Hands off my assets: 6 asset management packages tested

Microsoft Systems Management Server: Software Distribution and Asset Management Services

 Asset management
Systems Management Server is part of the Windows Server System. There are few main components to this software such as the software distribution component, which can deploy applications and patches. This is something that the other packages don't do. It can also create an inventory and it can track software usage. We primarily focused on this component.

Systems Management Server (SMS) requires the installation of SQL Server 7.0 SP3 or SQL Server 2000 SP3. These other requirements were not packaged in the CD installer. We had to source them ourselves. The installation can be quite difficult. We would recommend you have a Microsoft engineer come out and install SMS for you.

Some of the key features include:

  • Software distribution to targeted assets
  • Application usage monitoring
  • Software inventory
  • Hardware inventory
  • Web-enabled reporting
  • Patch deployment to managed assets
  • Bandwidth awareness (client network connections)
  • Checkpoint/restart (downloads to clients continue where they left off)
  • Location awareness (mobile users will always receive software updates from the nearest appropriate source)
  • Active Directory Discovery

Like all the other packages in this review SMS uses WMI to interrogate system hardware and the set of data that it collects is almost the same. SMS also integrates an inventory with software metering, which displays what's installed and what's being used.

SMS also helps you stay compliant. It's not as strong in this area compared to Altiris but it still does a good job at monitoring concurrent application usage. SMS can also reduce your costs by identifying applications that are not being used so you can discontinue support and even retire these unused applications.

SMS includes a fully extensible Web reporting engine, with over 120 pre-built reports. Reports can be customised or created, imported, and exported into other environments.

Product Microsoft Distribution and Asset Management Services
Price Enterprise Edition Server $1019 plus $72 per node
Vendor Microsoft
Phone 13 20 58
Web www.microsoft.com.au
 
Interoperability
Good hardware and software support.
Futureproofing
Very good expansion potential, similar to Altiris.
ROI ½
Very expensive per node.
Service ½
Limited Express warranty, e-mail and phone support, variety of options available.
Rating ½

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Talkback 5 comments

    Geez you guys, do you think yo ...Anonymous -- 15/04/04

    Geez you guys, do you think you could have included appropriate candidates for this topic? Where is Marimba, Landesk, Paradigm, Tivoli?
    The fact that these were not included make this inaccurate!

    Guess Mike in previous comment ...Anonymous -- 18/08/04

    Guess Mike in previous comment does not see the difference in IT asset management and device management. Bigger issue in the items listed is these are all legacy software solutions. Difficult to integrate, upgrade headaches and very intrusive to your environment. Look at products that will grow and support you in the future and link easily to enterprise systems. Look at incontroltechnology.com

    other options Stuart McDonell -- 10/11/05

    Some others to think about include Centennial and Opsware. This doesn't end the list by any means. BMC-Marimba and Tivoli do ITAM also. The Opsware solution ATE (originating in Tangram) was the leader for desktop inventory. It supports all major platforms and allows Lifecycle management. Ask vendors to do a proof of concept, some won't. A proven track record of integrating to similar systems to your own is also important. Regards.

    Sofware Asset Management Review Petar -- 15/03/07

    We have 2 software packages BAM (Biomedical Asset Management) and NAMES (naval asset management ).
    We would like to be reviewed. How can we have you review our software?

    New Player 250 nodes per second Trevor Smith -- 16/04/09

    We are just releasing a competing product that is agentless ie requires no deployment. In appearance is similar to Altiris, does what most of the others do and some things that none do and analyses nodes at the rate of 250 per second and returns data at 2000-3000 nodes per minute. Installation takes 5 minutes and 1 minute later you have the results from 2000-3000 nodes and its cheaper than the rest. 1.5% hit on 10 base network, fragmented data so hi security. Functions from a wireless laptop and over VPNs. You can scan global networks from a single wireless acces point and send the data in real time to a server at another location. Picks up all remote users and anything that connects to the network even internet enabled mobile phones. an extreme example : provided that you have a wireless connection and the relevant access rights you can sit in a restaurant in the UK, scan a distributed enterprise across America and stream the data to a server in Rusia in real time; while eating your lunch and by dessert you will have scanned approximately 100,000 - 150,000 nodes .

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