Tools to track assets in your environment?

My department is posed a challenge of reconciling data from multiple sources to track assets. We are going with a centralized database, but we need to get the assets on the network and have them report back.

The network is relatively flat so reporting from IP etc is not happening at this point and time.

SCCM leverages WMI on some of the servers and desktops/laptops etc. But for the devices that are older or have a problem with WMI are there other sources out there or tools?

My co-worker is using powershell to hit against AD to pull some data, the script is great and it **** into Word and a XML file. I would like to be able to hit printers and get real granular data from machines, like if they have local print drivers installed etc.

What solutions do you use to manage your assets?

Thanks

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Comments

Qord

We mainly use Lansweeper:
Network Inventory and Software Inventory Management for Windows Networks

But I've heard good things about Spiceworks too:
Free IT Community, Help Desk, and Network Monitoring - Spiceworks

Both are free, although Lansweeper does have a pay-for support plan.

Tried to get some screenshots, but I can't get onto my vpn for some reason. I'll get you some detailed pics of it tomorrow, that'll give you some good detail of the kind of info you can glean from it. I think you'd be pleasantly surprised, especially considering the price.

ptilsen

IIRC, Lansweeper uses WMI as well. Can't recall how Spiceworks does it, but with few exceptions these applications use either an agent, WMI, or both for getting info from Windows hosts. SCCM actually uses the agent to pull inventory, not WMI over the network, but the agent doesn't work if WMI doesn't work.

We used Labtech at my last job, but it had frequent issues on XP and Server 2003, and it's hardly a replacement for SCCM.

Give Lansweeper a shot though, as it might get some stuff from systems that won't run the SCCM client agent.

Granular stuff that you want is best done through custom WMI queries. I write them in PowerShell sometimes before I bring them into SCCM, but there's no reason you have to use them in SCCM. You can do it all from PowerShell, or most scripting languages, really.

Hitting non-Windows devices like printers, switches, etc. is going to take SNMP. I believe Lansweeper will do that.

Once again, at my last job, we used Labtech, and it did decent detection of SNMP and would let you import MIBs to do extra stuff with specific devices. It was a pain to setup, though, and I don't know if they ever got anything useful from it.

For a more practical purpose, we started using an IPAM VM (designed for Fusion/Workstation but convertible to ESX and others) to just pull basic info about any device on a given subnet. It made planning and executing projects for and servicing numerous clients much better. We would export the data from the IPAM system, cross-reference with DNS, and build a fancy spreadsheet showing all the static devices on the subnet, the DHCP scope, etc. Very nice for preventing IP conflicts and having structure to IP address assignment when you have a lot of disparate networks to manage. I don't know if I would go to the same effort at a larger org, however.

One thing I will advise is to not get too lost in the search for perfect data. When you have specific goals that add specific value, seek the data that meets those. I've seen a lot of time wasted setting this stuff up to have it basically go unused. Sure, it's neat to look at, but without a plan to do something productive with it, it's useless.

Qord

It does use WMI, and it does use SNMP for devices. You can also have it pull from AD to get domain user info.

Here's a couple ss's of Lansweepers management page. This is the "summary" page for my workstation.

Here's the kind of info you can pull up from the "Config" tab:

Something you specifically mentioned was locally installed printers. Here's what I've got installed. None of these are network printers, these are just what's seen as local:

The latest version of spicheworks is amazing, best tool i ever used for asset tracking. Takes some time to tweak it but when it works is very stable.

N2IT

Thanks providing a lot of good info

inscom.brigade

we use netbrain it is very very cool, but it is sooooo expensive! we have a couple of licenses, each cost over $6000.00.

I was on a call last week with a guy who had desktop issue, and i said waht your ip; i said your on the 8th floor in new york, he said yeah.
it build live l3, & l2 topology. I am doing netbrain training now
Automate Network Diagram and Visual Network Troubleshooting - NetBrain

Psoasman

Numara Track it! also provides a nice way to keep various categories of assets organized. Good help desk tool, as well.