Asset Management Software for IT equipment

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sonyxperiageek

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#224285 10-Nov-2017 14:58

Hey guys, Has anybody used a good decent asset management software/product that lets you print tags/barcodes/QR codes etc and efficiently manage all the big ticket IT equipment and software? Currently we're just using an Excel spreadsheet.

Thanks.

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sonyxperiageek

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#1899012 10-Nov-2017 17:11

No one has got a recommendation?

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Poll

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Ultimate Geek

#1899014 10-Nov-2017 17:19

I'm doing the same currently and hoping to see what others suggest for you so I can look into it too.

Oldmanakbar

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#1899030 10-Nov-2017 18:10

Its not perfect, but it is a lot cheaper than other options out there.

https://www.manageengine.com/products/service-desk/

Might be a bit over the top and has more modules than you need. But it does assets, licenses, barcodes etc.

Does helpdesk as well if you need that. I have used it for about 5 years.

sonyxperiageek

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#1899041 10-Nov-2017 19:45

Thanks guys. @xpd mentioned Snipe IT which is a free open source software. Doesn't look too bad at a glance... Has anyone successfully implemented Snipe IT? If so, how was it in terms of management etc.?

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WyleECoyoteNZ

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#1899086 10-Nov-2017 21:56

If I can offer a couple of things to consider also:

1) Think about\talk with your Finance team. What do they have, what integrates with what they have?

2) On Point 1, things to consider are depreciation costs associated with big ticket IT equipment and lifecycle replacement timelines for future planning

3) Do you own or lease? New accounting laws\rules come into play soon regarding big ticket lease items

sonyxperiageek

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#1899091 10-Nov-2017 22:38

It's a small to medium company so don't really have a dedicated fiannce software etc. We do own the hardware though.

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lxsw20

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#1899095 10-Nov-2017 23:19

We use Samanage. Not sure it will do the asset tag bit (never looked), but worth a look.

https://www.samanage.com/products/professional/features/it-asset-management/

ANglEAUT

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#1899103 11-Nov-2017 00:23

sonyxperiageek: Thanks guys. @xpd mentioned Snipe IT which is a free open source software. Doesn't look too bad at a glance... Has anyone successfully implemented Snipe IT? If so, how was it in terms of management etc.?

Just this week I've requested an upgrade to v4.x We are still using v1.2. That being said, at v1.x it has promise, but seemed very manual / labour intensive, e.g. it has the neat feature of device shipment recording. The idea is to track an item as the courier takes it to the destination. You have to create a shipment transaction for each item individually (even though it's the same consignment number). You then also have to update the status of this shipment for each item individually. Also has a "bug" where one of the text fields doesn't support additional characters. I'm talking about @ and & here. I'm sure they sorted that by v4.

Oldmanakbar: Its not perfect, but it is a lot cheaper than other options out there. https://www.manageengine.com/products/service-desk/

Can't talk about asset management, as I only tried to establish its usefulness for patching. Sorry.

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ANglEAUT

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#1899104 11-Nov-2017 00:23

I have to agree with WyleECoyoteNZ here. The bigger you get, the more important these things become. See Altiris below.

sonyxperiageek: ... Has anybody used a good decent asset management software/product that lets you print tags/barcodes/QR codes etc and efficiently manage all the big ticket IT equipment and software? ...

I'm glad you don't mention cheap. Previously called Altiris from Symantec. Runs an agent on the workstation for in depth inventory & patching. Had module for remote screen viewing / support. Can be used to deploy software packages and whole machine images. Has finance module integration for depreciation and license / custom items tracking. Previously, Dimension Data had a lot of expertise with Altiris.

Then there also is the free version of Spiceworks.com (referral link). This can import AD users into the Helpdesk / asset management system. For assets, it an scan your network and either do a SNMP query or remotely connect & run a query to interrogate the device. Auto groups devices based on type (if correctly discovered) and you can create your own groups too. It can track / monitor cloud based assets too, like URL, ping response & I think links to Azure / AWS. Previously flash based and couldn't handle large corps with many devices. Great community.

NB While most of these systems support the idea of a barcode, I don't know if any of them can print them for you. Also consider the type of item you consider an asset. Sure, the physical PC & printer & network switch are asset, but what about digital assets? Altiris could track SSL certificates and report on their expiry dates (i.e. proactive report instead of last minute scramble). It could track software licenses, their quantity and expiry / subscription dates. Together with the software inventory module, you could run a report of over or under subscription of your licenses based on actual installed numbers instead of guesses.

Let me know if that helped.

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BTR

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#1899944 13-Nov-2017 08:25

We use a custom database made in FileMaker Pro and use the brother 9700PC label printer.

amgeeknz

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Wannabe Geek

#1939908 16-Jan-2018 16:38

Hello have you taken a look at the Naverisk product we use it for our clients and its pretty decent.

chewster

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#1940016 16-Jan-2018 17:22

Yeah I setup Snipe IT as a demo when I was at my last IT role. Worked good, only issue was having "old school" mgmt who were incredibly resistant to change, so it never got deployed before I left.

It's designed to print via an A4 sticker sheet, which I would recommend as the Dymo label printers I tried typically had a very "grainy" quality which were terrible for QR recognition. What's nice is that each QR points to a URL which you can just load in browser (mobile is good) to which goes directly to an asset page.

The other alternative I looked into was using JIRA service desk + Insight asset mgmt.

You'll probably find the bigger issue is getting buy-in & training by other IT people. If you have the budget and policy allows, then have them host it for you, much easier.

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