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Whereby a central system monitors and collects the audit results from remote agents which are deployed on networked desktops, servers, laptops or any other networked device you wish to audit. When it comes to collecting data using a dedicated audit and inventory tool, I believe it is fair to say that the majority of inventory tool vendors have chosen to use agent technology. This is often a political debate within an organisation as much as technological one as people fight the cause of their respective tools. In my experience audit data from such systems is either inaccurate, takes far too long to be generated or is not fit for purpose. This is a good shortcut since the infrastructure is already in place to collect the data required but commonly fails because the tool was not deployed with this in mind. Some organisations might choose to harness their existing systems management tools to collect the data such as Microsoft SMS. That is, if we want to collect an accurate inventory of the assets on our network we will need to discuss how we collect the information required for each machine. At some point during an IT audit project the issue of agents will arise.
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Unlike most IT Asset Management vendors BDNA do not use an agent. They seem to be working towards a CMDB meets IT Asset Management offering, which I assume will dovetail nicely into the service management focused PS Soft product line which they acquired late last year. ‘BDNA Maps’ manages application dependencies, virtualization relationships and storage dependencies. Their ‘BDNA Catalog’ offers business intelligence around the IT assets discovered such as detailed product information and power consumption. I recently spoke with BDNA about the upcoming release of BDNA Insight.īDNA offer some interesting technology around their core IT discovery.