Altiris Asset Management Suite

Most large enterprises today are facing the challenge of managing their IT

infrastructure. The reason for this is simple-the growing complexity of the IT

infrastructure. There are too many elements to manage, requiring an efficient

way of handling them. The Altiris Asset Management Suite is one candidate for

the job. There were a couple of things we liked about it. First, it's

completely web-based, meaning there's no proprietary interface, and everything

is done through a web browser. Second, it's very modular, so you can go for

whatever solutions you need today, and add more as per the requirement, later.

It first installs a Notification Server along with MS SQL Server Desktop Engine,

which acts as the base. All modules are then added on top of this. Going

further, the suite is broken up into three levels. The first level covers

application metering and client inventory management. Second one comprises of

asset control, contract management, and connector solutions to connect the suite

with third party network management solutions like OpenView of SMS. Plus,

there's a TCO management module as well. Lastly, the third level includes a

helpdesk management solution. We checked out the first level. The arrangement of

these levels has been done keeping in mind the most logical path an enterprise

would take when implementing it. For instance, the first thing any IT manager

would want to do is get a fix on all the hardware and software applications on

his/her network. Therefore, the first level has Application Metering and Client

inventory modules, and the logic follows suite for the remaining levels. 

The setup is pretty simple, but to get the whole thing up

and running can take a while. It first installs the Notification Server, which

checks whether all prerequisites are available, else it doesn't install. This

is pretty efficient, and tells you what's missing in your server and where to

get it from. For instance, some of the components it requires are IIS with ASP

and the .NET Framework. The installation actually gives you instructions on how

to install these components. Similarly, it also requires SQL Server, and if you

don't have it installed, it downloads it from the Altiris website for you. Once

installed, you can start the Altiris Console, and then install all the modules

we talked about. In fact, if you have sufficient bandwidth, then you can install

most of them online.

Most of the functionality provided by the solution is

offered by installing agents on all clients on your network. The key one is the

Altiris Agent, which does the assets and inventory management. All other agents

are installed on top of that, e.g. the Application Metering Agent. You can even

roll out agents remotely from one central location. This may sound simple, but

actually it isn't, because you don't really know how various client machines

have been configured.

What if the client has the firewall turned on for instance?

Or the user has not logged into your Windows domain? Due to this, the client

will not install at all. At one point of time, during the testing, we also came

across a problem wherein a client was not able to download and install the

Altiris Application Metering Agent from the Notification server.

The Altiris web management interface is divided into seven

different tabs, making it fairly easy to navigate. While up front it appears to

be a fairly simple interface, there's actually quite a bit of complexity

packed inside those tabs. In fact, one would need proper training just to use

the software, because there's so much functionality that's been added in. To

take Application Metering alone, you start off by rolling out the agents to all

the machines, and then configure it to tell you which applications are running

on all the machines.

It has pre-configured options to detect commonly used

applications such as MS Office, games, ICQ, Yahoo! and MSN Instant Messengers,

and even P2P clients such as KazaA, Morpheus, and the like. You can further

control the use of these applications and get detailed usage reports for each.

Likewise, the inventory module gives you detailed reports about each machine on

your network, and comprehensive reporting.

Bottom Line: There's a lot more to this solution than

what we've discussed. In fact, it covers each and every aspect of all

equipment in an enterprise IT infrastructure, including costs, contracts, and

even non-IT infrastructure such as furniture and fixtures, cellphones, desk

phones and other office equipment.

Anil Chopra