Inventory Solution
When it comes to Endpoint Management and the inventory of hard- and software, there are a lot of products besides ITMS/Altiris capable of spewing some out hard- and software inventory reports.
I can imagine that you are thinking right now:
So… I got software reports, I got hardware reports, I’ll just use one of these products at random and I’m set!
Bear with me on this one to provide some clear information.
Symantec Altiris is capable of the following without customizing anything in the platform:
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Hardware inventory regardless of the Operating System (Windows, Linux, Unix, Apple, OSX)
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Software inventory regardless of the Operating System (Windows, Linux, Unix, Apple, OSX)
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Inventory of hypervisors (MS, VMware) and their virtual server systems and HW properties
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Inventory of server software like Active Directory, SQL, MS Exchange,...
Besides these topics, let me explain a bit more in detail the plusses that come default with the Inventory Solution:
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Windows Software inventory does not only check the “Add-Remove Programs section, but also checks a lot more parameters like the Windows Registry, Programs and more. The results of these findings are then put in the Symantec CMDB and correlated with a lot of intelligence so granular reports can be used.
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With the Inventory Pack for Servers Solution that comes with Server Management Suite, a detailed overview of various server programs can be integrated so custom reports can be created easily for each purpose.
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One single report can be created with the entire managed client environment divided per hardware manufacturer, model and everything needed for IT staff/management or audit companies
If we’re talking about the management and easy of configuration:
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A web console is provided for the complete management of the Altiris platform (which means the Inventory Solution is in there)
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Prebuild Inventory Policies are already in place and working right after the installation of the platform. They can easily be cloned and changed to the customers’ needs
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Inventory Policies are platform independent, which means that one inventory policy works for everything
All right, now we’ve got the basic stuff covered in a very high-level manner, let’s start talking about the strong points of the Symantec Inventory Solution!
In real life situations, businesses need more than default hard- and software inventories that software.
I’ll give you an example: Company X has bought 2000 custom fonts and deployed them into the organization. These fonts are license based per client.
After two year, there is an audit and management needs a complete overview of the managed clients that have this particular font on their machine within the week.
With the Inventory Solution of Symantec you are capable of:
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Create a new inventory resource type, aka custom dataclass (eg. Font_X)
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Populate this data class thanks to a custom inventory script you can quickly create thanks to a prebuild examples
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Provide a complete overview of the computers that have the font installed in wathever layout needed (pie chart, detailed overview,…)
This is of course only one example of the custom inventory capabilities of the Symantec Inventory Solution to give you a quick idea.
When combining the Inventory Solution with the Asset Management Suite, you are capable of a transparent and complete IT as well as non-IT management if needed from a single product. How cool is that?
Conclusion: the inventory capabilities are endless, going from the basic needs to the most complex needs of every customer in every company.