What’s the difference between ITAM, SAM, and HAM?

What’s the difference between ITAM, SAM, and HAM?

What’s the difference between ITAM, SAM and HAM?

SAM is a subset of ITAM focused exclusively on managing the lifecycle of software assets, whereas ITAM, encompasses the management of all IT assets, including both hardware and software.

Software Asset Management (SAM) tends to receive more exposure than ITAM due to the following:

• Software audits are an expensive, compelling focus.
• Software can represent an ongoing operational expense, whereas hardware costs are typically more ‘one-off’ costs.
• Hardware is becoming less relevant since the introduction of Cloud servers.

Despite some clear differences, SAM and ITAM are extremely intertwined. Any effective SAM policy will likely have a direct impact on hardware asset management (HAM), and therefore, any effective ITAM practice will need to ensure that SAM and HAM policies are both well managed.

The broader definition of ITAM is also expanding, and can be considered to go beyond the traditional boundaries of SAM and HAM management, including:

• Cloud Asset Management
• SaaS Management
• Strategic Business Alignment
• Sustainability

In summary, ITAM encompasses SAM, HAM and various other disciplines to ensure an entire IT estate is successfully managed.