nick Posted September 22, 2005 Posted September 22, 2005 We have just added a great new feature to our product which now makes asset management and inventory management a lot easier. We now have something called 'Parago Agent' which can be run over a whole network (not to be confused with network scanners) or run individually from a USB key. Once run the program uploads all information about that PC/Laptop into our database (cpu,memory,software installed,etc..) Once uploaded everything is represented in icon form and can have extra info attached (e.g. asset tag) and placed into rooms/departments to organise them better. And most importantly you can generate reports on how much software is installed on each pc, how many licenses you are currently using. Anyway enough rambling, have a look on http://www.itvision.net/ and any feedback would be great. The product has been in test over the last 6 months over 3 different LEA's and 10+ schools and we are continuing to try and get schools involved in the direction that the product is taking. Best regards, Nick Techie Bloke
Geoff Posted September 22, 2005 Posted September 22, 2005 Sounds like OCS Inventory. http://ocsinventory.sourceforge.net/?lng=en
nick Posted September 22, 2005 Author Posted September 22, 2005 Sounds like OCS Inventory. http://ocsinventory.sourceforge.net/?lng=en Well OCS can grab some data about each PC/Laptop (but not in the level of detail we do.) but as with a lot of other solutions out there the data once gathered is in a format that is not then very useful. We gather the data using our agent, you then get a nice graphical interface to choose where each PC is located in your school (by room, by department, or even assigned to a particular person) Once its located within your school structure the next time it receives an update (for instance when someone adds extra software) you get an alert of what has changed and you can go review it so if its something nasty you can locate it by room and then go uninstall it. Our interface is also designed for non-techies (but also caters for those with lots of technical skill) so its all graphical with lots of icons to represent everything in the IT sector. OCS of course is Open source (therefore free) and I am big linux opensource fan, but OCS doesnt even really scratch the surface in comparison with the abililties our product has. But anyway I will stop rambling, have a read and contact us if you want a demo.
ninjabeaver Posted September 22, 2005 Posted September 22, 2005 Yeah, OpenSource is great for all of us ICT Techies who have next to no budget, which is the majority of us. Why do they want us to pay a license fee for the amount of students. Surely that should be down to the amount PC's / Servers etc in the school?
nick Posted September 22, 2005 Author Posted September 22, 2005 Yeah, OpenSource is great for all of us ICT Techies who have next to no budget, which is the majority of us. Why do they want us to pay a license fee for the amount of students. Surely that should be down to the amount PC's / Servers etc in the school? It would initially seem fairer to base it on the school IT infrastructure size, but we have found enough schools which break the mould in terms of pupil to computer ratio that would make the pricing policy unfair. The pricing we felt (and I am just a techie not sales/marketing) is low enough (even with the stupidly low budgets schools get) to make it cost effective with the amount of time it can save, we already have one school who saved 3 weeks works (that what it took him last year) to do a full audit and produce a report. And compared with the commerical cost of most network scanners (£500+) which only do the scanning part and don't have any asset abilities etc its a bargain (but then again I would say that!)
Netman Posted September 22, 2005 Posted September 22, 2005 Wot no demo?!! I might be interested but like to see and feel up close before I'll even consider buying... online walkthru's just don't cut it for me.....
nick Posted September 23, 2005 Author Posted September 23, 2005 We are looking at putting together a demo site but we have to make it part of a registration process as you can't have more than one person using the same login at once (for technical reasons) so before you started a demo you would at least have to create a user/password - and then we can expire that account after say 24 hours. But apart from a few issues of putting 'for demo purpose only' across all the reports etc we can do it. So watch this space
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