How to Best Manage Your System's Assets
Many government agencies, particularly large agencies, face enormous obstacles in simply compiling and inventory of the software and hardware under in their system. The difficulty is understandable: I know of one agency responsible for 220,000 makes and models of medical devices (note that this number refers to “makes and models” only. The actual number of devices is much, much higher). In addition, the devices are online intermittently, and many of them are on air-gapped (i.e., physically separate networks), complicating the use of automated tools for identification and inventory.