IT question: Hardware/Software inventory methods

[kainoa]

Hi All,

 

What methods do you or your IT dept use to track/inventory your company's IT assets (hardware/software)?

 

I'm part of a small firm of 25 and we don't have a dedicated IT dept. We have an IT consultant that comes by only when we have server probs and such. Although we have a couple saavy guys in the firm, we're so swamped with work stuff we really don't have too much time to keep track of our IT assets. Thus, everything is pretty chaotic as we've been buying a lot of stuff as of late. When things cool down a bit, we need to take a weekend to go through every workstation and do a complete inventory. Also, we need to develop a system to easily track things.

 

Any input, suggestions, advice, etc. would be very appreciated. TIA

[Greg Hess]

I keep an excel document with the following seperate sections.

 

Room #

Manufacturer (Dell, Boxx, Gateway, Self Built, etc)

Designation (Computer name or Model # etc Inspirion 6000)

IP Address (if static)

Gigahertz (listed as 1.00 or 0.93, etc)

Processor Type and #

Amount of RAM

Dimm arrangement (2/2 means 2 filled, 2 empty)

Harddrive Size/Config

Operating System

 

This allows you to see which computers are lagging behind, and which can be upgraded at a glance. I've also considered adding mainboard information, but most of the machines at the university are now dells, so I get that information from the model designation.

[kainoa]

Thanks Greg, do you use an excel spreadsheet to inventory software as well?

[Greg Hess]

My inventory of software is a bit erratic. Most of the UMD licenses are all inclusive, so I don't need to worry about many of the major programs such as...

 

Any microsoft product (including OS's)

Any apple product (including OS's)

 

For other things, I generally order concurrent licenses in bulk, so I generally don't keep close track of things other then high dollar expensive licenses such as...

 

SAS

Sequencer

Matlab

 

-Greg