When is it time to say goodbye? Parting with hardware doesn’t have to be hard.

[Eric Martinez]

For a hardware device, the answer to that question can be a difficult one.  Though the device has been in the environment for several years, there is still usable life left.  So why would we retire and dispose the device and spend additional money on a replacement? 

With the device’s lifecycle information, that answer becomes much clearer.  We know the intentions of the manufacturer of the device: when the device will no longer be available for purchase, when support will end, and when the device will go end of life. 

The next related issue, and it is a big one: if we know a device should be retired, do we know where all the similar devices are in our environment?  Without hardware asset management (HAM), discovery, and normalization, that answer to this question would be almost impossible.   

Enter the HAM to make things easier. 

Strong HAM processes capture information from the time of device purchase/receipt all the way to disposal.  In between, HAM will tell us where the devices are in our stockrooms and warehouses.  Next comes discovery.  Discovery tells us where in our environment these devices are installed.  But since Discovery captures data from the device, the data will likely be captured with numerous variations in the manufacturer name, device model, and device model number.  This is where normalization solves the variation problem.  Normalization groups like devices together by standardizing the manufacturer and device model and model number. 

With all of this information, we can be proactive about our answers to these questions.  

For example, a company since 2015 has widely purchased and deployed industrial routers throughout their environment.  The IT Asset Management (ITAM) team at this company has had a HAM program in place since 2011, so they have kept vendor and purchase history for these routers and have tracked where in-stock routers are stored.   

With hardware lifecycle information, they know that the manufacturer of the industrial router: 

• • • stopped selling the router at the end of 2019, so they can no longer buy replacements.   
    • will no longer provide device or operating system support at the end of this year. 

Also, a vulnerability with these routers was recently discovered that allows attackers to intercept and decrypt network traffic routed through these devices. 

Normalization gives the ITAM team the complete list of all of these industrial routers, whether the routers are deployed in their environment or are in the inventory in their storage areas.  Discovery tells them the location of all the deployed routers.   

With all this information on hand and with the lifecycle support date at the end of 2020 as the finish line, they have an upfront runway to make decisions about what is the best replacement router for their organization, negotiate with vendors to get the best price, and set up a project to replace all the to-be retired routers in the environment.   

It is all about being proactive and prepared!   

But what is the cost of being reactive?  First, you may have to pay for extended support from a manufacturer because devices can’t be quickly replaced.  Finally, the cost could be much higher. If you don’t know there IS a risk or if you don’t know where ALL the risk-identified devices are in your environment, then your organization may be vulnerable.  A security breach is not a price you want to pay.