Top > Working with Hardware Assets > Understanding hardware asset relationships > Hardware catalog item
A hardware catalog item provides standardized manufacturer, model, refresh cycle, and supplier information for your hardware assets. A hardware catalog item is directly linked to one or more hardware assets. For example, a company has made a bulk purchase of ThinkPads, Model XYZ. This is a standard purchase for the company. A hardware catalog item containing additional information related to the make and model (ThinkPad Model XYZ) of the lap top, as well as a link to manufacturer and preferred supplier, is created prior to a hardware asset. Hardware assets are then created, perhaps through a bulk import of your purchase data, and the links to their hardware catalog items are manually established from the hardware assets. For more details about creating a link, see Creating a single hardware asset.
A refresh cycle is important when trying to limit exposure to an event, such as warranty expiration. For example, a three year refresh cycle for a Lenovo ThinkPad T510 laptops means that those laptops, based on model, that were first in, based on received date, will be first out.
A hardware catalog item also provides an image and a cost that can be associated with a service catalog request offering.