Accounting of computers in a modern enterprise

What is it all about? Modern realities are such that computers today are the same tools of labor as, for example, a lathe or a tractor. And just like any mechanism, it requires maintenance: upgrades to operating systems, replacement of failed or obsolete components, installation of software, signing contracts for the purchase of license keys to software and much more. If you do not take the measures listed in time, this can lead to serious malfunctions in the entire system.

Imagine a network of several hundred computers. The management makes a decision to purchase a software product vital for the company's work. A huge amount of money is spent on the license, but when the contract is signed and all the keys are on hand, it suddenly turns out that on half of the machines there is an operating system that does not fit the system requirements of the license already purchased. While the court and the case, while the sysadmins urgently reinstall the OS, update them to the desired versions, etc., part of the license period is already underway, and therefore part of the funds spent is also spent in the sand, without any benefit. If the management had previously laid out a report on the installed software on remote PCs, including the OS, beforehand, then it would be able to quickly assess the possibilities of introducing new software and, before buying it, bring the users' computers in compliance with the requirements.

The process of accounting for computers can not be fast, because it requires great accuracy in capturing the collected data. But thanks to new technologies in the software market today, you can find many solutions to greatly facilitate this process.

The essence of the work of such software is simple: the computer accounting program is installed on the administrator's machine, scans the network to compile a list of computers included in it, and then polls them, collecting information into a single inventory database. The entire process is fully automated. Intervention of the system administrator is required only at the initial stage of setting, for example, administrator rights, if information is collected through WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation). The schedule of computer polls can be configured, so this part of the worries is removed from the shoulders of the manual.

A hitch taking into account computers can occur if all computers in the organization or a part of them are not networked. But this problem is solved: you can collect all the inventory information with the help of agents or customers that come with the computer accounting program. In this case, the system administrator will have to spend some time to install and configure them on remote PCs. All the rest of the work is done automatically: clients or agents are started when the computer is turned on and immediately they start gathering the necessary information. The system administrator then simply imports it into the main program module. Thus, he has a complete picture of everything that enters the network. It can analyze the information received, create reports and summary tables, etc. Despite the seemingly high time consuming when collecting information using this method, they are still immeasurably less expensive when manually accounting for a PC. So, the system administrator can spend his time solving other pressing issues.

Whatever field of activity the company is engaged in, its computer park is the same assets as everything else that is on its balance sheet. Thanks to the timely registration of computers and continuous network audit, the management of these assets is simplified. This, in turn, allows you to optimize not only the costs of maintaining a local network, but also the overall management methods.