The Benefits of Inventory Software

Software expenses grow because the entire IT industry is shifting away from being hardware-centric to being software-centric. It used to be that regular hardware upgrades would eat up most IT budgets, not leaving much for anything else. But with the rise of the cloud, computing power can be outsourced for a reasonable price and often comes bundled with cloud-based software solutions. It’s now possible for a software-based business to maintain just a few dozen workstations and still have at its fingertips the limitless power of gigantic server arrays.

While the IT industry has been shifting from hardware to software, the business sector has been embracing the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy, allowing employees to bring personally owned devices to their workplace. The computers that employees bring need to be equipped with the same software the employees would use on business-owned workstations, making license tracking and auditing much more complicated.

Traditional computer inventory software can track only hardware assets, and sometimes non-IT assets. While such software has its place in every company that wants to achieve steady, long-term growth, it doesn’t reflect the needs of modern businesses and organizations. With software taking the central stage, computer inventory software is unable to track the one category of expenses companies spend the most money on—software.

Businesses and organization that rely on aging computer inventory software with limited asset management abilities should consider upgrading to a modern inventory management software solution with robust software license tracking capabilities. The switch to the new inventory management software will inevitably mean additional expenses, but it will pay for itself in the long-term.

Modern inventory software shatters the notion that inventory management takes time from more important things. Such software solutions use inventory management as the foundation for detailed network monitoring and more efficient IT administration.

If you select Network Inventory Advisor as your inventory control software, you can inventory your hardware and software assets with unprecedented speed and efficiency. The asset discovery and gathering process of Network Inventory Advisor consists of just a few simple steps, all of which are adequately explained by the initial asset scanning wizard that appears when you first launch the inventory tracking software.

The initial asset scanning wizard contains two fields. In one field, you enter your administrator login, and in the other field, you enter your administrator password. You can tell Network Inventory Advisor to remember your login details for future use and have it display advanced scanning options. The advanced scanning options include the ability to address scans to single IP addresses or narrowly-defined IP ranges, and the option to capture node data from other data formats.

When you’re ready to start the asset discovery process, simply click on the Start smart scan button, and wait a few moments as Network Inventory Advisor gathers information about your software and hardware assets using its unique asset acquisition engine. As you wait, you can study the detailed visual log Network Inventory Advisor displays during network scanning or configure advanced post-scan options from a drop-down menu located in the lower left corner of the scan window.

Once the network scanning process finishes, you will be taken to the main window, where you can see all the gathered assets, view their details, and generate reports, among many other things.