Asset Management Strata

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In such a dangerous climate, it is understandable that many companies are keen to adopt asset management applications. That has led to an explosion in the number of vendors offering tools to satisfy this need. While greatly simplified, following are three distinct strata that can be identified:

  • System/desktop management platforms that include asset management, configuration management, and a host of additional features

  • Asset management suites that include software deployment or other features such as remote management

  • Dedicated asset management utilities

System/Desktop Management Platforms

In this category, tools are geared mainly to large enterprises. They are packaged with features such as remote control, help desk, support for laptops/PDAs, and security. Most are priced around $100 per machine, though prices are falling. This echelon of management encompasses Radia Management Suite by Novadigm, Marimba's Software Management, On Command CCM by ON Technology, Argis by Intraware, Vision64 by SWAN Technology, Computer Associates' Unicenter with AMO, LANDesk Management Suite by Intel, and Microsoft's SMS. Gartner Group notes that Novadigm's Radia Management Suite is the overall leader with the highest license growth rate. The company appears to be taking steps to monopolize the market, or at least a part of it. It has established several agreements with Hewlett-Packard to include Radia inside every commercial server sold and anything managed by Hewlett-Packard's Outsourcing Services Division. Other vendors have followed suit. Altiris software was included on Compaq desktops and laptops (10 million a year). With the Hewlett-Packard/Compaq merger, Hewlett-Packard offers Altiris software as part of its Client Management Suite. ON Technology software offered by Dell is an option that can be preinstalled on all commercial computer orders. IBM Services and Consulting recommends Tivoli to all its clients, while Computer Associates' huge Unicenter user base is a ready market for AMO.

New York City's Fordham University, for example, implemented Unicenter's AMO module to simplify asset management. The school has over 3000 faculty and staff spread among three campuses. All desktops are upgraded every three years as part of a lease agreement with Hewlett-Packard, but managing the software proved to be a nightmare. While Fordham had an asset management application, the IT staff still had to go around to each box and inventory the installed software and settings before manually entering the data into the asset management program. Needless to say, this was a seriously time-consuming task, and the data was frequently inaccurate. Fordham University decided to install Computer Associates' Unicenter AMO, which has a desktop agent that performs the inventory and sends the data to a central database. With AMO, Fordham can inventory the installed software at each user's desktop to find out which users have what applications and to determine the rate of frequency with which each client is utilizing the software. AMO gives the college an accurate representation of licensing needs without technicians having to leave the IT department.

By implementing AMO, Fordham is now able to conveniently collect a full inventory of all the hardware and software elements from every desktop machine running the AMO client. The data is automatically uploaded to a comprehensive resource where a complete history is kept and transferred to a comprehensive resource database. From that point, Fordham's IT team can conduct a wide range of queries to isolate systems by specific criteria and determine what upgrades and maintenance services should be performed. AMO provides IT with complete knowledge of desktop configurations, without their spending a lot of time physically tracking assets or manually inputting data that might very well be inaccurate. When IT personnel are freed from the data collection process, they can focus on providing technical support to university faculty and staff.

Note that the products in this category tend to be focused on the higher end of the market — the large enterprise where asset management tools have to include software deployment, systems management, configuration management, change management, and more. Mid-sized and smaller companies are more attracted to simpler asset management tools or mid-tier suites with a lower price tag.

Asset Management Suites

The middle-level applications consist of products that do asset management/ licensing as well as software deployment and sometimes remote capabilities. They are priced around $20 to $50 per node, although some are higher. Several products within the mid-market seem to be out in front in terms of user base. NetSupport TCO, LANutil32, Blue Ocean, Tally, and Vision 64, for example, each boast a user base of several million. Prices for some of these products are as low as $3 per license on large-site purchases. Other vendors with promising offerings in this area include Asset Management Suite by Altiris and Sitekeeper by Executive Software.

Asset Management Utilities

In this category are a host of companies that offer asset management/license management for $1 to $20 per node. Vendors include Peregrine Systems, Tangram, Centennial, E-Z Audit, TrackBird, Somix, and Blue Ocean. At least fifty products perform asset management, although some of these may lack the robustness demanded by an enterprise environment.



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Server Disk Management in a Windows Enviornment
Server Disk Management in a Windows Enviornment
ISBN: N/A
EAN: N/A
Year: 2003
Pages: 197

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