Xterprise Rolls Out IT Asset-Tracking Solution

Clarity-ITAM is designed to interface with an end user's existing network asset-management system—software that shows the customer how many IT assets are plugged into their network at any particular time, as well as additional information such as the assets' configurations and maintenance schedules. "But when an asset is unplugged from the network," Frew says, "the company's visibility of that asset ends, and that is where Clarity-ITAM starts."

Readers are installed at chokepoints, such as doorways or corridors, so an end user can monitor the location of each tagged asset when it is moved. And using mobile readers, staff members can perform periodic inventory counts of assets within a data center as well. All of this data is stored in the Clarity-ITAM software and interfaces with the end user's existing network asset-management system.

Financial services is one industry Xterprise believes can greatly benefit from employing its RFID-based IT asset-tracking platform. In fact, to help guide the deployment of RFID for tracking IT assets among financial services companies, Xterprise recently joined the Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC), which is developing standards and defining best practices for the use of RFID technology in the financial services industry (see Banking Group to Set RFID Roadmap). The market for the Clarity-ITAM solution, Frew says, extends well beyond financial services companies. "Any company, such as a business process outsourcing firm, or a large hosting company firm" would benefit, he says.

The Xterprise product announcement comes on the heels of a survey conducted by market research firm Aberdeen Group that probes the business practices leading to the most successful deployments of RFID as part of an enterprise IT infrastructure. That study, according to Aberdeen Group, shows that tracking IT assets, such as server blades and laptop computers, is the most popular use of radio frequency identification among the survey's more than 135 respondents—and a full 80 percent of those who also read RFID Journal indicated they are currently tracking or plan to track IT assets with RFID.