We count servers, workstations, licenses, spill updates and automate IT processes.

At one of the jobs, I somehow ran into a situation where one colleague was caught screwing memory strips from his workstation. He did not refuse, and immediately said that he took home to test and was going to return. But all kagbe understood. I do not know about you, but in my memory this was the only time. Perhaps this happens all the time.

The case came to mind in the course of writing this article. For a long time I was going to talk about a special software for collecting all sorts of inventory items from hardware - KACE. I have known her for at least a couple of years and more than once had to work in practice. The stars have now come together, thoughts have gathered in a heap and, finally, I am writing how this thing can be useful for offices from several workstations to thousands of IT equipment parks. The thing is simple as a boot and functional as a microwave with a grill and convection, and there is still no detailed article on Habré about it.



KACE came out with its own product of the same name on the market in 2003 and, as is usually the case with an appetizing small fish, in 2010 was consumed by a large fish - Dell. In 2016, the Dell software division was acquired by a group of investors, and the product is now known as Quest KACE. It comes as a virtual image for VMware or Hyper-V. At the end of the article is a nice bonus in the form of a link to a cloud demo (without registration and SMS).
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KACE is divided into two separate solutions: Systems Management Appliance and Systems Deployment Appliance. The second is able to pour images of operating systems, and I will now tell you more about the functionality of the first one. Everything written below will refer specifically to the Systems Management Appliance.

What can

Inventory and IT asset management

You can install an agent or collect data remotely. The agent supports popular operating systems, and remote collection of inventory data is possible from any device that can at least send something via SNMP or in another way. There are a bunch of ready-made templates for typical hardware (network devices, storage, switches). I had somehow the task of monitoring the weights in one large grocery network. So, even with such weights, you can optionally take data.



Cards of the inventory-based devices can be supplemented with information: production date, vendor support end date, serial number, link to web-based management interface and other data. And as a result, from the inventory process will turn into asset management.

In the KACE interface, you can bind user accounts to workstations or servers and then generate reports on account activity. You can control the composition of the local administrators group and many other similar pieces, which will be useful for security reports.

Any devices can be divided into as many groups as you like and assign labels to them. By groups and tags, you can then build reports or, for example, distribute software or updates of the operating system.

License management

I do not have information about how often people in Russia collect fines or are judged on the unlawful use of software. Can someone in the comments tell: is it possible that, for example, Microsoft or Orakl impose any sanctions for the reuse of licenses?



In any case, if you spend money on software, you must understand how much it is used and where. Perhaps this will help save the budget for next year and, instead of extra licenses, buy employees a table tennis table and ottomans.

At work, one often has to prepare specifications for the purchase of monitoring software, and I know how muddy licensing schemes are: basic license, coefficients for sockets or processors, dependent licenses, and other unbridled things. And all this changes periodically. There is a vendor that requires the inclusion of part numbers with media carriers or, simply put, CD blanks in the specification. It is clear that no one today will install software from disks, but there are requirements. Who knows, he will understand what kind of vendor in question.

KACE has the ability to set arbitrary licensing schemes for any software. He will carefully calculate everything and give you a report. Windows, Office, Oracle, Kaspersky - whatever you want.

Parallel licenses can manage contracts. Enter the data on the purchase and keep track of the onset of the extension of service support.

Distribution of patches and software

You can distribute .msi, .exe and .zip for Windows; .pkg, .app, .dmg, .zip, .tgz, and tar.gz. for Mac; .rpm, .zip; .bin, .tgz and tar.gz for Linux. Prepare a package for casting, create a schedule and forget. If something goes wrong, KACE will report it.

If the network is distributed and channels are not very desirable, you can create a remote replication resource from which updates will be distributed. Also useful feature.



KASE can remove unauthorized software on workstations or servers. If desired, you can even change the wallpaper on your desktop. Choose a vending employee and bang - he has interesting wallpapers. All actions can also be observed in the reports.

Service Desk

A very useful thing for small companies. When the admin power is not enough to support any OTRS, the built-in ticket system can be the way out. Of course, this is not a replacement for the full-fledged Service Desk system, but it is suitable for basic needs. Users create an incident themselves, and the ticket can be tied to inventory data (CMDB), which will simplify the admin further diagnostics.



In KACE, you can automate repetitive processes and create a workflow. For example, when a new employee leaves, you can immediately give him access to all the necessary corporate systems for work.

Basic monitoring

CPU, memory, thresholds, alerts - that's all. In the documentation they write about context-sensitive information, that is, in the created incident, you can see the server configuration and the software installed on it.



You can add your own metrics and adjust thresholds for them. You can notify individual users or groups, with this is flexible.

Reporting

Ask the system how much this or that employee worked this week. You can find out how many computers have been for many years. Ask how many licenses are used from the available pool. Find out how your workstation configuration has changed over the past year or month.




Reports are flexibly configured because they are created using the built-in wizard or by querying the KACE database. Any stored data can be used for the report and in any sequence. Uploading to popular formats is, of course, available.

What's next

This post does not claim to be an exhaustive review of KACE’s capabilities , but I hope it will give some insight into it. And maybe someone seriously interested. The cost of licenses depends on the functionality used. There is a free version of KACE Express , which is limited to thousands of devices and can only carry out an inventory. IMHO, to assess the possibilities is enough.

As promised, there are links to the admin console demo and the user's console .

Tell us what you use for inventory or rolling distributions? Altiris, SCCM, Landesk or something free?

The author of the article: Anton KASIMOV , the architect of the monitoring systems of the Technoserv company.