The catworkx approach for lifecycle management of IT inventory based on Jira and Confluence: The lifecycle of the inventory is modeled as a specific Jira workflow and different inventory categories (e.g. server, appliance, application or license) are mapped and managed as task types. For further documentation, the seamless integration of Confluence is perfect.
As an Atlassian service provider and specialist for IT infrastructure solutions, catworkx GmbH currently manages more than 350 customer and in-house servers of various types, which are equipped with different operating systems, components and applications. For the administration and reliable support of the numerous instances, an effective inventory management is of course essential.
Many special solutions for inventory or inventory management (asset management) of servers, desktops, applications and licenses are offered on the market. However, these solutions are often focused on the pure management of machines, in conjunction with the automated collection of data via the network. Often, there is no seamlessly integrated process management for documenting the processes that occur as part of the administration tasks.
The systems are also very expensive and usually have no interface to Jira, which is used at catworkx as the central system for processing all processes/tasks, such as service, sales, development or even general administrative tasks. Typically, there is also no integration with IT documentation, for quick retrieval of unstructured additional information or maintenance instructions, which is virtually a free gift thanks to the seamless interaction of Jira with Confluence.
Since the solutions available on the market did not meet catworkx's requirements, the company decided to implement its own management based on Jira and Confluence, which allows lifecycle management of IT inventory without media discontinuity, including related operations.
The inventory categories Server, Appliance, Application and License are mapped to task types. For each category, an individual field schema is associated with the task type. The ability to link Jira tasks is used to express that an application is installed on a server or that an application has a license.
The life cycle of the inventory is modeled as a specific workflow. Transitions in the workflow represent typical maintenance work that triggers separate but automatically linked processes on which working times are posted. More complex activities, but also e.g. license renewals, usually lead via a sales-related process, which is also triggered automatically and linked to the inventory. If extended written and/or graphical documentation is required, a bidirectional link can additionally be made to Confluence pages, where the documentation is created and maintained.
A huge advantage in using Jira is the particularly powerful search function (JQL), in conjunction with highly flexible filter and dashboard management. Saved searches (filters), especially over time periods and date fields, projected onto corresponding management dashboards with individual column configuration, are excellent for deriving maintenance plans or uncovering escalation situations.
License management is also extremely convenient with the Jira application. By using filters, the licenses are listed in the dashboard that expire in a certain period of time, which can be freely defined by the user.
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