IT inventory / asset management infrastructure

two00lbwaster · 14 Jan 2013 at 12:57

Hi there,

I work for a smallish IT services based company with about 30 staff which is rapidly growing. This means that IT equipment and software resources are also rapidly expanding, so we would like to put into place a relatively cheap asset/inventory tracking system; whilst it's much easier to do so.

We'd like something like a wifi bar code scanner (or bar code scanner app for mobile phones, something portable to take around the company offices over both floors), and a bar code printer which would allow us to stick a sticker on hardware as it comes into the business. We would then also start collating serial numbers of these assets into the same database and keep copies of the database off site; in case of theft/fire/flood typical DR stuff.

Has anyone else deployed stuff like this/used stuff like this where they might be able to make some suggestions?

Most of the equipment is static, but we do have some laptops and tablets in the company; although the tablets don't normally go off site we'd like to get into good habits early.

We might like to take pictures of the S/N, P/N tabs etc. rather than data inputting them.

And in the mean time I'll continue my internet search quest for answers and products.

two00lbwaster · 14 Jan 2013 at 16:31

The closest that I have found so far seems to be about £2249 ex vat for a pro licence of the software that goes with a handheld scanner and a thermal barcode printer.

Skidilliplop · 14 Jan 2013 at 19:44

Are these purely networked IT assets? If so barcoding and scanning is a bit 20th century. There are software solutions (some free) like Spiceworks that will scan the network periodically and record all connected devices and log things like serial numbers, installed software and other inventory info.

two00lbwaster · 16 Jan 2013 at 12:00

Sorry, no, this is going to be for monitors, UPS devices, keyboards, mice, etc.

My experience of Spiceworks has been that it doesn't detect everything networked, or doesn't have it in the database of devices.

Bones · 16 Jan 2013 at 12:28

check out wasp, our system was about £1200 and does everything you just mentioned. I dont manage it myself but my colleague does.

http://www.waspbarcode.co.uk/asset_management/

edscdk · 16 Jan 2013 at 12:36

you are gonna barcode mice and keyboards...!

I htink you are over engineering...

jsut buy a roll of stickers and make a 3 or 4 field access DB..

30 staff - thats 30 PC's 30laptop, 15 printers, 30 screens... some servers and stuff double that number because i probably forget some stuff and thats 2 days work to label 200ish items

then how many items are you gonna add 3 or 4 a week?

I was IT manager for a company that astarted at 14 and grew to 200 people over 4 years... roll of stickers and MS access....

Skidilliplop · 16 Jan 2013 at 13:50

mmm. I don't like Access DBs, but the roll of stickers is a valid point. You could easily take spiceworks or similar and enter that info. I.E associate asset numbers with a workstation. Or even device serial numbers, save the labels.
Personally with the cost of monitors, keyboards and mice so low. I don't bother. They're not valuable enough to be fixed assets, they'd be written off the asset register before their warranties expired. Keyboards and mice wear out with use, these at least should be treated as consumables not assets.
You would be creating a lot of work for no real operational gain.

two00lbwaster · 16 Jan 2013 at 14:40

Bones said:
check out wasp, our system was about £1200 and does everything you just mentioned. I dont manage it myself but my colleague does.

http://www.waspbarcode.co.uk/asset_management/

I didn't really want to link to specific products, but that was the one that I found. Looks okay, but at that price it's ridiculous.

edscdk said:
you are gonna bar-code mice and keyboards...!

I think you are over engineering...

just buy a roll of stickers and make a 3 or 4 field access DB..

30 staff - thats 30 PC's 30laptop, 15 printers, 30 screens... some servers and stuff double that number because i probably forget some stuff and thats 2 days work to label 200ish items

then how many items are you gonna add 3 or 4 a week?

I was IT manager for a company that started at 14 and grew to 200 people over 4 years... roll of stickers and MS access....

It means putting aside some time for development. I'd want to write a nice UI for the DB, and I'd probably steer clear of access as we have a huge legacy client base on those DBs.

I had been looking at pre-made stickers with bar-codes on them, and yes, I'd likely not bother with the keyboards and mice, but all the switches, monitors, etc would be labelled. I'm surprised that no one has built a really simple website based system with native iPhone/Android clients to capture the bar-codes and any images and input serial numbers etc.

Tally is approximately: 35 PCs, 70 monitors, projection system, server, 3 printers, 20 network switches, 5 UPS and 6 laptops.

Skidilliplop said:
mmm. I don't like Access DBs, but the roll of stickers is a valid point. You could easily take spiceworks or similar and enter that info. I.E associate asset numbers with a workstation. Or even device serial numbers, save the labels.
Personally with the cost of monitors, keyboards and mice so low. I don't bother. They're not valuable enough to be fixed assets, they'd be written off the asset register before their warranties expired. Keyboards and mice wear out with use, these at least should be treated as consumables not assets.
You would be creating a lot of work for no real operational gain.

Mainly it's to keep track of things. Anything that is stolen/misplaced/malfunctions has to be replaced and that's a cost to the business, so I'd like to keep an eye on these costs.

Skidilliplop · 16 Jan 2013 at 17:16

two00lbwaster said:
Mainly it's to keep track of things. Anything that is stolen/misplaced/malfunctions has to be replaced and that's a cost to the business, so I'd like to keep an eye on these costs.

We monitor these through helpdesk. When something is broken or stolen etc it's a helpdesk ticket to replace it. We can then report on the helpdesk to get overviews of failure rates etc. Some solutions, spiceworks being one, actually manage IT purchasing too and allow it to be linked to tickets. So there's complete audit trail.
One thing we're looking at when replacing our Helpdesk/CMS solution is a system that links all that together rather than having separate systems for it.
As I said before, nothing wrong with what you want to do but it sounds like an entire project worth of work to save little or no money.

two00lbwaster · 21 Jan 2013 at 13:29

Skidilliplop said:
One thing we're looking at when replacing our Helpdesk/CMS solution is a system that links all that together rather than having separate systems for it.
As I said before, nothing wrong with what you want to do but it sounds like an entire project worth of work to save little or no money.

Sounds like you need some kind of ERP type system.