January 2, 2021

How to Choose a Server Inventory Tool

Monitor server and workstations performance with Network Inventory Advisor. It will help you detect any changes in server or network configuration, compare items to see if there are any computers with incorrect configuration or security flaws.
Editor’s choice 2019
Network Inventory Advisor
Automatically collect all relevant data on all network devices and get detailed OS and devices statistics.
Network Inventory Advisor for Windows scans Windows, Mac OS X, Linux computers and SNMP devices, any of them will count as a node.

What is Server Inventory

Server inventories contain useful information on server performance. Previously the organizations kept server inventory details in spreadsheets that were manually created and manually managed. However with time data became more complex and overwhelmed the spreadsheets so they couldn't keep up anymore.

“Currently one can choose a powerful server inventory tool that will monitor server performance and round up all important details”

Currently one can choose a powerful server inventory tool that will monitor server performance and round up all important details. Some tools can map to all servers in a corporation and update server details immediately upon any change. All collected data can be accessed from remote locations with a custom API.

The details one can find in a server inventory:

  • Server name
  • Domain name
  • IP address (both IPv4 and IPv6)
  • Operating system info
  • Server status
  • DNS suffix
  • Server type (such as DNS or DHCP)
  • Last data retrieval status
  • Last manageability status
  • Next recommended action, if any
  • Event log access status (such as blocked or unblocked)
  • DHCP audit share status

Additionally, server inventories can provide the information on virtual servers and other related data like patch management and continuity planning.

Why Server Inventory is important

Server Inventory tools collect hardware and software details from servers all over your corporation into a centralized database. A network administrator can view and use the complete inventory of no-matter-how-large enterprise within one database.

Server inventory information is an important part of helping make business management decisions. These are several examples of conclusions you can make regarding servers in your business:

  • Servers may need new apps;
  • Servers may need hardware and drivers updates;
  • Servers must conform to the corporate hardware and software standards.

Editor’s choice 2019
Network Inventory Advisor
Automatically collect all relevant data on all network devices and get detailed OS and devices statistics.
Network Inventory Advisor for Windows scans Windows, Mac OS X, Linux computers and SNMP devices, any of them will count as a node.

Server Inventory Properties

Check out the comprehensive chart of what information you can get with server inventory tool.

Subsystem Description
CPU Shows the socket name, status, number of cores, cores enabled, number of threads, vendor, version, signature of the CPUs on your server.
Memory Shows the size, data width, speed, locator, and serial number of the DIMMs on your server.
Fans Shows the status, power state, and speed of the fans on your server.
IO Devices Shows the description, type, vendor, MAC address and serial number of the I/O devices on the server.
Storage Shows the description, type, vendor, size, bus info, and serial number of the storage devices on the server.
BIOS Shows the vendor, version, physical ID, size, capacity, and boot order of the BIOS on the server.
PCI Device Shows the list of PCI devices on the server.

Choosing your server inventory tool

Software server inventory tool is a technology for supporting key software asset management (aka SAM) processes. SAM practice embraces management and optimization of the purchase, deployment, maintenance and disposal processes for software applications around the enterprise.

When making a decision on the server inventory tool pay attention to the following:

  1. An Integrated Platform of Solutions. You only want an inventory tool that is flexible and adaptable to constantly changing infrastructure of any business big or small.
  2. A Comprehensive Discovery Engine. The server inventory tool you are looking for should be up-to-date with new network devices no matter the OS, personal gadgets, scanners, etc. It has to have powerful discovery capabilities.
  3. Software License Compliance. You definitely should be able to easily track the license compliance throughout your business.
  4. Scalable Architecture. You need a solution that will be scalable enough to be able to allow you to monitor even thousands of nodes throughout many locations with various network configurations. You also want a solution that doesn't require time-consuming and expensive programming, but would rather be intuitive and easy to set up.
  5. Built-In, Broad-spectrum Reporting and Dashboards. Broad reports setup and measurement dashboards are important as well.

And don't forget to follow the common sense when choosing such an important software solution as server discovery and server monitoring tool.

Editor’s choice 2019

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