Best Tools For Network Inventory Management? 251
jra writes "Once every month or so, people ask here about backups, network management, and so on, but one topic I don't see come up too often is network inventory management — machines, serial numbers, license keys, user assignments, IP addresses, and the like. This level of tracking is starting to get out of hand in my facility as we approach 100 workstations and 40 servers, and I'm looking for something to automate it. I'm using RT (because I'm not a good enough Web coder to replace it, not because I especially like it) and Nagios 3. I've looked at Asset Tracker, but it seems too much like a toolkit for building things to do the job, and I don't want my ticket tracking users to have to be hackers (having to specify a URL for an asset is too hackish for my crew). I'd prefer something standalone, so I don't have to dump RT or Nagios, but if something sufficiently good looking comes by, I'd consider it. I'd like to be able to hack a bit here and there, if I must. Perl and Python, along with C, are the preferred implementation languages; least favorite is Java. Anyone care to share their firsthand experiences with this topic, and what tools they use (or built) to deal with it? "
To the toolboxes... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:To the toolboxes... (Score:4, Insightful)
Amen. Unfortunately there will always be elitist arses who think that just because they know a little bit about some obscure topic, anyone who doesn't is a lazy slacker. I don't have any need for asset tracking of this nature at the moment, but i found the topic interesting, and learned something from the few comments that have appeared so far. The politics and YRO topics bore me to tears. These topics are why I still bother to visit this site.
Re:To the toolboxes... (Score:2, Insightful)
So you want the "Ask Slashdot" section dropped entirely? After all, none of them are really news.
Re:To the toolboxes... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not really... but in case I hear those dreaded words ("What is slashdot.org") come review time... I'll have some defensive ammunition.
Re:To the toolboxes... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or he could try the Ask Slashdot section.
Oh wait...
P.S.: Slashdot is not really a news site. It looks like it is, but it isn't. It's a news aggregation site who'd primary "feature" is the opinions of fellow slashdotters. Most news sites don't recieve or want comments on their stories. Slashdot does, and the entire site is built around facilitating that. Go check out a slashdot story sometime to see what I mean. There will be a 200 word summary post and 150 comments, most of them centered on three or four discussions. That's Slashdot's added value to the news they serve. Hell, half the time the news here is stone cold, broke out days weeks or months before Slashdot got ahold of it, but the discussions make it interesting.
Re:you track your IP addresses? (Score:4, Insightful)
Printers=static
network gear=static
random network devices=static
In any non-trivial network you will have a significant percentage of your IP space utilized by static devices. Then you get into tracking multiple sites and their associated network information and it starts to get fairly complicated. We're small enough with a couple dozen sites and a dozen or so subnets at our corporate campus that we use a multi-tabbed excel document with the first tab being a table of contents.
Re:you track your IP addresses? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:you track your IP addresses? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no reason to add the dependency of a DHCP server to many of those services. Reserved DHCP works great under some situations but if you're talking about a static set of servers or equipment, static ip is more reliable.
Depends on your situation and your resources. A while ago I did a favor for a friend in a mid size office (300 people or so) lacking a real sysadmin where they asked me to re-ip the entire network on a short notice. Luckily I had the foresight to make sure just about everything was on DHCP or static DHCP. With renewal time lowered to 24 hours - this gave me a 12 hour window - perfect for overnight reset. During the day I wrote a quick script to dump out, massage and re-write the static IPs in DHCP DB. After everyone gone home that night, all I had to do is change IPs on a the few static servers (DHCP server mostly) - activate the new DHCP scope and go home. 1/2 hour worth of work. Next morning everything was up and running, and for the few people who complained(there are always a few), a reboot fixed everything.
So yes, static IPs are more reliable on small network or if you are well staffed and have time to burn. But there is value in static DHCP when you are understaffed. Of course it makes it much more important to keep the DHCP server up, but hey, you still have at least 1/2 your renewal time to fix it and hopefully you are monitoring your DHCP server.
-Em