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Ask Slashdot: What Asset Tracking Software Do You Recommend?
grahamsaa writes: I work for an organization that has a number of physical assets, as well as presence in multiple data centers. On the DC side, there are a number of specific things we need to track (one thing we want to be able to account for is how much power do we need for each rack). On the office side, our needs are more basic. We need to be able to tag and track laptops, workstations, monitors, etc. I would like to use a single system for all of this, but have yet to find something that will work well on the office side and the data center side. Free/open source solutions are preferred, but we're prepared to spend money on a commercial solution if it meets our needs. What would you recommend?
Pros: Simple to setup. Customizable. Free. Cons: A bit of a learning curve getting started but the docs are good as long as you can RTFM http://racktables.org/
I've been using http://snipeitapp.com/ Pretty easy to set up on a box in digital ocean, very low maintenance after I got it all set up and working, and if you'd rather not host it yourself you can pay them to do it. Has QR code/label printing capabilities, user management, less-detailed accessory tracking for keyboards and mice (i.e. there's like 20 keyboards over in accounting, and I have 5 available, but i know who has the other 12, and that 3 are broken). Can create reports of how much stuff costed, upload receipts to each asset, when warranty expires, all kinds of stuff. My only bitch about this was how you have to fill out the model before creating an asset under that model, which meant a lot of tedious tabbing back and forth while setting it up. Now that I have all the standard models of phones, laptops, and other hardware that we buy filled it, adding a new asset and assigning it to someone takes like a minute. The developer is super responsive to bugs and questions on her github page: http://github.com/snipe/snipe-...
And to someone who works in a data center, the most important things are tracking power draw, heat dissipation, and cooling requirements.
There is no one solution that fits all needs, and every user (like you) is going to claim that their needs are "priority one."
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
It's very clear that this is a mission-critical application need.
I recommend a clustered Oracle database with no less than four 8-core Wintel servers having at least 1 TB of RAM on each system along with 2 TB hard drives with a RAID 5 cluster and heartbeat connection between each pair of servers. Since we all know that California is a goner when the big one hits, you clearly need a RT (real-time, for you noobs!) connection with the same configuration located on the other side of the country. In fact, if you're a multi-national then its advisable to take a tax writeoff and host yet another same configuration in fscking Ireland too!
If that doesn't get you a renewable annual budget and a job-for-life then you need to become a manager and outsource the whole fscking thing to India where they'll do the work for minimum wage (what's that, $0.10/hour?) and you can manage it locally and report to the Board each year of all the hard work that you do.
Or just use a sqlite database with a small front-end configuration and Bob's your Uncle.
pi=sigma{n:0-infinity}[(1/16)^n][(4/(8n+1))-(2/(8n +4))-(1/ (8n+5))-(1/(8n+6))]