Connector Solution

Inventory will collect information about the monitor that is attached to the desktop. Why not take that information and create a Monitor asset and then associate it with the computer that it is attached to.

Monitors now often return their serial number in a HW inventory (aexmachinv.exe). If you are using CMDB Solution and are tracking monitors as a resource you can use Connector Solution to create the association between a computer and its monitor(s).

Many enterprise users have computer naming requirements that are strict, specifically deriving the name of the managed computer with a variety of constraints. Examples of some of these constraints are computer type, geographic location, building number, floor, and cubicle location.

Migrating from any infrastructure technology to another can be (and usually is) a huge undertaking that's fraught with unexpected gotchas. If you're tempted to migrate away from Novell and toward Altiris, you're in luck -- one of our readers has bravely blazed the trail.

Learn what steps to take (and which ones to avoid) in this series by one who's gone before.

Like many organizations, we didn't start managing workstations with Altiris. Once upon a time the Novell Application Launcher was used to deliver software to our workstations. At the time it worked for what we needed. Getting software to desktops and making critical updates to applications. However, with the threat of audit we quickly had to pick up a product to perform inventory information. Initial data from that product was not reliable and couldn't interface with our Novell software delivery system. It led to a duplication of effort that just took up too much time and left holes that would put us out of compliance with our software contracts.

Fortunately for us we had a vendor recommend Altiris.

One of the biggest challenges for most Altiris customers is building a centralized repository for all of their asset data. In most cases IT departments have data for both discoverable and non-discoverable assets scattered across the enterprise amongst different departments. Getting this data into Altiris can be a time consuming, if not impossible, process from a resource standpoint. Thankfully Altiris Connector Solution allows seamless integration with other databases and other data types and can simplify and automate the synchronization between one or more data types.

This article describes how to implement an asset and contract management system using Altiris solutions, and includes workflow and best practices information.