Adding Snipe-IT for Asset Management
At my last gig I was hoping that a CMDB would be able to act as a single pane of glass for managing the IT environment. We were using Sysaid which did a great many things (except for monitoring Linux servers which was 90% of our server environment so it wasn't as helpful as their sales guys indicated it would be). In fact, we were using it as a single pane of glass for all things IT. In hindsight, though, I think a CMDB, even one as powerful as Sysaid, wasn't quite enough.
This week I've introduced a dedicated asset management application to the environment. For no better reason than it was the first one that caught my eye, I've opted for Snipe-IT. There's a couple of reasons why I decided to introduce asset management:
- It allows me to know what my stock levels are at for consumables and accessories (like mice and keyboards). A CMDB all on it's own isn't really capable of that. Sure, the CMDB I'm using has a plug in that'll handle it but it's pricey.
- Since we're moving away from using Dell desktops, I've been building computers. Snipe-IT lets me track things as a component level - warranties and the like. The CMDB assumes retail computers rather than piece parts.
- Where is stuff? Snipe-IT lets me get pretty granular in relation to who has a device as well as where it's located.
So now I have the following management tools in place:
- Zabbix for infrastructure monitoring and alerting
- Snipe-IT for asset management and to aid in accounting/budget
- OCS-Inventory NG for tracking software on machines
- iTop for the CMDB and ticketing system
- Graylog for log management
It's a lot. I'm sure that somewhere there is a single application that'll manage all of this stuff but the important thing to remember is that we're a small company and IT is not our gig. All of the above tools are open source and self hosted. They work and with a little elbow grease, I'm finding that they will talk to each other.
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