Inventory and Assets

Track hardware, software and users without agents

A product that documents and enables deep exploration of the MySQL asset dbase using a consistent and compact interface that makes the product easy to use. It primarily uses the dbase created by a network discovery, however the sublimely easy to use ITIL functionality allows a host of extra details to be added including adding extra devices. It is cross integrated with the Codima Toolbox Web Map.

Product Operation

The product GUI is very compact with no complex menu drill downs. A layered tabbed structure automatically organises Asset views. The product is ready to go directly following Discovery with no extra configuration necessary.
In Codima Toolbox Custom Fields are treated exactly the same as regular fields and are used in Filters and also in Analytics and Summary features with no restrictions unlike other solutions.

The structure is illustrated below.

All Devices Tab

This is a general overview of all devices in the Inventory DBase.

Servers Tab

This tab filters devices that identified as Device Type equals Server.

Scan Your Entire Network in Seconds

Network Infrastructure Tab

This tab lists devices identified as routers or switches.

Windows Tab

This is a list of devices that are Windows based and critically support WMI (windows management instrumentation). WMI supports a huge range of device metrics that can be seen in the Drill Down Reports.

Commercial Tab

This tab focuses on Product Value, Depreciation and Support information and contact addresses.

Software and Security Tab

The tab analyses installed software, anti-virus and its state plus Hot Fixes installed (patches).

Service Dates

This tab summarises EOL, EOS, End of Sale, and Warranty details. The report filters devices that are outside current support or warranty for example. The Update feature can be used to set each metric such as warranty or end of life in conjunction with the Filters feature. For example, filter all devices of type Cisco Model 4508, and then set EOS, EOL etc in one simple Update operation. The default display grid is shown below, note clicking on an Underlined link launches the Device Drilldown. Each grid has a default set of columns, but the columns can be added to or columns removed.

The major features such as Filter, Analyse and Update Devices use the selected grid format, in this case Device Basics. The grid could instead be showing Memory Chips or CPUs, or Commercial details, for example.

Examining Device Details

Codima Toolbox shows an extensive list of device details gleaned from the discovery engine using SNMP and also from Windows products using WMI. The ITIL aspect of the product enables the user to add a host of extra details, such as detailed Location, Commercial details or modify the details from the discovery engine.

Other tabs on the device drill down explore Interfaces, Hot Fixes, Installed Software, Anti-Virus status plus running Processes and Services.

Filtering the Asset Database

Given the huge amount of details that are collected by the system it is important to have an effective way to pick out sets of devices matching specified criteria such as Location or Commercial residual Value for example. Note the filters fields are chosen by the system to focus on the aspect of the database that is being examined. The filter to the left is matching basic details.

The user is examining Commercial details below, so the filter options change accordingly.

Analysing and Summarising Asset Information

An important feature is the ability to select Devices manually or using Filters and then summarising say the Number of devices in a matching room or maybe the Purchase price per Manufacturer or a Supplier. A single click opens the Analyse feature.

Here one can Summarise/Analyse by attribute as above. The options change according to the context. Post analysis, multiple display formats are available.

Some examples of the analyse operation follow. Bar charts and Pies give a quick overview which are exportable in many formats including pdf.

Below is a Pie Chart that has export capabilities to PDF and also a print option. The Pie is dynamic so hovering over the Pie segments show a tooltip, with a count of a % value, depending on the Select Value setting.

The grid output format allows further analysis plus the ability to export the results to Excel for example, or other user defined processing.

Custom Fields Support

The product supplies a large range of predefined fields such as Location, Commercial and Maintenance, Codima Toolbox allows up to 30 user defined fields. These extra fields behave exactly the same as other built in standard fields with no restrictions.

New fields are added in one click then, setup the attributes of the user field.

Grouping Support

The system supports an unlimited number of Groups, and a device can be in multiple Groups (100s). Groups are created by the user.

A couple of examples are shown below.

Reports

The user can add their own reports to the system using a simple interface.

Using ITIL Features

The Inventory system uses the Discovery Engine to populate the device database. Very many fields are setup automatically by the Discovery Engine, however, fields such as detailed Location, Suppliers, Monetary Values, Warranties, and device state like Scrapped or In Storage cannot be set automatically. They need to be setup by the user. Adding ITIL details to a device can be per device or updates any number of devices in one operation. The user is presented with a list of fields to be updated including user added Custom Fields. Only ticked fields are updated.

The powerful Codima Toolbox Filters make selection of devices to update straightforward.

New devices that were not discovered by the discovery engine can be added very quickly using the popup below accessed directly from the main GUI.