Top > Working with Hardware Assets > Understanding hardware asset relationships
Hardware asset management is performed through the following items:
hardware assets (computers, monitors, printers, PDAs, etc.)
hardware catalog items (provides a model and a refresh cycle)
related agreements, such as lease, disposal, maintenance & support and warranty agreements
configuration items (CIs)
The IT Asset Management Pack allows you to create a relationship between these items, as explained in the following sections. Some of the benefits that derive from relating these items together include: providing hardware assets with serial number and asset tag data, identifying assets whose related CIs are no longer found on your network, identifying CIs that are not related to hardware assets, providing hardware assets with a standardized model, tracking contracts coming up for renewal, and providing asset information to the incident management function.
Hardware assets, hardware catalog items and agreements all exist within the IT Asset Management Pack, while CIs are found on your network by Configuration Manager through a discovery process.