If you're one of the lucky ones, 2019 was a great year for you. All the fortune cookies came true, and for that, we're happy for you. Some of us were not as lucky, as our fortune cookies were full of lies and false hopes. Simply hearing the word "2019" is so triggering we need a safe space. Deep breaths—2020 will be better. Regardless of anyone's personal experience with 2019, one thing is for sure regarding this little corner of the internet: the Ivanti blog totally slayed.

It's been a long few weeks. You feel bloated and your head hurts. You can't even remember how your pants used to fit because all the family dinners and homemade desserts have taken up permanent residence on your body. There's extra love on your handles, so to speak. But it wasn't just the chocolate truffles that tested you. All the shopping, gift wrapping, traveling, food preparation, and time with the in-laws has you feeling like you just battled war.

At its core, the mission of the IT organization is to deliver services by leveraging assets and data that are the living infrastructure of the business. While most IT professionals would agree with this statement, we commonly see the focus of the organization moving to service delivery or security due to the perceived higher visibility and risks associated with these elements of IT.

Many organizations are looking at IT asset management (ITAM) solutions to ensure that all IT assets are properly discovered, tracked, secured, and disposed of at the end of the asset’s lifecycle. IT administrators often ask me if they can use a configuration management database (CMDB) to meet their ITAM requirements. Administrators are concerned that tracking IT assets in two solutions will require them to duplicate each IT asset record in addition to increasing their workload.

Most people, when they think about Software Asset Management (SAM) (and, let’s be honest, most people try to avoid thinking about it at all), they think about minimizing disruption and cost of audits and ensuring that the organization remains in a compliant state to avoid heavy fines from their vendors. To be fair to these people, that is what a large part of SAM is—ensuring that the organization is paying appropriately for the products they use to avoid costly audits or legal battles.

Our Ivanti products are kind of like our children. We've raised them to be what they are today—through all of their various transformations and growing pains. We're proud of them when they venture out into the world and make it a better place. Like presents around the Christmas tree, they each bring something unique to the Ivanti portfolio. That's why it's hard to single any one of them out or love one more than another. We don't play favorites. So we asked our customers to, instead.

J.K. Rowling created a book in 2001 based off a small series of books that you may have heard of (Harry Potter, in case you didn’t get the subtle hint) called Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The book acts as a reference and guidebook for all the mythical creatures that you find in the Harry Potter world. It’s a textbook that is even referenced in the Harry Potter films as something the main characters must study.

John F. Kennedy described the journey into space as "...the most hazardous, and dangerous, and greatest adventure of which man has ever embarked." And that can sometimes feel like it applies to cloud asset management, too! While there are many analogies one can draw between space and the cloud, the idea of a vast, seemingly limitless, expanding area where new, ever stranger, things are discovered all the time seems quite apt.

IT Asset Management (ITAM) is a deep and broad topic and like a lot of terms in our industry, it can mean different things to different people, so it is important to draw a line in the sand and establish a common denominator for the discussions by understanding what aspects are important to your organization, and more importantly why?

The holiday season is always a good time to slow down, meditate, and be grateful for family, friends, and the blessings you have in your life. And believe it or not, I think this is a good practice to do in IT as well. You’re fighting the good fight day after day, extinguishing fires, battling resource and budget constraints, and dealing with more than enough on your Christmas dinner plate.