(imported topic written by vgbond91)
Is it possible to track the movement of asset from one cubicle to other with absolutely no change in system parameters?
And also wanted to know generally how we can achieve asset tracking, is there any place I can find documentation on the same.
(imported comment written by BenKus)
Hi vgbond,
The BES Client can only know what the local computer knows and so if the computer has no way of knowing it is in a different cubicle, the BES Client won’t know either.
Ben
(imported comment written by vgbond91)
so how do we do asset tracking with help of BigFix
(imported comment written by StacyLee)
vgbond
Is it possible to track the movement of asset from one cubicle to other with absolutely no change in system parameters?.
If there is absolutley no change in system parameters how can a automated system track a machine’s location change? I would assume you are only referring to desktops since laptops can be virtually anywhere. Do you have a problem with computers moving frequently from location to location? What happens if a machines is rebuilt or redployed for a new employee in that same location? Does the computer identify main user of the computer? Are your users part of the adminstartors group, maybe you can track the users in that group (minus the built in groups) and compare that to your company directory.
You would need to have some free form field you can retrieve and to specify it’s location when it moves. Computer description comes to mind as a field you could use.
(imported comment written by brolly3391)
Hello vgbond.
When I think of Asset Tracking I think about answering such questions as: How many Windows 2000 machines do I have that require upgrading? How many machines do I have with less than 128MB memory - and give me a list of machine names and user names so that purchasing can order more memory for those machines. How many laptops do I have, by subnet? Do I have any Dell laptop Batteries that were covered under the latest recall - what machines are those? Can I have a list of our PC Serial numbers so that I can identify which are coming to the end of their lease this month? Which PCs were last reported more than 4 weeks ago?
BigFix can answer questions like these with very little effort.
The issue that you describe is a problem in larger IT shops where the IT staff deploys a computer to a person and then that person transfers departments. The person then grabs “their” PC and moves it to a different cube. If they move to a different subnet then you can catch them when the PC pulls a new IP. If you are clever with your network topology, it can be possible to track down a given PC to a small range of possible locations based on subnet. BigFix can then help with finding machines that have moved subnets. If the PC cannot tell it has been moved then neither can BigFix.
Here are a few crazy ideas that I present in the spirit of brainstorming:
Lock down network drops to mac addresses on the routers. When the end user moved to a new physical network drop, they would not get any network connectivity.
Cable locks.
Install a GPS in each PC so that the PC would “know where it is” and BigFix could monitor for changes.
Is there a way that a PC can somehow “query” the switch that it is attached to in order to indentify what blade/port it is plugged into? That might be leveraged to answer our “Have I been moved?” question.
Cheers,
Brolly
(imported comment written by vgbond91)
I know technically achieved thru the switch propabably with the combination of port and mac id , but can windows or any other tool query the this info from switch , so that BigFix can use the info to achieve the objective
(imported comment written by BenKus)
Hi vgbond,
I suppose that it is technically possible for a computer to query its switch, but it would require that each computer has credentials to query a switch directly, which is often something that the network team will not allow.
Does anyone have any experience querying switches with any tool?
Ben
(imported comment written by Macideus91)
One thing we do here is a dos driven program we made “very simple” and every so often if/when needed we just have bigfix run this app…it basically just gives a spot for the user to answer a couple questions. For our use it was branch number, city, state, serial number of the unit. Your case sounds very similar you could use Cubicle, Dept, Floor, etc…
We took the information from this and created a txt doc on C:\ and those properties were obtained via bigfix giving us a very good view of where things were. below is the example we used: Relevance
createfile until myend
@echo off
setLocal EnableDelayedExpansion
set /p var=Enter your field1:
set /p var1=Enter your field2:
set /p var2=Enter your field3:
echo !var! > c:\Serial.txt
echo !var1! >> c:\Serial.txt
echo !var2! >> c:\serial.txt
myend
delete “c:\pcinfo.bat”
copy __createfile “c:\pcinfo.bat”
wait “{pathname of file “cmd.exe” of system folder}” /C “c:\pcinfo.bat”
from this you can create something you either have it pop up on boot…or have it come up once a month or whatever. the drawback to this is they can choose not to answer, answer correctly, or just close it. if this doesnt work for you maybe it will spark some other person to have a moment of clarity and come up with something better we can all use.
you will have to have bigfix look at this file and get the values for each field, but that should be the easy part.
(imported comment written by mcalvi91)
turn port security on the switches. if a port changes MACs it will deny the new MAC until it is expressly allowed. you can then check BF to see what the MAC translates to and update the records in the comment fields.