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Ask Slashdot: What Asset Tracking Software Do You Recommend?

Posted by timothy on from the soviets-just-used-a-pencil dept.

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 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?

33 of 68 comments (clear)

  1. Git by phantomfive · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Asset tracking? Git. If it's not in code, or it can't be 3D printed, how can it really matter?

    You are a bane to the sharing economy! Stop with your nonsense about ownership. Asset storage is in the cloud for the rest of us!

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:Git by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 2

      git rm -rf ./
      git commit -a -m "House burned down:("

    2. Re:Git by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Awesome thing about git......even if you pushed that commit and everyone checked it out, the data would still be there with a simple rollback.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:Git by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      > it's just a matter of creating an application specific UI on top

      Yeah, he's looking for a house so you point him to a stack of planks and say, you can just build one.
      Everyone does this at some point in their career right? No. It's a fucking nightmare that no developer wants to get involved with or maintain.

      The silly suggestions that have appeared in similar threads have included:

      LanSweeper
      Trackensure
      nLyte (Asset Management module)
      A fucking spreadsheet with versioning (hey that's like your suggestion!)

      Then there are appropriate solutions like:

      http://snipeitapp.com/
      http://www.jollytech.com/produ...

    4. Re:Git by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Isn't this a dupe? Didn't we just have this same question not so very long ago?

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    5. Re:Git by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 2

      I guess you're thinking of this?

      http://ask.slashdot.org/story/...

      I tagged the current story as a dupe, but the tag was removed so I guess duplicates that don't occur within the same Mon-Fri period don't count as such.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    6. Re:Git by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No, that's Subversion. Git is vulnerable to a forced merge, and to the deletion of tangs or branches and rename of those branches as "master" in a central repository. It's the separate, off-site mirroring of content that is resistant to the forced merge, and the GPG signed tags that provide provenance. Subversion has nothing like the signed tags, any shmuck can replace man-in-the-middle replace a Subversion repo unless you're very, very careful, and there's no surety that the numbered revisions match the original ones in the previously accessed repository.

      It's Subversion that has consistently refused the single most requested feature since it was written, one built into its CVS ancestor: the "obliterate" feature, to expunge data that is bulky, misplaced, or contains security information that should never have gone into the source control system. It's one of the main reasons Subversion should never e used for secure software, and why it should never be used without filters to block accidental binary file inclusion without being brepared to discard and switch respositories quite frequently for any active project. The only way to discard files is a dump, exclude, and restore to a new repo, and the process is quite fragile.

      I have to admit that I especially love CentOS's approach to the git cloning and man-in-the-middle issues. They absolutely refuse to use git tags, and rely on their HTTPS certificates to ensure the provenance of the code at https://git.centos.org/, especially the source code for RHEL 7 published there. Anyone who clones their repository has no way of ensuring that their repository is correctly cloned except frequent manual verificaiton and out of band verification of revisiion hash tags. It creates a whole new set of man-in-the-middle backdoor possibilities, especially since the CentOS "Record the word 'import' in the log entries" approach to tagging releases, rather than actually using git tags, is one of the stupidest jokes in source control I've ever seen.

      I'm really looking forward to the first time someone poisons an RHEL 7 or CentOS test environment this way. I'm kind of hoping it happens to Oracle, whose "Unbreakable Linux" is really a lightly patched and rebranded copy of RHEL. I've got the popcorn set aside to watch it happen.

    7. Re:Git by sumdumass · · Score: 2

      I don't think the wording changed either. At first I thought that maybe my settings pushed it to the front page twice somehow or i read it in the fire hose or something. But your comment is too early in the thread order for that to be the case. Maybe someone is upset their astroturfing didn't end up listing their products so slashdot had to post it again else have to refund payment for the slashvertisement.

  2. Come on Slashdot! by grahamsaa · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm the OP of this article and it made the front page a few days ago. I mean, I'm honored that you think it was such a good post, but do you even read the front page?

    --
    Facts have a liberal bias.
    1. Re:Come on Slashdot! by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      Maybe its your signature.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    2. Re: Come on Slashdot! by binarylarry · · Score: 3, Funny

      I was like fuck, an agent is here!

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    3. Re:Come on Slashdot! by Kozar_The_Malignant · · Score: 2

      What, you didn't get any answers last week? :-)

      --
      Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
    4. Re:Come on Slashdot! by antiperimetaparalogo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm the OP of this article and it made the front page a few days ago. I mean, I'm honored that you think it was such a good post, but do you even read the front page?

      Slashdot needs an article tracking software, do you have something to recommend?

      Anyway, since we are here again, i am curious to know if you found some of the answers on your question few days ago useful (e.g., between funny and serious, for your case i had recommended "Microsoft Office - Excel and/or Access...")

      --
      Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
    5. Re:Come on Slashdot! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'm the OP of this article and it made the front page a few days ago. I mean, I'm honored that you think it was such a good post, but do you even read the front page?

      Crap, this was supposed to be Fridays gender war article - SORRY!!!

    6. Re:Come on Slashdot! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Ha, that's just brilliant!

      As to the topic at hand, take a look at trackensure for people and delivery tracking, shipmatica for package tracking in a warehouse, retail management software, these are things that are designed to track assets, different types of assets, combinations of assets, that's maybe something you should look at.

    7. Re:Come on Slashdot! by SeaFox · · Score: 1

      He probably wasn't happy with the ones he got, regardless of how correct they were.

    8. Re: Come on Slashdot! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      RadiantRFID.com Check them out. Very complete systems and accurate for enterprise uses. Not open source however but good value for asset tracking.

    9. Re:Come on Slashdot! by Culture20 · · Score: 1

      I'm the OP of this article and it made the front page a few days ago. I mean, I'm honored that you think it was such a good post, but do you even read the front page?

      Are you saying this is a dupe? Because this article made the front page last night in the middle of the night (for Americans).

  3. Slow news day by NotInHere · · Score: 4, Informative

    seems this topic has already been covered.

    1. Re:Slow news day by SeaFox · · Score: 1

      More accurately, it's a dupe of the exact same summary (with no paragragh break).

  4. Welcome to IT by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 1

    http://lmgtfy.com/?q=open+sour...

  5. No, Slashdot really does need to know... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ...how to keep track of their articles. Let's go folks, help them out!

  6. since you asked twice by ihtoit · · Score: 1

    a suite I helped develop way back in 2000 called Phonecian, it's a complete CMS written in ASP. I sold the whole caboodle on, I don't know where it's at now.

    --
    Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
  7. ocsng + glpi by tarka · · Score: 1

    ocsng + glpi

  8. I hope no one at my corp reads this.. by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 1

    but I would advise against something like HP's Service Manager Asset Manager software. It's over-the-top complex, runs slow, and is really expensive. I doubt you need some ITIL compliant application, running in java in your browser. Being forced to "eat your own dogfood" is painful hahaha

  9. Sigh by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    Asset tracking? Slashdot needs a dupe tracking app. This has been posted not a week ago.

  10. Re:OCS + GLPI by munwin99 · · Score: 1

    Similar to Open-AudIT http://www.open-audit.org/

    --
    What's On Your Network ??? http://www.open-audit.org/
  11. Velociraptors by thisisauniqueid · · Score: 1

    After watching Jurassic World, I strongly prefer the use of velociraptors for tracking assets.

  12. Talk to your finance department. by plebeian · · Score: 1

    You may not have to reinvent the wheel. They probably have a system used to calculate depreciation that you can add on to. Any basic system could meet your asset tracking needs. I work in an organization that uses M$ system center config manager to control deployments, and ServicePro cloud 9 for helpdest call tracking. Both do a good job keeping up to date on who has what hardware; but realistically a single spreadsheet with document versioning enabled would work just as well and cost a hell of a lot less. Asset tracking is just a matter of sitting down with all the people managing assets and coming up with a process that is acceptable to all. There is no software that can fix human behavior!

    --
    "I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
  13. LANDESK Asset Lifecycle Manager? by rhyous · · Score: 1

    LANDESK made a really good asset tracking software called Asset Lifecycle Manager (ALM)? Unfortunately, they had no idea how to sell and market it and are now trying to focus on IT assets, so they don't really have ALM front and center on the web page anymore, but if you called a sales rep, I bet you could get a demo.

  14. custom fit applications by mwaschkowski · · Score: 1

    If you would like, I would be happy to custom build you a solution that will exactly fit your needs. You can see my website here: appweaverz.com, and I can build a product like this quickly. Best, Mark

  15. Perfect choice by Tammy82 · · Score: 1

    We had the same task in our company and after long time resarch we decided to use jdisc professional. They also offer a freeware for testing. You can find it on http://www.jdisc.com/en/produc...

  16. Not just tracking. - Asset intelligence. by jjohanneson · · Score: 1

    Sounds like you not only need to track items, but need the asset in cases to report back intelligently? I would recommend fetch. Check out http://solutions.fetchcontrol.... Not quite "open source" but is open to plugging into any system as fetch is a platform. Please feel free to visit the site. Would love to talk to you live m. Just complete the "contact me" form and I'll get back to you. Joel