FBI ripped for IT upgrade costs

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1200 misplaced items?

Inventory of I.T. equipment is always like this. There is always a flow of new pieces in, old pieces out. You keep items for only 3 years, usually. An organization the size of the FBI probably has a couple of hundred new items arriving every day, and another couple of hundred old ones being shipped out. And a thousand or so are sitting in storerooms awaiting a data wipe and a security check - you don't want a buyer of an off-lease PC being able to undelete top-secret files from the HDD.

So which of those things should be on the inventory, and which should be omitted? It always depends on who is asking for the inventory. If it's the insurers, they want to know about everything on-site AND in a storeroom. If it's the business managers, they may only want the stuff that's in use today by actual employees. If it's accountants, they might be calculating depreciation, so it's a different answer again.

So it's likely that every equipment inventory list in the world doesn't list "everything". That's simply because the word "everything" means something different to everyone who might check it. So each one will think something's missing, and that something's listed that shouldn't be.

The better answer is to do it the way Wal-Mart tracks their stock - with a live database that's updated automatically with each device that comes in or out. But then someone will freak about the stack of boxes that was scanned 20 minutes ago, but the truck is late to haul them away - so they're still on the premises!

For an organization as big as the FBI, 1200 questionable items isn't much. Let the geeks track down the exceptions - I bet they'll account for them all.

Posted by: netminder   Posted on: 03/22/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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