Hardware & Software Inventory

Lee H

Hi


How many teckys here are working in or have ever worked in a place were there is no inventory on hardware or software. This is insane, how are you supposed to remember every tiny detail without this

I am pretty sure its standard practice and the majority will have one, just wondering how many other IT teckys have seen this in any of there IT jobs


Lee H

richyfivealive

Ive worked at lots of companys without one! I find it very common, Normally end up donig one and then its not kept upto date!

gojericho0

Its especially bad if the company leases there equipment. Its kind of hard to return something when you don't know where it is

undomiel

No hardware or software inventory here. I still discover "new" things every now and then.

vCole

I couldn't imagine not having inventory. I'd faint.

We use Track-It! here for auditing/inventory/tickets.

Lee H

That is shocking

Does anyone even know how many clients are on their network?

Also I am keen to know what naming convention people use on their network, were I currently work we have all the PC's named as whatever the user's first name is, and we have 130 clients so its a bit annoying.

So you will have guessed, we dont have an inventory and all PC's are called example "BOB"

I prefer a much more regimented approach to IT support, documentation is very important, I believe every single thing should be documented, Inventory both hardware and software, procedures to install every bespoke or basic apps, catalogue of all incidents that needed IT to solve including who reported what the problem was and what the fix was.

Does anyone work in an environment that follows these rules

Lee H

dynamik

We only have about 30 people here, so it's really not a big deal. Most machines are Windows with Office. There's only a few people that need specialized apps, so it's pretty easy to keep track off. There's no consistency amongst the hardware; they add a couple random machines every year.

bjaxx

FadeToBright wrote:

I couldn't imagine not having inventory. I'd faint.

We use Track-It! here for auditing/inventory/tickets.

Track it sucks

TechJunky

I could give you a few vbs scripts that grabs software applications across a domain, if that helps.

I also have one that grabs all the keys being used.

Slowhand

bjaxx wrote:

Track it sucks

Very. . .uhm, "constructive".

In any case, I've worked in a place where the internal hardware and software wasn't kept track of, only the customers' equipment was. In the time I've worked, I've used MXP, Igloo (proprietary), Autotask, Siebel, ConnectWise, and Kaseya for various auditing/ticketing/hair-pulling tasks. So far, I can recommend Autotask and ConnectWise, as well as Kaseya. Siebel is a bit too muddled for my tastes, unless you're willing to spend the time to customize it on a very, VERY granular level.

vCole

bjaxx wrote:

FadeToBright wrote:

I couldn't imagine not having inventory. I'd faint.

We use Track-It! here for auditing/inventory/tickets.

Track it sucks

Well it works for our ~500ish users. Also since it keeps a database on SQL, Crystal Reports are super fast and easy. Yes it does have it problems, but their tech. support is quite friendly and knowledgeable.

Also Lee,

We have about ~500 users. That includes corporate office, 4 southern offices and field(Foremen). We have 208 Desktops and 230 laptops. Also we have about 20+ Wyse terminals. The naming convention was just the persons first initial last name, but now it's by computer name.

LC = Laptop Computer then the number
C = Computer(Desktop) then the number
T= Terminal then the number.

Works out well.

shednik

bjaxx wrote:

FadeToBright wrote:

I couldn't imagine not having inventory. I'd faint.

We use Track-It! here for auditing/inventory/tickets.

Track it sucks

I wasn't a fan of it myself but it did have some nice features to it...I always hated having to fix the broken email agent it used to happen 3-4 times a week it wasn't difficult but was just an annoyance. It probably didn't help that at my last company there were running 2 previous versions. But back to the topic I don't know what I'd do without some type of inventory system in place, things would be a mess.

Lee H

It makes sense to know exactly what IT equipment you ahve on your network, I am having a hard time of late doing it manually due to no software being available, I tried spiceworks thats pretty cool but not every PC was switched on and the majority all have the windows firewall enabled

What is annoying me most is not the fact that I have to do this audit myself but the fact that it wasnt already done in the first place

Wish me luck, not even half way through yet, then onto the game development kits they are just massive, laptops, TV's and printers

Lee H

Ahriakin

When I started with my current company we didn't have any inventory. We implemented NetDNA after about 6 months - the best part of that project being when our esteemed executives told us to do a manual inventory first so we'd know exactly how many machines we needed NetDNA licenses for....I think they ever so SLIGHTLY missed the point of the software and the reason we had pre-arranged flexible licensing.

OCS Inventory is also a very good free Inventory system.