If money wasn’t an issue, what Asset Management tool would you buy?

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hethatoneguy@reddit

Cost aside, most “top-tier” ITAM platforms aren’t worth the complexity. Too many feel like dressed-up spreadsheets or hide essential features behind enterprise pricing. I don’t need an overengineered dashboard I need to know where a $2,000 laptop ends up when someone leaves. What matters is a platform that manages procurement and returns without a flood of emails, integrates cleanly with Autopilot and Intune, ships globally, schedules secure wipes, and shows who has what and whether it’s on its way back. We chose Workwize.

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DeadbeatHoneyBadger@reddit

I wouldn’t buy one. I’d develop my own to fit exactly what I needed. The most successful ones I’ve seen in the past were in-house developed so they could loop into all the tools, and had heavy process tired to them.

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starhive_ab@reddit

Hi, can you explain more about what you mean by 'had heavy process tied to them'? Curious to know why building is better over buying.

Full disclosure - I work for a 'build your own' asset management tool (Starhive). Basically you get full control over the data model and automations etc so you can build your own asset tool without needing devs. So curious to know what's restricted you in the past?

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ITrCool@reddit

Until you or the developer of said tool leaves for something else, and suddenly no one knows how to support it. Even if you leave documentation.

That happened at a place I worked. The company ended up forced to get rid of it and get something third party.

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LabSelect631@reddit

Agreed, you don’t just pay for the product, you pay for the products lifecycle.

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Arudinne@reddit

Thats what TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) is there to help calculate.

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LabSelect631@reddit

In my experience the kind of leaders giving young honey badger the nod to vibe code the orgs whole asset management tool, aren’t running TCO

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Arudinne@reddit

Yeah, I would never wan't to use a self-developed in-house tool unless it had a team of devs behind it.

I've seen many tools by a solo dev pop into existence and then die off when that person lost interest, changed positions or left the company. Cases where someone else was able to step up and keep those tools going are rare and I only know of one case personally.

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ITrCool@reddit

I mean don’t get me wrong, in their hey day, if designed well, they’re SOLID tools!

But the problem is lime you mentions: the dev leaves, documentation is left (or not left) and whomever takes it over is utterly clueless on how to support it, IF anyone is there to support it and it starts to die a slow painful death as Windows patches begin to break it and it itself doesn’t get patched/fixed anymore with new commits to address what breaks in said Windows patches, so eventually it becomes unusable.

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DeadbeatHoneyBadger@reddit

I think this goes back to companies not running off talent; however, your point is valid.

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ITrCool@reddit

Agreed. The guy who left at the other place, left for more money (he and I talked a lot and we trusted each other with personal topics). The company had denied him raises long enough, so he went around them and elsewhere to get the raise he deserved.

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ConsoleChari@reddit

No thanks for me. Our devs haven't heard about documentation

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Narrow_Victory1262@reddit

if money is no constraint, why would I keep track over assets .....?

Anyways, build or have build something that does what you need. Most off the shelf s/w is just parly doing what you need.

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starhive_ab@reddit

Hey, can you explain more about why off the shelf asset tools only partly do what you need?
What are they missing?

Full disclosure - I work for a 'build your own' asset management tool (Starhive) so curious to know what's restricted you in the past?

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patmorgan235@reddit

Security. Untracked assets are a liability

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Darkhexical@reddit

If money is no constraints that's where you do the big 20k NFC detectors along with tagged assets that track the moval of every asset throughout the agency

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Karma_Vampire@reddit

Just pay the fines and pay for consultants to clean up the fallout. $$$$$

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EViLTeW@reddit

if money is no constraint, why would I keep track over assets .....?

Asset tracking is, in general, an important tool to ensure that nothing "goes missing". Just because you can afford to replace hardware doesn't mean there won't be additional issues if a device containing sensitive data is stolen or lost.

It's also a regulatory requirement in several cases.

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Frothyleet@reddit

Good point, but with our unlimited budget we could simply purchase the regulatory organizations and give ourselves a clean bill of health.

If it was a government agency, we'd probably have to buy a presidential candidate and dismantle the regulatory functions from the top down, but that sounds like some sort of dystopian nightmare.

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11bulletcatcher@reddit

Goddamnit have an upvote.

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Narrow_Victory1262@reddit

it was just a joke, like "who cares something is missing, just buy a new one, as money isn't an issue"

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unccvince@reddit

A MS Excel licence subscription expiring in year 1002025 /s

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RustyFishStick@reddit

After 25 years of using various tools, ServiceNow is a favourite.

If you're in the finance sector, money isn't an issue and you have ~10k IT staff you'll want a dedicated ServiceNow team to update everything CMDB related and dedicated ServiceNow developers.

Implementation is key. Do keep an open mind about having a revamp of how SNOW is operating within the org later down the track to optimize process workflows.

Implementing a separate registry for business applications & software, each identified by a unique ID, adds an extra layer of assurance to enforce compliance. To ensure corporate landscape conformity, Enterprise Architects should manage this offset registry. Additionally, develop and implement this App ID to downstream relationships within ServiceNow enforcing hardware dependencies, tracing all the way down to server NICs/HDDs supporting the hosted business services.

At this scale don't let the "money isn't an issue" opportunity slip by without negotiating a lower rate with your software provider.

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DrumDealer@reddit

I'm very happy with Snipe-IT.

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tartarsauceboi@reddit

The label making though??

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Reverent@reddit

Buy a roll of pre printed asset labels and never worry about it again?

Labels should be entered into the system, not generated from the system. Also you can get better quality labels that way.

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Jepper333@reddit

i 2nd this so bad!

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DrumDealer@reddit

What about it? I'm happy with that part too.

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tartarsauceboi@reddit

I can't get it to line up right

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jakeod27@reddit

It’s really dumb but after I started using a chromium browser for printing it got a lot easier

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DrumDealer@reddit

Not an issue for me. I'm using 2"x1" labels and everything lines up perfectly. Might need to mess with your printer properties and preferences for your label printer.

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Catsrules@reddit

I looked into it a bit it looked like a clean and easy to use interface but isn't it like totally manual for adding and keeping track of things?

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occasional_cynic@reddit

Every "automated" asset manager I have used has been a giant PoS. The one exception is Spiceworks, but even that does not have the needed feature of SnipeIT last time I used it.

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Catsrules@reddit

Fair. It is just frustrating to have to manually enter in stuff when 95% of the data could be acquired automatically.

I am surprised this hasn't been solved yet. Spiceworks has been around forever and they almost have it solved. Maybe it has on some crazy expensive software.

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Lower_Fan@reddit

Very manual and it's not that flexible actually. Unless you know how to code or can assign devs to modify it to your company use.

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Catsrules@reddit

That is what i thought, i remember when i was playing with it I kept thinking, i thinking i would almost prefer a spreadsheet lol. I think my use cases and team was just to small to warrant the use of it.

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Leg0z@reddit

That's what we rock, and we gladly pay the $400 a year so that I don't have to fiddle with the label making and extra infrastructure.

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CarEmpty@reddit

Snipe-IT and a dedicated person to either a) keep it up to date and track assets themselves, or b) a developer to make in house tools using it's API to do everything as automatically as possible.

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DrewGrgich@reddit

Lansweeper! My teams and I did magic with that tool.

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Darronian@reddit

would you share some of the magic you did? Thanks

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DrewGrgich@reddit

Where to start?

- Basic asset management/device discovery. This is a given. This is knowing who has what device. what the config of that device is, what software is installed, where the device recently checked in from (via IP address), etc. We ran both agentless scans every two days as well as kicking off an agent based scan from a local central share at each factory.

- Advanced Asset Management - We had worldwide scanning servers set up - two in each major factory area. One server scanned the specific workstation subnets and was responsible for "doing stuff" such as software control policies (such as "If you're not part of the AutoCAD group and your system mysteriously gets AutoCAD installed, remove AutoCAD & report") & device things (such as "look in the registry to see if your computer has a specific entry and do something if the registry item is or is not found"). We managed fairly extensive policies in each location. This is where most of the magic was. Anything that could be scripted - registry checks, host files reads, directory contents, etc. - was kicked off by Lansweeper during the scanning windows.

- Network Discovery - The second server in each location just did a head-to-toe "ping scan" of the subnets and took a guess using Lansweeper's secret sauce to guess what the device was. This enabled us to find devices that were on the local network that might have been missed using other tools. We would then use those discovery lists with other tools such as Tenable to scan for vulns. This enabled centralized awareness of our networks since some factories were not as good as other factories at fully accounting for items.

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Darronian@reddit

Thank you, we've just got it in ..... basic config at the moment but looking to get the most out of it

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Arudinne@reddit

Too bad they're letting the on-prem side of the tool die a slow death.

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ITLevel01@reddit

While doubling their price over the last few years.

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Arudinne@reddit

Yeah, they kept pushing the cloud stuff, but none of it was really a value add for us and we couldn't turn off the fucking warning notification about it not being linked to the cloud.

We renewed it for one last year to keep easy access to the data (Without scraping the database) for audit purposes and they fucked up the license order.

The inability to easily reach a person to fix that issue just highlighted why I am glad we're shutting it down in December.

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SentineladaNoite@reddit

Try GLPI, dont need a budget for that

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omn1p073n7@reddit

My org decided to use Snipe-IT and I wrote a ton of PowerShell automation to keep asset info up to date and accommodate various workflows and now I a quarter to half my time is spent supporting that (depending on how much the previous update borked everything). We do have Enterprise support now too so between that and my salary my org spends a non-trivial sum. Overall they really like it and always want me to add something new in.

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Barrerayy@reddit

I see no reason to stop using snipe...

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Site-Staff@reddit

I second Snipe.

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nappycappy@reddit

i third this. if money was no object i'd pay them to not bloat the app.

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ITrCool@reddit

Places I’ve worked for have used:

Remedy
ConnectWise
ServiceNow
Jira
Solar Winds
Flexera

Out of all of those, my favorite and the one that most impressed me was Service Now.

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L0kitheliar@reddit

I'm sing ServiceNow's praises for everything, it's just time consuming to set up

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RockinSysAdmin@reddit

Our instance is a half-assed screw up from the beginning. But those in charge don't use it much because they don't have to, and it is so bad, and so it doesn't get fixed despite our protests.

If it is good, I wish I could see that to change my mind.

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Unexpected_Cranberry@reddit

I've seen good and bad implementations. I thought I hated service now until I saw a good setup. My main complaint is that unless you're large enough to have a dedicated team for it it's cumbersome and complex to get it set up and adjusted to your needs.

But the good implementation even had a custom built agent that ran on the end points where users could create a ticket from the real bar. User would select what they were having issues with from a drop down and write text. The agent would then collect stuff like username, computername, private and public IP, an optional screenshot and a bunch of other stuff. Did wonders for the quality of the tickets that came in to our service desk.

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Affectionate_Let1462@reddit

This is where ServiceNow let themselves down. They preach the platform but don’t price for small businesses to then let them grow into the enterprise they need them to be. It results in half baked ITSM implementations.

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L0kitheliar@reddit

We have a relatively large IT org (~100 people), and a team of 4 of them are solely dedicated to SNow and Atlassian support and development. They are absolute wizards

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bobandy47@reddit

I call it the hydra.

It's got 3 heads, and all must be fed appropriately or else you're the one getting eaten.

Feed the implementation head extremely well, Feed the configuration (ongoing) head extremely well, and feed the integration head really extremely well.

If you can't do that... don't use SNOW. If you can, it's the best tool out there in the space for 'it can do pretty much everything.

In terms of this question "Money is no object" - then SNOW gets my vote.

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L0kitheliar@reddit

This is very true. Using it correctly after setting it up correctly is vital to it's future functionality lol

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WilyDeject@reddit

I miss ServiceNow.

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willee_@reddit

I’ve worked with ConnectWise extensively. Currently working with AutoTask, but exploring Jira for service desk since they are both Kaseya products and that is what we use.

What did you think of Jira for service desk? Did you use it for asset management? Currently using Datto for that

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ITrCool@reddit

We used Jira when it belonged to Atlassian.

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chubz736@reddit

Excel

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outofspaceandtime@reddit

I would pay for the enterprise version of iTop and then have some developers work out some automations and integrations and custom plugins I would hopefully be able to make available for everybody.

I currently use Freshservice for my CMDB and it does work much smoother than my previously self-hosted iTop Community instance, but they’ve recently changed their asset definitions and I don’t like it when vendors start redefining the usage terms of their product.

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Ansky11@reddit

Without cost constraint, you can hire a person to do it full time with pen and paper.

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TruthYouWontLike@reddit

If money is not an issue, I'd hire a dev team to custom-build a system that fits all our needs and has nothing that we don't need.

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Z3t4@reddit

I'd hire somebody to exclusively handle it then, they can use whatever solution they like.

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deadpanda2@reddit

Spiceworks ?

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Ziegelphilie@reddit

I'd still go with snipe-it because I'm goddamn fucking sick of the homebrew crap we run. Just because we're a software development company shouldn't mean we have to write EVERYTHING.

If it were up to my boss we'd have written our own grafana and prometheus, thank fuck our schedule was swamped at the time and I just installed it on a friday

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Frothyleet@reddit

You guys aren't using off the shelf operating systems, are you? I thought you were developers!

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lordmycal@reddit

If you're not compiling a custom kernel for each piece of hardware you own, you're wasting performance!

Once upon a time I compiled every single package on a linux desktop just to do it. It took ages for many of the larger applications (open office, firefox, etc.) Maybe it's a lot faster these days, but it could take days to get through it all.

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Bam_bula@reddit

I would stay on snipeit, specialy with our netbox intergration. Our projekt manager are able to create demo setups for customers with a few clicks.

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Proper_Bunch_1804@reddit

Honestly very happy with orca’s asset management. Wouldn’t change it regardless of an infinite budget…

I would rebuild my ZTNA though….

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GeneMoody-Action1@reddit

I would pay someone to do it while I drank beer and fished...

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Electrical_Arm7411@reddit

We use Jira Helpdesk / Asset tracker in the cloud. It's been solid. I guess if you're looking for 1 product that does asset tracking very well, I wouldn't know as most of them are packaged in with other services.

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Arudinne@reddit

Usually because there's a value add to having those other functions integrated

We loved Lansweeper because of the helpdesk function which integrated well with the asset tracking side of the application.

Granted, it lacked a lot of features of other platforms, including the helpdesk platform we use now, but being on-prem we were able to leverage the API and direct access to the SQL database to do a lot of things it couldn't do natively.

That being said, the automations were all made by one person who's no longer with the company so we ended up contracting them to port them over as that was quicker than rebuilding them from scratch.

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smarthomepursuits@reddit

Just invest in an RMM like NinjaOne, and use custom fields to track who the devices belong to.

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toothboto@reddit

I just might pay for winrar

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schnellwech@reddit

A Combination of INTUNE, PDQ CONNECT and XURRENT and for license Management SNOW SOFTWARE

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Niko24601@reddit

If you care less about the hardware side and more about software you might want to try some cool new apps around SaaS Management check out tools like Corma, Lumos or Zluri

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x-Mowens-x@reddit

Not to be a smart ass, but if money weren't an issue I likely wouldn't manage my assets. ;)

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Away-Ambassador1421@reddit

BlueTally

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Aegisnir@reddit

Cheqroom is great. Been using it a couple years. I setup different buckets to manage different things. I have one section for my IT equipment and others for other departments than also need to manage inventory. Setyl also looks very good and has tempted me to consider switching.

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KervyN@reddit

If money wasn't an issue, I would buy MS, fire alle the incompetent manager, order an oss rewrite of w10 and stop AD and exchange forever.

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Icy_Butterscotch2002@reddit

I make due with AD descriptions and PDQ Inventory and that has always served me well 😉