BDNA Maps The IT Genome

Asset management specialist BDNA on Wednesday unveiled a new strategy under which it will focus on enhancing customers' IT asset discovery data while offering some basic discovery services for free.

With Microsoft, HP, and others crowding the market, BDNA VP Amit Golan said the company's shift to data enhancement services is driven by the fact that the market for asset discovery tools has become commoditized.

"It's not a fight we want to fight anymore," said Golan, in an interview.

Instead, BDNA will focus on adding value to customers' discovery data by running it through a massive database called Technopedia that Golan described as the industry's only, fully comprehensive listing of virtually every IT product in existence.

The database, which includes more than 800,000 data points on over 200,000 IT hardware and software products, is constantly updated by a team of researchers based in China.

Among other things, Technopedia is designed to ferret out instances where enterprises may be unknowingly running multiple copies of software because the brand name has changed, the product was acquired by another vendor, or versioning systems have changed.

That's key as IT shops may be running afoul of licensing terms, or losing out on volume discounts, if they don't know what they're running. "We are trying to eliminate the sickness of IT waste," said Golan, who likens Technopedia to the Human Genome Project, under which scientists mapped out man's genetic code.

"We've been assembling the building blocks of IT," said Golan.Technopedia also includes information on software and hardware product version numbers, upgrades, support dates, and more. Customers can access Technopedia and related services through BDNA's just-launched IT Genome Center, which is an online portal.

BDNA will continue to offer its existing discovery services, but customers will have free access to basic, first-level discovery tools, Golan said.