The fully automatic inventory of all hardware and software in use ensures correct licensing and makes it possible to consult inventory data when distributing software or resolving technical support incidents. This leads to a significant reduction in technical support costs and downtime.
Every day, companies use numerous PCs and a wide variety of software and peripheries. It is often the case that no one knows exactly what hardware is currently being used or whether the number of software licenses purchased corresponds to the number of actual users. Companies try to keep track using lists that are based on internal ordering processes and cyclical hardware inventories. However, such manual processes are not adequate – there is a danger of overlooking changes to the status quo brought about by enhancements or repairs.
Imprecise knowledge of the company’s hardware and software can lead to unnecessary technical support incidents during software distribution processes. Furthermore, the current location and condition of hardware are often not known. This slows down the resolution of incidents by the technical support team. According to a study done by the Gartner Group, these costs can add up to 10% of a PC’s total cost of ownership (TCO) of approx. 8,000 euros per year.
To reduce costs it is necessary to record all inventory data of all computers in the company. prisma|inventory automatically reads the hardware and software information from computers and their peripheries in the LAN, WAN and mobile systems in the field. The intelligent prisma client is used to capture the data – cyclically, on request or automatically as part of the log-on procedure if necessary even without local installation. The prisma Console offers user-friendly access to the data. It offers both a multitenant company overview and a profile of individual computers.
prisma|inventory can be used either alone or in combination with the other prisma modules. The scalability of the system means it can be used in environments with only a few computers or over 100,000.
1. Hardware scanner
All hardware information that is made available by the standard Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) can be scanned.
WMI includes all information that can be viewed using the device manager: CD-ROM, monitor, printer, USB devices, hard drives, graphic cards, etc. The targeted definition of subsets can be used to exclude non-essential data.
2. Software scanner
When taking inventory of software, prisma|inventory differentiates between three types of software:
- Software installed using Microsoft Software Installer (MSI)
- Software that has an uninstall option in the control panel
- Other software
All three types are supported by prisma|inventory, the latter using such identifying information as file name, size and version and registry entries. Non-registered software can also be captured, for example by searching for unknown EXE files.
3. User entry scanner
A dialog will request that users or service technicians enter information that cannot be automatically captured, such as department, room number or inventory number stickers. Cyclical queries can be scheduled; the data that was entered in the previous cycle will be shown again. The questions can be configured easily using the prisma Console.
4. Customer-specific scanner (optional)
Even inventory data that cannot be captured using the three standard scanners pose no problems for prisma. The prisma scanner API allows the integration of as many different scanners as the customer would like, e.g. scanners that analyze INI files or databases. Like other inventory data, the captured data will appear in the central prisma Console, where it can be viewed and analyzed.
Dynamic groups can be used to group the computers by defining and applying filter criteria to the inventory data; these groups can be used for analyses, manual software distribution processes or<s> </s>automatic processes
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- Cut costs by reducing the number of technical service incidents and allowing them to be resolved more quickly
- Ensure correct software licensing
- Homogenous platform for file/software distribution, inventory, remote control and Web access
- View entire system or single computer
- Dynamic grouping by applying filter criteria to all inventory data
- Equally suitable for mobile, WAN and LAN use cases
- Highly scalable: can be used in environments ranging from a few PCs to over 100,000