Which management process involves tracking and documenting hardware and software assets?

The correct answer is configuration management. This process is specifically designed to track and document all hardware and software assets within an organization's IT environment. Configuration management ensures that there is an accurate and comprehensive inventory of these assets, including details such as versions, locations, and relationships among components.

By maintaining this information, organizations can effectively manage changes, troubleshoot issues, and optimize the use of their resources. The focus on maintaining detailed information about assets helps in understanding how changes to one part of the infrastructure may impact other components, thus supporting overall system stability and performance.

While incident management deals with the response to and resolution of issues, change management focuses on handling changes to the system in an organized manner, and availability management is centered on ensuring that services are consistently available, it is configuration management that directly addresses the tracking and documentation of both hardware and software assets.