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? "
God help me (Score:2)
If I ever have time I have been thinking about a database backend with a web frontend.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You've got an excel spreadsheet? You're a lucky bastard.
I have a customized Peoplesoft implementation for asset tracking, designed by three blind goatherds, one of whom also had leprosy (I may be exaggerating a bit. I suspect it was more like twenty, ~since having more people design a system is always a good idea~).
Seriously... Search for asset. Find asset. Enable correct history mode. Click through four forms to get to custodian details. Update custodian details. Run asset update pro
Re: (Score:2)
The first step is to admit you have a problem.
I forget steps 2 through 11, but I am sure:
12. Profit.
OpenNMS (Score:5, Informative)
It's open source, it's free, it's a complete network management system, and you can import existing asset information as well as populate through network discovery. We use it here at the New Mexico Child Youth and Family Development Department, with 53 offices, 2500 workstations, and 80 servers.
http://opennms.org/ [opennms.org]
Re:OpenNMS (Score:5, Informative)
I can agree that OpenNMS is a good choice. It contains most of the features you want for IT administration.
The only disadvantage I have discovered with OpenNMS is that it is a bit heavy on resources, so I would recommend a dedicated server for the monitoring.
Re: (Score:2)
"Youth" usually refers to people who haven't reached the age of majority, but are in many respects taking on adult roles.
See how far you get calling a program for adolescents a "Child..." anything.
Do you want it to be open source or not? (Score:5, Informative)
Want commercial software?: Solarwinds Orion with IP Monitor.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Haha, beat you to it by mere seconds. OpenNMS in the hizzouse! :)
Re: (Score:2)
in the hizzouse!
Daaaaaaad! That's embaaaaaaaaaaaarasing!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And his 4-digit number is even lower than mine. :-)
Yes, I prefer open source, though I guess that wasn't necessarily discoverable from the "I'd like to be able to hack on it" comment.
I hadn't realized OpenNMS did that much inventoryish work; a dedicated server is no problem. I'll add that to my list.
Re: (Score:2)
Look, we old folks may seem 'wiggity-wack' to you young whippersnappers, but let me assure you, we are dope, fresh and fly.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a quote from MC Hawking's song, "Fuck the Creationists." Very funny stuff. "You down with entropy? Yeah you know me!"
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, I don't really care about the judgmentalism, or any other form of mentalism, for that matter. I just like MC Hawking.
Re: (Score:2)
We just purchased LanREV [lanrev.com] which has been pretty good. We have a ton of Macs and this is the only one I could find that could do Macs and PCs (and they have a Linux client coming soon). It has a lot of stuff for handling special cases (such as Adobe software, etc) which makes it worth the money. With OpenNMS you're going to spend a lot of time hacking since there's a lot of different software installers out there, plus the client will have to be deployed manually or you have to write or find a deployer. W
Roll your own... (Score:4, Interesting)
It really isn't that hard to do. And if you setup your database tables and schema correctly so that you can easily expand for new hardware types, buildings/locations, it isn't too hard to maintain. The hardest thing that we deal with is when we move into a new building and we have to generate the floor map, but it doesn't usually take more then a few hours at most.
Re: (Score:2)
Have you looked at releasing your in house app?
Re:Roll your own... (Score:4, Informative)
As I said with ours, since we have the building/floor maps, we do not let you physically type in a location, you have to click on the location from the maps. Again, this removes the chances of someone entering strange data. We do as much pattern matching/validity testing as we can do on the data to make sure it is correct, and have a verification page before data is actually input or changed in the database (with highlighting exactly what is changing). It also keeps a "history" of the hardware, along with who updated the data and when. It sounds a lot more involved then it is. A good schema for the database can easily take care of all these things. History is simply a table that is 3 fields, "id", "item_id", and "value", with "id" and auto increment primary key, item_id a foreign key which corresponds to the particular item, and value a text blob which stores HTML formatted text output of the fields that were changed, the old values, the new values, the date, and by whom. The information that gets placed in that is handled by the PHP webpage.
I think we have something like 6-7 tables in our schema. Separating anything that we wanted to keep uniform into its own table which we have an administration front end to modify or add to those tables (things like manufacturers, models, etc). Again the idea is to make as little as possible be up to the human inputting the data so that the data will be consistent which will allow you to actually search for things and be sure that you find all of them, and not miss something because someone made a typo when entering the manufacturer name.
It took probably 4 months from soup to nuts. But at the time, we had to compile everything from source code (something like a LAMP server wasn't really there yet, and you had to compile mysql, apache, and PHP to get them all to work properly back then). Now its a push of a button and it is basically done. In fact we had to compile the compilers before we could compile the LAMP software. A lot has changed in the last 10 years...
GLPI (Score:4, Interesting)
This might be the sort of thing, coupled with the OCNS agent it'll scan your network and log all the data into a myql database. Ticket system which allows users to report stuff attached to an asset, reporting, contracts, and stuff. Worth a look.
I'll second that (Score:2)
I have used this set up successfully to catalog 100's of workstations, servers, and network devices across 5 states.
I also added NetDisco for tracking and discovery of network gear.
Configuration Management DataBase (Score:2, Troll)
There must be a million of them. Yeah, you can get autodiscovery as well.
Google is your friend.
Re: (Score:2)
Google doesn't really know *what actual users think of the program*, generally, which I thought it was obvious was the point.
IE: "LMGTFY" isn't a particularly helpful response.
Re: (Score:2)
There must be a million of them.
I'll bet that's EXACTLY why the OP is asking for recs.
Re: (Score:2)
It was indeed.
And yes, I do.
OCS (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah I like OCS Inventory + GLPI, for network monitoring I use Nagios, though I'm seriously considering checking out OpenNMS to replace my Nagios 2.9 installation.
Re: (Score:2)
We use OCSNG + GLPI for inventory, though for network monitoring I had decided to go with Zenoss Core over Nagios as I just didn't understand how to set Nagios up. OpenNMS does look interesting though.
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: (Score:3)
Yes it does! NOW STFU RTFM N00b
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Nope, I'm a disciple of the BOFH. I bow down in awe of his teachings!
Re: (Score:2)
It's easy to to tag "domyjobforme" because so many of the "Ask Slashdot" stories are just awful. There was one a day or so ago which was something like "I take my laptop places, and it might get stolen, how do I encrypt a disk with Windows XP" which could have been answered in .08 seconds a la Google. There was a clear winner that had high ratings, was open source, etc.
No, I'm not the tagging culprit that you speak of, but so often, you just think: WTF?
I'll agree with you on this point: sometimes there are
Re: (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: (Score:2)
You're welcome. :-)
In fact, I'm getting a lot of useful answers out of the responses (even if some of them amount to "please! Add me to your block list! :-).
And, like you, it does make "reading Slashdot" a more defensible addition to my daily task list.
Re:To the toolboxes... (Score:5, Funny)
Wrong way..
Q. How do I get my HP all-in-one printer to work in Red Hat?
A. STFU Noob. RTFM.....
Right Way..
Q. Red Hat Sucks. It won't even print to my HP all-in one printer. I'm going to install Windows XP. At least it works.
A. Oh my god, don't do that. All you need to do is edit foobar.print.cfg and change edrtflg$ = 0
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, what does software licensing have to do with getting annoyed at gits who don't know their job?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The submitter should try a forum, this is a news site.
Dear Slashdot Forum,
you're never going to believe this, but every word of it is true.
Last Tuesday, me and my network inventory specialist, I'll call her Sally, were managing a little inventory, if you get my drift, when our assistant IT admin Veronica walked in unannounced. Well, from there things got a little freaky....to be continued....
Re: (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: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.
Open-AudIT (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Asset Tracker for RT a toolkit? (Score:3, Informative)
Your description of AT is completely off. I'm an active user of RT and Asset Tracker (AT). It's not a toolkit at all, it's a clean modification that adds an 'Assets' link in the nav bar where you hold assets. From there you create and manage custom fields and custom field values from within the standard locations of RT. At no point must you know a URL to do anything in RT or AT. There are simple or complex searches, linking assets to others (depends on, requires, etc) is simply typing a few letters into a box to search on, then choose the appropriate action from a dropdown box.
Unfortunately there have been no releases of AT in a while, but it still cleanly applies even to the latest version of RT. It does have a new home for its code on google code [google.com] and is getting updates, just not a new release for a few years.
I'd avoid Kbox (Score:2)
Sounds like you want LAN Desk (Score:2)
But expect to pay a pretty penny for it [landesk.com].
The application does more than remote control system, it can also do inventory scans of software and hardware.
Beyond that you got me...
Nagios? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nagios? For asset tracking? "I was trying to check my e-mail using using apache, and it just wasn't living up to my expectations at all...." I guess when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
http://www.open-audit.org/ [open-audit.org] does a nice job of tracking on the windows side. Set up xampp, unzip the contents of the openaudit zip file into the htdocs directory, visit the side, move on with your life. Open Audit as a project is a little hackish and informal for my tastes, but it does pass the JFW (just fucking works) test. Tracks assets, installed software, license keys. It's just a PHP frontend for WMI results, so if WMI is acting funny, then open audit will be funny too. I also doubt it'll do much for network device inventory other than identifying approximately what the device is. (Printers show up ok, I doubt switches or routers will appear as anything other than "other".)
My suggestion for integrating Nagios would be to set an action URL for each of your hosts that in turn points to the Open Audit page for that particular host, unless you're already using the action URL for PNP (and if you're not, you should be for some of your hosts.)
Re: (Score:2)
forgot to mention, if you've got linux boxes, you can do inventory for those devices using the Hardware Abstraction Layer and an easily Cron'd script.
Re: (Score:2)
Does windows/linux (vb script and bash script respectively), random devices (using nmap) etc. Run it at wo
Re: (Score:2)
So, no, I'm not trying to use Nagios for inventory; merely pointing out that I already use it for monitoring, so integrated inventory/monitor software needs to be enough better to make ditching it worthwhile.
If you need the hardware actually inventoried... (Score:2)
I need a job. Inventory is my background.
Why the hell would you prefer Perl and C over Java (Score:2)
Java is a walk in the park compared to these two to maintain...
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know. Maybe he's a Unix guy and knows those three well. Maybe the rest of his coworkers do, too. Etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Not if you don't know it.
I tracked 300 PCs and all software (Score:2)
using a simple Access database for many years. One table for hardware, one for software, tied together. Every time I'd get a group of licenses for software I'd bang them in there, then gradually assign the software to machines. The software table had fields to invoice numbers and dates, so I could always prove, in an instant, that any given copy was legit.
The commercial stuff, especially for your size, is really overkill. I tried some over the years and they were just too complex for what is a fairly simple
GLPI (Score:2)
We've been using GLPI for several years now. It's web-based, customizable to a fair degree, and free.
Can be found here [glpi-project.org].
Kwok and Open-AudIT (Score:2, Informative)
I have found Open-AudIT [open-audit.org] to be a good tool for tracking the 'soft' side of the house with minimal pain while
Kwok Information Server [kwoksys.com] was a better tool for tracking 'hard' assets. Both are open source.
Might be overkill but... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh god, not Altiris!
My company, a huge multinational company, recently switched to Altiris for inventory tracking, license management, and software delivery.
From what I can tell, on a global network with somewhere in the neighborhood of 500,000 machines, it's ok for inventory, great for controling licenses, and terrible at software delivery.
Using Altiris it takes upwards of ten times longer to install applications that reside on the same servers that our old in-house scripting team used. Servers didn't mov
I rolled my own (Score:2)
It's a command line utility written in .net that cranks out system information into a comma delimited file on a shared directory on each machine. Have a batch file that copies the output to a single directory on my machine and merges the lot. I suppose I could tweak it to update an sql database and put together a nice front-end for others, but for my teeny 100 system kingdom, it's sufficient. Free too, since I wrote the thing.
OpenNMS (Score:2)
OpenNMS has fields for serial number, location, asset number, etc. etc.
Or if your hardware is all HP-branded you can use their free HP SIM software. We managed to get HP SIM to work with dell machines too, by loading up a custom SNMP MIB.
Mod me down! Sharepoint! (Score:2, Informative)
Surely i will be modded down for suggesting a microsoft solution, but your problem is pretty simple to solve with a sharepoint server. Its free (there is a pay version as well), and if you have office and don't mind using IE, it integrates nicely. Plays OK with firefox, just cant do some advanced editing (spreadsheet view, some imports). Sharepoint is a bitch sometimes as its a microsoft product and thus designed badly, but there is certainly alot of support out there in the form of plugins and templates. I
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
100 workstations and 40 servers? Spreadsheet (Score:2, Funny)
100 workstations and 40 servers? Spreadsheet.
Don't over complicate this until you need to.
When you have 200 workstations and have completed your virtualization consolidation project and are down to 8 servers, then you'll have time to worry about all this again.
Ask again in 3 years.
OCS Inventory-NG (Score:3, Informative)
I've been using it on an old Linux box for over 3 years now and I'm pretty pleased with it. You need a Unix or Windows computer to act as a server; on Linux it's a basic LAMP stack plus some specific PHP and Perl modules, and on Windows it comes as one package that includes everything you need. Then you install the client software on each computer that needs to be inventoried. There are clients for Windows and generic Unix (Linux, *BSD, Solaris, Mac OSX, etc.).
It'll track IP address, hostname, MAC, what software's installed, username, whether it's on an Active Directory domain, subnet, all hardware including serial number. You can also configure it to use Nmap to have an auto-elected client in each subnet do a quick scan to determine what other devices are on that subnet and optionally try to detect what it is (Linux box, Windows box, printer, switch). It can also push out packages to clients.
If you want to expand some more, OCS also integrates with GLPI to provide helpdesk ticketing, license tracking, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
The auto-discovery sounds interesting to me, and you're the 4th or 5th person who's mentioned GLPI...
140 machines? (Score:2)
Not worth the hassle of implementing some high tech solution. The data sound like stuff that changes rarely if ever, stuff you need for accounting reports or such once a year, not stuff you need on a moment's notice. So I'd just use:
Loose leaf binder.
Text file.
Or, if I could be bothered, Excel worksheet.
Re: (Score:2)
A text file can be placed under revision control using e.g. CVS so it can be safely used by many people and from many places. (You also get an audit trail for free).
Excel doesn't work well with that. Plus, you need Windows machines to read it. So I'd vote for text file (although I'd prefer Excel to a web application/relational database monster).
Re: (Score:2)
Not that I have any love of Excel, but it's ubiquitous and easy to throw a small table of data like this in and get it out if you need it.
Re: (Score:2)
No, actually we tend to do 4-6 MACs a month.
But I've been a database programmer for 20 years. Data doesn't belong in (30 different copies of) a spreadsheet; it belongs in a database.
AlterPoint Device Authority (Score:2)
I've had good experiences with AlterPoint. We did a very large network with it...> 10,000 devices. That was only the routers, switches, ASAs, and such. Server Support and PC Support used LanDesk.
Did some customization with PERL with no problems. Expensive, but rock solid.
We use a custom application... (Score:2)
...that I wrote in PHP. We have over 140 servers and 70+ workstations. Never mind the switches, mobile phones, monitors, demo machines and loaner equipment. Keeping track of all that in a spreadsheet was getting a little tedious. It worked but it wasn't the best solution. I wrote something up in an afternoon using php and apache that allows us to add/delete/edit equipment if you log in using apache. If you don't log in you get a ready only view of everything sorted by asset tag number.
A friend of mine recen
The complete list (Score:3, Informative)
of sites for suggested packages is below. It will take me about a week to go through them all, but I'll try to get a posting up here next weekend closing the loop; thanks y'all.
http://opennms.org/
http://www.lanrev.com/
http://www.glpi-project.org/?lang=en
http://www.ocsinventory-ng.org/
http://www.open-audit.org/
http://www.kwoksys.com/
http://www.symantec.com/business/theme.jsp?themeid=altiris
http://www.spiceworks.com
http://www.belarc.com
http://www.i-doit.org/
http://opennetadmin.com/
http://www.zenoss.com/community/open-source-network-monitoring-software
http://www.komodolabs.com/
http://netdisco.org/
http://racktables.org/
http://www.staffandline.com/
http://www.invgate.com/
http://www.kiwisyslog.com/kiwi-cattools-overview/
http://pulse2.mandriva.org/
https://www.versiera.com/
http://www.netcraftcommunications.com/
http://openerp.com/
Re: (Score:2)
spiceworks?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, i would. Because then the ip information is always in one place - DHCP server - and there will be no conflicts and this information is *always* up to date. If a device needs a static address (e.g. a server or switch) i just assign it an IP address according to its MAC address in DHCP server. Everything else gets an address from the dynamic range.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Because if it goes down for 2 days you eventually won't get any snmp data from your switch?
1.) Why would people use a lease time of under 1 or 2 days for static infrastructure? (or 7 days even)
2.) Do DHCP failures for more than 24 hours fit into your uptime requirements?
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: (Score:2)
Servers = static or reserved DHCP
Printers = reserved DHCP
Network gear = static, but competely under control, right?
Random network devices = reserved DHCP (signage, VoIP phones, card access, cameras, speakers, projectors, control processors, energy management etc.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Longer lease times, perhaps?
Re: (Score:2)
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
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My approach is to use static addresses for servers and network switch management consoles, and fixed-lease DHCP for everything else, personally.
We're big enough that I've ripped off 10.10/16 and 10.11/16 for our 2 campuses, and I block certain categories of stuff into specific class-Cs. I'm not fond of overloading semantics on addresses, but sometimes you just have to...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Making the DHCP server use DHCP is more amusing...
Re: (Score:2)
OCS seems to be superior for pure inventory -ie CPUs, RAM, NIC, and HW and has a cleaner interface.
NMS has more active agent-based monitoring (extensible via SNMP) and is really good at tracking connectivity/downtime by NIC and also network stats such as packet stats over time, etc. and has decent time sequence graphs out of the box.
they are both open source and seem to have their different strengths, so try 'em both out a
Re: (Score:2)
GLPI is an invaluable add on to OCSNG IMO. Inventory is somewhat separate from Monitoring IMO - I don't necessarily want to monitor every desktop, but I do want to know where it is... We use Zenoss Core for Monitoring "stuff", and it works quite well once you learn how to configure it. I suppose that's true for everything though.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I tried Spiceworks for a few months, but found it just an unreal pain in the ass on some workstations. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I'd get a workstation working, it would work for a week, then croak. I also found the web interface kind of clunky and non-intuitive.
In the end, I created some spreadsheets. Works pretty well, maybe doesn't have quite the depth that the "for real" management systems do, but it has important stuff like operating system, software, install keys, users, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
I cannot understand why people have so many damn servers. You have almost a server for every 2 machines.
In my systems I have 4 servers for 200 machines. Why so many?
Re: (Score:2)
When I started my job we had 2 servers for every 1 employee. Never mind the desktop to employee ratio.
Thankfully I have now reduced that to about 4 employees per server.
Re: (Score:2)
It really depends on the business model, specifically if you're offering services on the Internet, you've probably got a small administrative staff managing a huge number of servers. Or what about companies with big render farms?
Here we have about 80 servers (~60 physical, the rest virtualized) and about 600-700 workstations. We also have over 6,000 employees.
Re: (Score:2)
Am I the only one who has seen the same level of incompetance in the private sector?
In the private sector, you don't have nearly the burden to justify purchases and performance, so you're a lot more likely to have really wasteful implementations perpetuated endlessly.
So, for my part, I've seen a lot MORE incompetence in the private sector.
Barcoding is *excellent* (Score:2)
Barcoding is one of the simplest ways to do quick physical asset logging. You can get free Code 39 fonts which allow you to use even the most basic labels if you're stuck, and a decent CCD barcode reader is dirt cheap these days.
The only thing I find exceptionally annoying is Microsoft not putting the license codes in barcode format - it would be much quicker to log and enter - but I guess that's to stop people from copying them. They have obviously not heard of camera phones..
Re: (Score:2)
The whole 'install on a desktop' thing bugs me for things that should be server apps.
I guess it depends on how you work (and how many people work on it). I for one am glad about choice :)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As noted above, smartass, those are the executive, management, and utility workstations. That doesn't count the 499 workstations at which (ahem) actual work gets done.
And we've drawn down, on reflection; it's down to about 30 active servers now.
20:1 isn't too bad a ratio, for what we do.
And, no, after 18 months, I've gotten 2 raises and a bonus, and I'm making about twice what they hired me at.
Re: (Score:2)
This got modded down to zero, but there was actually a fair amount of useful information in the 2s and 1s, and I thought this one deserved an answer:
The person who cares is me: when my boss asks "so, *why* do we need to buy more workstations on top of those 70 we bought last August?"
If I don't have an answer, I won't have too happy a life.