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Sure you know how many PCs are on your network, but can you say for sure how many have out-of-date licenses or pirate software? We look at asset tracking software that helps you do this and much more.
Asset management software can be roughly divided into two areas. It can be a simple application that discovers assets attached to your network and creates an inventory of all these assets. Then there are applications that are part of a complete IT lifecycle management suite that address client, asset, and server management needs.
Asset management involves the whole lifecycle of an asset from the purchase up until the asset is retired or the lease has ended. And during this phase, asset management software should give you a clear picture of where cost savings can be made. The big word that all the vendors are associating with their asset management software is an improved return on investment. What they mean by this is that they can measure and help you reduce the total cost of ownership by monitoring all your assets including the software usage patterns and identifying where licences can be reclaimed or reallocated depending on what is happening.
For this review we looked at six asset management packages. Some of them were better suited for small- to medium-sized workplaces while others were ideal for large enterprises. All the software packages tested had some sort of inventory management. This means from a central repository, organisations will be easily able to find what they own and who is using or assigned a particular asset. Also where they are located, how much they are costing the company, and whether they are meeting their duties.
The inventory also links to other closely tied services like lease management, warranty, maintenance, and upgrades. Without these details, companies can't effectively measure how much their assets are costing them.
This is as far as we went in terms of this review. Some of the software packages offer a lot more functionality like the Altiris software which offers complete IT lifecycle management. Reviewing the Altiris package in its entirety was outside the scope of this review.
We didn't receive Computer Associates Unicenter, which is most suited to environments with more than 10,000 assets, nor IBMs Tivoli Configuration Manager, which again is more suited to large enterprises. We find that Unicenter competes mainly on the help desk side and Tivoli Configuration Manager on software deployment.
Hardware/software auditing
Asset management packages use Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), the registry, and .INI files to perform remote auditing.
For assets like PDAs, scanners, and projectors, which typically won't be discovered, they can be manually added as an asset into the database of the respective package. With that said there are some packages that will pick up these sorts of assets.
When to audit
Audits should be scheduled to run when it's most convenient but mainly during periods of light network traffic. Auditing can be scheduled to occur at a certain time of the day, month, or particular date.
Leases
Managing your leases is critical to your company's financials. The best way to manage leases is to have a system that notifies you when a lease is about to expire. The system should also monitor the usage of software. That way you will be able to reclaim licences or reallocate licences.
Lifecycle management
There are many complete lifecycle management packages out there that look after all your assets from the day they are purchased to when they are retired. This will enable you to better measure the total cost of ownership of your assets.
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