36 items to capture for practical hardware asset tracking
- 1. 36 Items To Capture For PracFcal Hardware Asset Tracking hLp://www.thegeekstuff.com/2008/08/36-‐items-‐to-‐capture-‐for... Home About Free eBook Archives Best of the Blog Contact 36 Items To Capture For Prac3cal Hardware Asset Tracking by Ramesh Natarajan on August 18, 2008 3 Like 4 Tweet 1 If you are managing more than one equipment in your organizaFon, it is very important to document and track ALL informaFon about the servers effecFvely. In this arFcle, I have listed 36 aLributes that needs to be tracked for your equipments, with an explanaFon on why it needs to be tracked. I have also provided a spreadsheet template with these fields that will give you a jumpstart. Before gePng into the details of what needs to be tracked, let us look at few reasons on why you should document ALL your equipments. IdenFfying What needs to be tracked is far more important than How you are tracking it. Don’t get trapped into researching the best available asset tracking soTware. Keep it simple and use a spread sheet for tracking. Once you have documented everything, later you can always find a soTware and export this data to it. Sysadmins hates to document anything. They would rather spend Fme exploring cool new technology than documenFng their current hardware and environment. But, a seasoned sysadmin knows that spending Fme to document the details about the equipemnts, is going to save lot of Fme in the future, when there is a problem. Never assume anything. When it comes to documentaFon, the more details you can add is beLer. Don’t create document because your boss is insisFng on it. Instead, create the document because you truly believe it will add value to you and your team. If you document without understanding or believing the purpose, you will essenFally leave out lot of criFcal details, which will eventually make the document worthless. Once you’ve captured the aLributes menFoned below for ALL your servers, switches, firewalls and other equipments, you can use this master list to track any future enterprise wide implementaFon/changes. For e.g. If you are rolling out a new backup strategy through-‐out your enterprise, add a new column called backup and mark it as Yes or No, to track whether that specific acFon has been implemented on that parFcular equipment. I have arranged the 36 items into 9 different groups and provided a sample value next to the field name within parenthesis. These fields and groupings are just guidelines. If required, modify this accordingly to track addiFonal aLributes specific to your environment. Equipment Detail (1) Descrip3on (ProducFon CRM DB Server) – This field should explain the purpose of this equipment. Even a non-‐IT person should be able to idenFfy this equipment based on this descripFon. 1 of 8 18 Apr 12 7:23 pm
- 2. 36 Items To Capture For PracFcal Hardware Asset Tracking hLp://www.thegeekstuff.com/2008/08/36-‐items-‐to-‐capture-‐for... (2) Host Name (prod-‐crm-‐db-‐srv) – The real host name of the equipment as defined at the OS level. (3) Department (Sales) – Which department does this equipment belong to? (4) Manufacturer (DELL) – Manufacturer of the equipment. (5) Model (PowerEdge 2950) – Model of the equipment. (6) Status (AcFve) – The current status of the equipment. Use this field to idenFfy whether the equipment is in one of the following state: AcFve – Currently in use ReFred – Old equipment, not gePng used anymore Available – Old/New equipment, ready and available for usage (7) Category (Server) – I primarily use this to track the type of equipment. The value in this field could be one of the following depending the equipment: Server Switch Power Circuit Router Firewall etc. Tag/Serial# For tracking purpose, different vendors use different names for the serial numbers. i.e Serial Number, Part Number, Asset Number, Service Tag, Express Code etc. For e.g. DELL tracks their equipment using Service Tag and Express code. So, if majority of the equipments in your organizaFon are DELL, it make sense to have separate columns for Service Tag and Express Code. (8) Serial Number (9) Part Number (10) Service TAG (11) Express Code (12) Company Asset TAG – Every organizaFon may have their own way of tracking the system using bar code or custom asset tracking number. Use this field to track the equipment using the code assigned by your company Loca3on (13) Physical Loca3on (Los Angeles) – Use this field to specify the physical locaFon of the server. If you have mulFple data center in different ciFes, use the city name to track it. (14) Cage/Room# – The cage or room number where this equipment is located. (15) Rack # – If there are mulFple racks inside your datacenter, specify the rack # where the equipment is located. If your rack doesn’t have any numbers, create your own numbering scheme for the rack. (16) Rack Posi3on – This indicates the exact locaFon of the server within the rack. for e.g. the server located at the boLom of the rack has the rack posiFon of #1 and the one above is #2. Network (17) Private IP (192.168.100.1) – Specify the internal ip-‐address of the equipment. (18) Public IP – Specify the external ip-‐address of the equipment. (19) NIC (GB1, Slot1/Port1) -‐ Tracking this informaFon is very helpful, when someone accidentally pulls a cable from the server (If this never happened to you, it is only a maLer of Fme before it happens). Using this field value, you will know exactly where to plug-‐in the cable. If the server has more than one network connecFon, specify all the NIC’s using a comma separated value. 2 of 8 18 Apr 12 7:23 pm
- 3. 36 Items To Capture For PracFcal Hardware Asset Tracking hLp://www.thegeekstuff.com/2008/08/36-‐items-‐to-‐capture-‐for... In this example (GB1, Slot1/Port1), the server has two ethernet cables connected. First one connected to the on-‐board NIC marked as GB1. Second one connected to the Port#1 on the NIC card, inserted to the PCI Slot#1. Even when the server has only one ethernet cable connected, specify the port # to which it is connected. For e.g. Most of the DELL servers comes with two on-‐board NIC labeled as GB1 and GB2. So, you should know to which NIC you’ve connected your ethernet cable. (20) Switch/Port (Switch1/Port10, Switch4/Port15) – Using the NIC field above, you’ve tracked the exact port where one end of the ethernet cable is connected on the server. Now, you should track where the other end of the cable is connected to. In this example the cable connected to the server on the GB1 is connected to the Port 10 on Switch 1. The cable connected to the server on Port#1of PCI Slot#1 is connected to the Port 15 on Switch 4. (21) Nagios Monitored? (Yes) – Use this field to indicate whether this equipment is gePng monitored through any monitoring soTware. Storage (22) SAN/NAS Connected? (Yes) – Use this field to track whether a parFcular server is connected to an external storage. (23) Total Drive Count (4) – This indicates the total number of internal drives on the server. This can come very handy for capacity management. for e.g. Some of the dell servers comes only with 6 slots for internal hard-‐drives. In this example, just by looking at the document, we know that there are 4 disk drives in the servers and you have room to add 2 more disk drives. OS Detail (24) OS (Linux) – Use this field to track the OS that is running on the equipment. For e.g. Linux, Windows, Cisco IOS etc. (25) OS Version (Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4 (Nahant Update 5)) – The exact version of the OS. Warranty (26) Warrenty Start Date (27) Warrenty End Date Purchase & Lease (28) Date of Purchase – If you have purchased the equipment, fill-‐out the date of purchase and the price. (29) Purchase Price (30) Lease Begin Date -‐ If you have leased the equipment, fill-‐out all the lease details. (31) Lease Expiry Date (32) Leasing Company – The company who owns the lease on this equipment. (33) Buy-‐Out Op3on ($1) – Is this a dollar-‐one buy-‐out (or) Fair Market Value purchase? This will give you an idea on whether to start planning for a new equipment aTer the lease expiry date or to keep the exisFng equipment. (34) Monthly Lease Payment Addi3onal Informa3on (35) URL – If this is a web-‐server, give the URL to access the web applicaFon running on the system. If this is a switch or router, specify the admin URL. (36) Notes – Enter addiFonal notes about the equipment that doesn’t fit under any of the above fields. It may be very tempFng to add username and password fields to this spreadsheet. For security reasons, never use this spreadsheet to store the root or administrator password of the equipment. Asset Tracking Excel Template 1.0 – This excel template contains all the 36 fields menFoned above to give you a jumpstart on tracking equipments in your enterprise. If you convert this spread sheet to other formats used by different tools, send it to me and I’ll add it here and give credit to you. I hope you find this arFcle helpful. Forward this to appropriate person in your organizaFon who may benefit from this arFcle by tracking the equipments effecFvely. Also, If you think I’ve missed any aLribute to track in the above list, please let me know. If you liked this ar1cle, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, Digg and Stumble using the link provided below under ‘What Next?’ sec1on. 3 of 8 18 Apr 12 7:23 pm
- 4. 36 Items To Capture For PracFcal Hardware Asset Tracking hLp://www.thegeekstuff.com/2008/08/36-‐items-‐to-‐capture-‐for... 3 Tweet 1 Like 4 Share Comment If you enjoyed this ar3cle, you might also like.. 1. 50 Linux Sysadmin Tutorials Awk IntroducFon – 7 Awk Print Examples 2. 50 Most Frequently Used Linux Commands (With Examples) Advanced Sed SubsFtuFon Examples 3. Top 25 Best Linux Performance Monitoring and Debugging 8 EssenFal Vim Editor NavigaFon Fundamentals Tools 25 Most Frequently Used Linux IPTables Rules 4. Mommy, I found it! – 15 PracFcal Linux Find Command Examples Examples Turbocharge PuTTY with 12 Powerful Add-‐Ons 5. Linux 101 Hacks 2nd EdiFon eBook Tags: DocumentaFon { 8 comments… read them below or add one } 1 sg August 19, 2008 at 4:39 am “Sysadmins hates to document anything. They would rather spend Fme exploring cool new technology than documenFng their current hardware and environment.” —> why not combine fun with necessity? Ocs inventory allows you to play with new open source technology and in the process you get a database of everything that is connected to the network (and has the ocs inventory agent running on it), without having to do it manually. That database can then be queried (eg give me all machines with less than x mb ram, … ) or integrated (e.g. with arpwatch: compare known hosts in inventory with hosts on the network, alert if unknown hosts) If you want to you can also add own properFes like warranty dates to the ocs inventory database. 2 Ajith Edassery August 21, 2008 at 12:01 am This is a preLy exhausFve list. I wonder whether there are not tracking tools (including inventory, license expiry, floaFng license usage, access tracking, warranty/service terms/tenure etc) or soTware available for automaFng all these? Anyways, thanks for the post Cheers, Ajith 4 of 8 18 Apr 12 7:23 pm
- 5. 36 Items To Capture For PracFcal Hardware Asset Tracking hLp://www.thegeekstuff.com/2008/08/36-‐items-‐to-‐capture-‐for... 3 Abhi August 23, 2008 at 9:10 am Excellent stuff. DocumenFng is really good thing. But I hate spending my Fme in documenFng the inventory. Rather I would like to use tools like OCS inventory. Do we know any tool that can be used as non-‐root user to document the system details ? 4 Mark Hoff August 23, 2008 at 12:49 pm You wrote: “Don’t get trapped into researching the best available asset tracking soTware.” I couldn’t agree more. I’ve seen the insides of many asset tracking systems (nearly one-‐hundred at last count.) These include a great many of the large, medium, and small commercial offerings, as well as a range of open-‐source and freely-‐available packages. Not a single one of them stands out. And most of the Fme that you’re spending researching, you could be spending doing. Asset tracking is a pain in the *ss. No maLer how you do it, it’s dirty, tedious, unglamorous work. And it’s mostly maintenance work. No one wants to do it. But everyone wants it done–and done well. 5 Will Barrowes September 12, 2008 at 10:19 am I am with CG4 SoluFons Inc. We provide Asset Tracking SoTware (www.cg4.com) that uses tradiFonal barcodes, handheld scanners, and a web-‐based central server using a SQL database. I was just reading through the posFngs and thought I would add a couple of comments. Our customers spend most of their Fme tracking IT Assets. The list of fields provided looks comprehensive. We see most of those with almost every customer. Regardless of the types of assets you are tracking, using a spreadsheet is painful. My background is corporate finance and when in that role I would use a spreadsheet to inventory assets. I hated doing it, just like Mark Hoff and the others menFon. I would always move that task to the boLom of the stacks on my desk hoping it would go away. For the last eight years I have been working with CG4 and I can say that with the strength of the mobile component of our web based asset tracking soTware I would have done my inventory work quickly and with a half smile on my face knowing that the painful inventory via spreadsheet was no longer a part of my life. Mark Hoff, I would be interested to have you learn a bit about what we offer and have you give us feedback. With having your head into so many asset tracking systems, I would value your opinion. You can email me at [email protected]. We might be able to make it worth your Fme. 6 Jared Younker May 26, 2009 at 3:06 pm GreeFngs Ramesh, Just wanted to thank you for wriFng the above arFcle. I was just promoted to Senior Network Administrator last week, and my first assigned task was to create an extensively detailed company inventory. Your Fps are incredibly helpful, thanks for allowing us to learn from your process! 7 Tony A.A. December 28, 2010 at 12:23 pm I’ve been looking for something like this for a while now. Thank you! One thing that I sFll don’t know how to track properly though, is virtual machines, physical machines running virtualizaFon, and how the two are related. Using a virtualizaFon cluster of several physical machines makes the whole thing that much harder. Also I oTen find it necessary to document the main soTware or services running on a servers, especially in high-‐availability environment where you have dedicated front-‐end, database, and file servers. 8 Snozz March 2, 2011 at 5:31 pm Nice list, but I suggest checking out Spiceworks.com. Awesome tool like OCS, but instead it does everything client-‐less. Leave a Comment 5 of 8 18 Apr 12 7:23 pm
- 6. 36 Items To Capture For PracFcal Hardware Asset Tracking hLp://www.thegeekstuff.com/2008/08/36-‐items-‐to-‐capture-‐for... Name E-‐mail Website NoFfy me of followup comments via e-‐mail Submit Previous post: Get Quick Info On MySQL DB, Table, Column and Index Using mysqlshow Next post: 9 Tips to Use Apachectl and HLpd like a Power User Sign up for our free email newsleLer [email protected] Sign Up RSS TwiLer Facebook Search EBOOKS 6 of 8 18 Apr 12 7:23 pm
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- 8. 36 Items To Capture For PracFcal Hardware Asset Tracking hLp://www.thegeekstuff.com/2008/08/36-‐items-‐to-‐capture-‐for... The UlFmate Bash Array Tutorial with 15 Examples 3 Steps to Perform SSH Login Without Password Using ssh-‐keygen & ssh-‐copy-‐id Unix Sed Tutorial: Advanced Sed SubsFtuFon Examples UNIX / Linux: 10 Netstat Command Examples The UlFmate Guide for CreaFng Strong Passwords 6 Steps to Secure Your Home Wireless Network Turbocharge PuTTY with 12 Powerful Add-‐Ons About The Geek Stuff My name is Ramesh Natarajan. I will be posFng instrucFon guides, how-‐to, troubleshooFng Fps and tricks on Linux, database, hardware, security and web. My focus is to write arFcles that will either teach you or help you resolve a problem. Read more about Ramesh Natarajan and the blog. Support Us Support this blog by purchasing one of my ebooks. Bash 101 Hacks eBook Sed and Awk 101 Hacks eBook Vim 101 Hacks eBook Nagios Core 3 eBook Contact Us Email Me : Use this Contact Form to get in touch me with your comments, quesFons or suggesFons about this site. You can also simply drop me a line to say hello!. Follow us on TwiLer Become a fan on Facebook Copyright © 2008–2012 Ramesh Natarajan. All rights reserved | Terms of Service | AdverFse 8 of 8 18 Apr 12 7:23 pm