ISO/IEC 19770-5:2015 – Information technology – IT asset management – Part 5: Overview and vocabulary

Why it Matters

IT asset management fails most often on definitions: what counts as an asset, what a license actually entitles, and which team owns the data. ISO/IEC 19770-5:2015 settles those definitions for the whole ISO/IEC 19770 series and explains why software assets need managing, so that an ITAM program starts from a shared vocabulary and a clear business case.

Key benefits include:

• Establish a common vocabulary

Terms such as asset, IT asset, software asset, entitlement, and reconciliation are defined once and reused by every part of the series and by ISO/IEC 19770-1 conformance work.

• Explain the business case

Clause 4 sets out the direct benefits, cost control, and risk management and mitigation reasons for managing software assets.

• Show how the family fits together

Clause 5 maps the process standard, the information structure standards, and the guidance technical reports so organizations know which part they need.

• Align with other management systems

The standard describes how SAM principles relate to ISO 9001, ISO/IEC 20000, ISO/IEC 27000, and ISO 55000.

• Provide a free starting point

ISO/IEC JTC 1 describes Part 5 as the freely available ITAM standard, which lowers the barrier to adopting the series.

How it Works

ISO/IEC 19770-5:2015 has five clauses and a bibliography. Clause 1 is the scope, Clause 2 the normative references (ISO 55000:2014 and RFC 3986), and Clause 3 the terms and definitions, many sourced from ISO 55000 and ISO/IEC/IEEE 24765. Clause 4 introduces ITAM and SAM, explains the need to manage software assets, states the foundation principles, relates them to the principles of ISO 9001, ISO/IEC 20000, ISO/IEC 27000, and ISO 55000, and sets out principles for process definitions and information structures and critical success factors. Clause 5 gives an overview of the family: the standards specifying processes, the technical reports that guide them, the standards specifying information structures, and the overview standards.

Organizations apply it by adopting its definitions in ITAM policy, asset registers, license records, and contracts, by using Clause 4 to brief leadership on benefits, cost control, and risk, and by using Clause 5 to select which parts of the series to implement, typically ISO/IEC 19770-1 for the management system and ISO/IEC 19770-2 software identification tags and ISO/IEC 19770-3 entitlement schemas for data interoperability with tools and publishers.

Within SmartSuite, teams hold the ISO/IEC 19770-5 vocabulary as the reference data model for IT asset, license, and entitlement records, link each term to the fields and processes that use it, and keep the family overview alongside their ISO/IEC 19770-1 control library so that every process area and data structure is traceable to a defined term.

Key Elements

• Overview of the ISO/IEC 19770 family

A description of each part of the series, grouped into process standards, information structure standards, guidance technical reports, and overview standards.

• Introduction to ITAM and SAM

An explanation of IT asset management and software asset management and why software assets have characteristics that need specific controls.

• Need to manage software assets

Direct benefits, cost control, and risk management and mitigation as the reasons for a SAM program.

• Foundation principles

The principles on which SAM processes and information structures are based, and how they relate to ISO 9001, ISO/IEC 20000, ISO/IEC 27000, and ISO 55000.

• Principles of process and information structure definitions

Rules for defining SAM processes and data structures and for evaluating conformance of those definitions.

• Critical success factors

The conditions the standard identifies for a SAM program to succeed.

• Terms and definitions

The shared vocabulary for the series, including asset, application, entitlement, and related terms.

Framework Scope

ISO/IEC 19770-5:2015 applies to all types of organization, including commercial enterprises, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. It covers the concepts, principles, and vocabulary of IT asset management and software asset management and gives an overview of the ISO/IEC 19770 series; it does not itself specify requirements, processes, or data schemas, which are left to the other parts.

Framework Objectives

The standard aims to give every user of the ISO/IEC 19770 series the same understanding of what IT asset management is, why it matters, and how the parts of the series work together.

Provide an overview of the ISO/IEC 19770 family of standards and how its parts relate.

Introduce IT asset management and software asset management and the case for managing software assets.

Describe the foundation principles and approaches on which software asset management is based.

Provide consistent terms and definitions for use throughout the series.

Explain how SAM principles align with ISO 9001, ISO/IEC 20000, ISO/IEC 27000, and ISO 55000.

Set out principles and conformance evaluation for SAM process definitions and information structures.

Framework in Context

ISO/IEC 19770-5:2015 plays the same role for the ISO/IEC 19770 series that ISO/IEC 27000 plays for the information security standards and ISO 55000 plays for asset management, and it normatively references ISO 55000:2014. It underpins ISO/IEC 19770-1:2017, the ITAM management system requirements, and relates its principles to ISO 9001, ISO/IEC 20000-1, and ISO/IEC 27001; the IT asset management practice of ITIL 4 uses the same vocabulary.

Common Framework Mappings

ISO/IEC 19770-5:2015 is commonly mapped to the standards whose vocabulary and principles it aligns with, so that ITAM programs can share definitions with quality, service management, security, and asset management systems.

Mapped frameworks include:

ISO/IEC 19770-1:2017

ISO 55000

ISO 27000

ISO/IEC 20000-1

ISO 9001:2026

ITIL 4