Managing Assets In The Hybrid IT Environment: New HWID Standard (ISO/IEC 19770-6)

If you work in IT, you may have noticed that much of the IT industry is going through a technology transformation, migrating to hybrid environments that utilize on–premise hardware, virtualized machines and cloud computing to deliver agile technical solutions to the enterprise environment. In turn, this accelerated agility has dramatically increased the amount of asset data that needs to be managed, as hardware (HW) and software (SW) is reconfigured, redeployed and/or repurposed to meet the needs of business.   

In the coming weeks, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) will be releasing a new information standard for identifying hardware that will help the IT industry drive consistent data standards amongst the various OEM vendors, system integrators and IT Asset Management platforms. The new standard, ISO/IEC 19770-6, has been specifically designed with data elements and attributes for hardware identification (HWID) to compliment the standard for software identification (SWID), ISO/IEC 19770-2, that was re-released in 2017.  

Together, the combined standards offer the IT industry a common set of data elements to support the rise in hybrid IT environments. These standards will enhance the asset track and trace capabilities needed to improve cybersecurity (tamper proofing, tamper detection, and supply chain authority), and will compliment the areas of ISO/IEC 27002 (information security standard) that relate to securing equipment. They will also help to facilitate the logistics and costs of repairing devices.  

Benefits of the New Standard

The new HWID standard will benefit all stakeholders involved in the manufacture, installation and ongoing security management of HW components. For HW manufacturers who incorporate the HWID data schema, benefits will include, but will not be limited to: 

• Consistent, canonical identification of the hardware component 
• Marketing opportunities promoting the enhanced security and usefulness of their specific component’s change management and hardware asset management compared to competitors who do not use HWID standards 
• Confidence that the provenance of sub-components can be identified, which is useful when considering supply chain requirements 
• Increased awareness of potential hardware configuration and/or compliance issues on the part of end-customers 
• Improved hardware consumer relationships through quicker and more effective hardware version control and audits with associated software licensing 

As an active and voting member of ISO/IEC 19770 Working Group 21, RAY ALLEN, Inc. assisted in the writing and publishing of the HWID and SWID standards. Our ITAM expertise and knowledge of managing assets from over 80 different OEM vendors was a major contributor to the construction of data schemas that will support the various technologies across the IT industry.  

If you’re interested in learning more about the new HWID standard (ISO 19770-6) and/or would like assistance in exploring how HWID could improve your IT environment, please to visit www.rayalleninc.com and/or contact us for more information.