Data Sheet: Asset Inventory and Management
Symantec Discovery™
Track hardware/software assets and monitor license compliance throughout a multiplatform IT infrastructure
OVERVIEW
Symantec Discovery™ helps ensure Client Resilience by identifying and tracking all of your organization's hardware and software assets. The more knowledge an organization has about its IT assets, the more control it has over associated costs, purchases, helpdesk support and overall client management. This control then helps organizations keep their
IT infrastructures secure, available, and compliant with corporate standards.
Effective control of assets includes starting with a comprehensive baseline inventory that includes information about each computer or other network device, a list of all installed software, and the physical location of each device. In order to maintain continued control of network assets, it is also necessary to perform ongoing audits and generate comprehensive reports to understand the state of the infrastructure at any given time.
Using Symantec Discovery, an IT organization can fully understand where devices are located and how they’re configured, as well as track a complete history of when any changes have taken place. Integrated LANProbe™ technology uncovers and locates every IP-addressable device on the network, providing a complete and accurate audit every time.
Symantec Discovery can be used as an integral piece of many
IT related projects including managing an OS upgrade or rollout, enforcing software licensing compliance, negotiating license renewals or equipment contracts, benchmarking existing equipment prior to a hardware refresh, investigating unauthorized or restricted application use, and reporting on IT assets for mergers & acquisitions or bankruptcies.
Symantec Discovery works easily with existing lifecycle management processes and tools, helping minimize the total cost of owning and maintaining devices and software licenses.
As an essential component of the Symantec LiveState™ Client
Management Suite, it also provides the integral information needed to manage and track client devices wherever they may reside in a production environment.
BENEFITS
Help Ensure Client Resilience
• Keep machines secure and available by scanning and identifying malicious applications and file-types that are suspect.
• Fast, non-invasive auditing of hardware (CPU, memory, disk, etc.) and software (OS with version/service-pack information, commercial products and/or in-house applications) provides accurate information regarding the state of each device.
• Scheduled and on-demand auditing provides the ability to keep track of ongoing changes throughout an IT infrastructure and helps ensure devices stay compliant with corporate standards.
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Data Sheet: Asset Inventory and Management
Reduce Cost and Effort
• Decrease software licensing costs by reclaiming or reallocating unused or redundant software licenses based on installation and usage reports.
• Mitigate the risk of licensing non-compliance, including fines and legal action due to oversubscribing software licenses.
• Automate manual inventory audits to maintain a more effective and accurate assessment of your IT assets.
• Simplify & accurately estimate upgrades using a web based costing tool.
Stay in Control of Your IT Environment
• Easily find and track all devices across all network segments to identify all assets including desktops, notebooks, servers, routers, and printers, regardless of how they are connected to the network.
• Ensure the client agent is reliably delivered to users regardless of operating system, network topology, or connection type leveraging a comprehensive range of agent deployment methods such as automatic delivery over the network, via email, or web installation.
• Eliminate impact to user productivity or network service when performing hardware/software audits. Simple and optimized IP communication enables reliable audits to be performed over highly utilized WANs or low bandwidth connections.
FEATURES
Auto-discovery
• Complete discovery of all network devices across multiple locations or operating systems, including desktops, notebooks, servers, routers, and printers.
• Small client and delta-based reporting provides faster analysis across different connections and enables identification of hardware, without the need to push an agent to every device.
• Drag-and-drop functionality makes it easy to inventory and track IT assets by geographical location and functional grouping.
Location detection
• Patented LANProbe identifies physical device locations by interrogating all switching and routing devices on the network, VLAN, and subnet environments.
• Robust asset tracking allows for accurate inventory of mobile computers and assets at remote sites.
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Data Sheet: Asset Inventory and Management
Agent-based inventory management
• Mirroring of Active Directory user groups and organizational units allows deployment of agents and reporting of audits using a common view of the network.
• Provides detailed reports of all hardware and software information on network devices, such as processor types,
BIOS dates, MAC addresses, disk capacities, available memory slots, software versions and installation dates, file types, data from custom fields and more.
• Audits defined per device, scheduled or on-demand.
Multiplatform
• Supports a heterogeneous environment including
Windows®, Linux®, UNIX®, IBM AIX®, and Mac® platforms.
Asset tracking
• Easily track and manage leased IT equipment by tracking the serial numbers of VDU monitors – ensuring that the right kit is accounted for at all times and returned at the end of the lease.
• Maintains a comprehensive audit trail by tracking all installations, moves, additions, and changes.
• Hardware changes are dynamically recognized and reported, allowing IT to have near real-time asset inventory information
• Alerts can automatically notify administrators when specific changes occur, such as removal of memory or unauthorized software installation.
Software license and usage monitoring
• Software usage auditing provides details regarding which users within your organization use a particular application and how often they use it.
• Software license compliance reports provide a quick and comprehensive overview of the state of licensing compliance for each device throughout an organization.
Comprehensive data analysis, reporting, and graphing
• Performs PC & network inventory across distributed heterogeneous networks rapidly, silently & continuously to provide a complete, accurate & up-to-date audit.
• Easily customize audit queries and histories
Web access
• Compliance with US Rehabilitation Act Section 508 legislation, provides web reporting that is designed to help ensure ease of use for those with accessibility needs.
• Web-based interface offers powerful “what if” tools & helps managers plan and budget to network changes.
By specifying hardware and software pre-requisites, component cost & labor time, Symantec Discovery can display a breakdown of computer age by department or globally, allowing you to examine the skew of manufacturer or device type across the organization and analyze asset usage by manufacturer or product.
• Easily configure various levels of security access, allow complete anonymous access to any member of staff, or to control by country, department or other organizational unit.
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Data Sheet: Asset Inventory and Management
Dashboard View
• Provides administrators and other executive stakeholders with a clear graphical view of key systems intelligence.
Each Dashboard user can choose from 15 pre-configured reports covering such areas as license compliance, asset availability, project planning and risk management.
LAN, WAN, and Internet auditing
• A range of deployment methods helps ensure the client agent is reliably delivered to users regardless of operating system, network topology, or connection type.
Supported Environments:
Symantec Discovery Administration Control Center
• Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server
• Web Control Center requires Microsoft IE 5.0 or higher
Server Operating Systems
• Microsoft Windows 2000 (Server Versions)
• Microsoft Windows 2003 (Server Versions)
• IIS 5 or 6 required for Web Server and secure data transfer
Client Operating Systems
Windows Platforms
• Microsoft Windows 95, 98, 2000, 2003, NT and XP
• Red Hat Linux (Version 7 and above) on Intel
• Sun Solaris on SPARC (Sun OS version 5.6 and above)
• HP-UX on PA-RISC (version 11 and above)
• MAC OSX 10.1, 10.2, 10.3
• SUSE Linux 8.0 and above on Intel
• IBM AIX 5.1 and 5.2
LANProbe requirements
• LANProbe operates over an IP network on Ethernet and Token Ring. Physical location is supported on
Ethernet networks utilizing managed SNMP-enabled switches only.
Network environments
• TCP/IPv4
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Data Sheet: Asset Inventory and Management
More information
Visit our Web site http://sea.symantec.com/discovery
To speak with a Product Specialist in the US
Call toll-free 1 (800) 745 6054
To speak with a Product Specialist outside the U.S.
Symantec has operations in more than 40 countries.
For specific country offices and contact numbers, visit our Web site.
About Symantec
Symantec is the world leader in providing solutions to help individuals and enterprises assure the security, availability, and integrity of their information.
Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has operations in more than 40 countries. More information is available at www.symantec.com.
Symantec Corporation World Headquarters
20330 Stevens Creek Boulevard
Cupertino, CA 95014 USA
408 517 8000
800 721 3934 www.symantec.com
Symantec and the Symantec logo are registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation and/or its subsidiaries in the United States and elsewhere. LiveState and Symantec Discovery are trademarks of Symantec
Corporation and/or its subsidiaries in the United States and elsewhere. All other brands and products are trademarks of their respective holder(s) ©2005 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved.
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