IT asset classification

IT assets participate in two separate structural hierarchies: the asset hierarchy and the classification hierarchy.

Asset hierarchy

IT assets include both hardware, which is managed in the Assets application, and software, which is managed in the Licenses application.

Parent and child assets are organized into a logical hierarchy or tree. Any asset for which a parent exists is a child asset. The top-level asset of the tree is called the ancestor. In the Assets application, any asset for which the Partition field is selected on the IT Details tab is a child asset.

The site of a child IT asset is always the same as the site of the top-level parent asset.

Classification hierarchy

To distinguish IT assets from other types of assets, administrators define a top-level IT asset class in the Organizations application. Any asset that belongs to the hierarchy of the top-level IT asset class is an IT asset.

When you first implement IT asset management, you must set up the classification hierarchy for IT assets and specify the class structure identifier (CLASSSTRUCTUREID) of the top-level IT classification. You perform this task in the Organizations application by selecting the System Settings action and selecting the appropriate values in the IT Asset Top-Level Class field and the IT Asset Class Structure Id field. This task is usually performed as a post-installation task when you first implement IT asset management.