor, so here are the main KPIs to scrutinize when you’re tasked with IT asset management.
Hardware failure rates
In IT you cannot afford to tolerate extended periods of unplanned downtime. Aside from the costs accumulated through lost productivity, there’s also the reputational damage that comes in the aftermath of an outage.
This is why you need to build a computer asset management strategy which takes hardware failure rates into account; specifically, the mean time that elapses between issues arising.
You can arrive at this quickly and easily by dividing uptime by the number of failures experienced since the hardware in question was adopted, giving you the mean time between failures (MTBF).
The idea is that with this info to hand, you can plan preventative maintenance and upgrades so that hardware components which are prone to giving up the ghost after a particular period of use can be dealt with on your terms, rather than in emergency conditions.
Asset effectiveness
To arrive at the next KPI, known as overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), you need to get to the bottom of the availability of your IT assets, as well as the performance levels provided during periods of uptime.
This is about exploring not just how available a specific resource is, but also whether it is delivering a decent level of functionality. This is often done by using special IT assets management software which is specifically designed for this purpose.
So for example, while you might have a server that shows expected levels of availability over weeks or months, if performance is suboptimal without downtime or failures occurring, you need to know what’s causing any hold-ups, rather than just basing your assessment on one metric alone.
Maintenance efficiency
Another essential aspect of IT asset management is knowing the average amount of time that will elapse between an issue arising and a repair being completed.
Also known as mean time to repair (MTTR), this KPI is common across all sorts of asset management, not just IT. Wherever mission-critical equipment is in use, having a base level response time for maintenance is handy.
Part of the reason for this is that it lets you track any improvements you make if you change policies, adjust schedules or implement any other changes. The other advantage is that it lets you identify when maintenance efficiency drops, so that remedial action can be taken as necessary.
Usage levels
Every IT asset under your control costs the company cash to keep up and running. This means you need to know the level of utilization each one is receiving, and the extent to which this is impacting broader levels of performance and productivity across the organization.
Modern monitoring tools can look into this and identify usage trends from moment to moment, as well as over longer periods. That way you can see if certain assets are being underutilized, while others may be over-worked and pushed to the limits of their capacities.
Whether your assets are housed on-site, or whether they are off-premises to ensure efficiency, it is wise to monitor usage levels, as you could pick up on inefficiencies and find ways to make savings.
Wrapping up
These are just a few of the top level KPIs for IT asset management, and many more will come into play depending on your needs and the way your infrastructure is configured.
Maintenance and optimization are only achievable if you are always tracking crucial metrics like these, so don’t skip out on this major responsibility.