Assets inventory for ITAM

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Introduction

In SolarWinds Service Desk (SWSD) you can review your asset inventory at any time. If you have installed the Discovery Agent and Discovery Scanner and allowed time for data to be pulled from your network, you can review the reported inventory.

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Factors to consider when reviewing your inventory data

• SWSD weighs and prioritizes the data collected because many SolarWinds customers elect to pull data from multiple sources (for example, through SCCM, vCenter, Chrome OS, and other sources), which can lead to repetition of data and conflictual information. 

  When a computer has an agent installed on it, the agent will provide the greatest amount of data, letting the agent data take priority over scanner data.  When both the agent and the scanner detect the same computer, the record created by the scanner is discarded.

• A computer without an agent is scanned by the scanner and logged into the Computers index page.

•  If your company elects to pull device information via SCCM and vCenter sources, the data is merged with data from a network scan (that is, open ports). Multiple sources can report varying data on the same attribute (for example: host name).

  For example, as SCCM and vCenter provide information with the greatest detail, the data received from these sources takes precedence over Nmap and Nmap+SSH/SNMP.

• Repetitive data is deleted.

• The information displayed on the Network Devices index page is based on the method of collection described above. 

Active Computers index page

From the Active Computers index page, you can:

• See a list of computer equipment.

• See the details of a record by clicking the small eye icon to the left of the record. A panel opens on the right containing details.

• See and edit details of a record, see associated software, lifecycle information, associated incidents, configuration information, and audit information by clicking the blue record name hyperlink from the Computer/IP column.

• Edit a record by hovering over the Actions column (the last column) and selecting the Edit icon.

• Start a remote assist session hovering over the Actions column (the last column) and selecting the Remote assist icon.

You can customize the Active Computers index page to a view that best meets your needs. See List view for more information.

Identify a device's physical location

You can identify a device's physical location using the Asset map.

Asset ID character limit

During discovery, SWSD creates asset IDs by combining TAG00 + account ID + hardware ID. Example: TAG005634127061882.

• The initial five characters are fixed and assigned by SWSD (TAG00).
• The next part comes from the account ID. The number of characters is unlimited (563412).
• The last part is the hardware ID. The number of characters is unlimited (7061882).

Asset IDs can also be added or modified manually.

Troubleshooting: Which index page an item will display on

If you are expecting an item to display on an index page but it is not there, be aware of the following:

• Devices identified as with a device type as Computer will only display on the Computers index page; they will NOT display on the Network Devices index page.

• If you are looking for a computer, but it does not display on the Computers index page:

  • Look at the Network Devices index page because the device type might not be set to Computer. If that is the case, you can assign the device as a Computer to permanently reroute it to the Computers index page.

  • Look at the hidden devices on the All Network Devices index page.

Related topics

• Discovery Connections
• Network devices
• Risk management
• Asset types:
  • Computers
  • Software
  • Printers
  • Mobile devices
  • Network devices
  • Other assets
  • Map