Change and configuration management - Discovery of IT Infrastructure

Discovery of IT infrastructure (hardwares and softwares) forms the important part of change and configuration management strategy. The question to which large companies are puzzled about is "What do I have?" as part of IT infrastructure.

In such a complex environment, it is very difficult to correctly manage the information about all the softwares and hardwares that the companies have. And, even if they somehow accomplish it through manual processes, it is very difficult to then manage the patches, the licenses etc.

Large companies end up buying licenses every year without knowing if they are going to use it. They spend lot of time to confirm that they have the latest patch installed on their systems.

There comes the need of having accurate knowledge of IT infrastructure from time-to-time without errors and failures. And, this need gives birth to the Discovery of IT infrastructure.

Any change and configuration management tool would be incomplete if it does not provide user to know about their IT infrastructure from time-to-time.

So, if you form the part of evaluation team for evaluating change and configuration management tool, do not forget to check if the tool provide the discovery feature.