It starts with small networks and can lead to considerable problems, especially with large networks. The inventory of the entire network often poses extreme problems for the IT department, since it is not so easy to always have an up-to-date list of the entire hardware and software.
Especially when it comes to software licenses , companies have to be very careful that every software used also has a corresponding license. Otherwise, software license violations and massive additional payments for software audits can quickly occur. The well-known software manufacturers are increasingly carrying out corresponding checks on the companies to ensure that the software used is correctly licensed . Depending on the size of the network, an examination can take weeks. Therefore, it makes sense that these license statements are created manually or with special software and also updated at regular intervals.
But also the hardware, and this includes not only the client PCs, but also hardware components such as servers, network switches, routers, WLAN routers, printers, copiers, etc. It is important to know which hardware the components it consists of (PC components), which manufacturers are used, which warranty periods exist, the IP configurations, locations, etc.
Different information is important depending on the company. The bigger the company, the more important graphic representations of the network become, so that external companies, consultants, consultants or auditors can get a quick overview of the company’s network infrastructure . This documentation is also usually neglected because it is very time-consuming to create and maintain and IT departments generally have little or no time for this.
For this reason, the company’s IT department generally uses professional inventory tools that identify all devices in the network, collect all relevant hardware, software and device configurations that visualize the logical and physical The network topology of the network is created and, if necessary, the documentation is immediately adapted as soon as components in the network change. We have already published some articles on software inventory on Windows FAQ , as you can see below.
- Software inventory via VBS script
- WMIC – software inventory without additional software
The importance of network inventory must not be underestimated by companies, because the documentation of the network plays a very important role. If you are interested in further information on the topic of networking, please take a look at the following information.
– Network printers use without joining a domain
– computers on the network to hide
– Reset Network with Windows 10
– Windows System Error 1231 – The network address is unreachable
– Network Performance at 10G networks
– identify network problems – only log ping dropouts – Pingtest.bat
– Hyper-V Error configuring the network to “q1”
– load distribution on 2 network cards via registry change
– teaming of network adapters
– teaming of network cards and performance problems