Inventory Your Network

Are you ready for a disaster? Flood? Fire? Vandalism ? An OOPS resulting in significant staff downtime and replacement of a critical part of your network?

When you approach your insurance carrier for replacements, how current will your inventory be? Or in case a tornado does not devastate your business and you simply need to get your hardware repaired, replaced or updated, you will likely want to know exactly what your next IT investment will be in.

While it used to be a daunting, expensive task to collect every serial number of every laptop, PDA, workstation, printer, scanner, speakers, new hard drive, every version of---and patch for---each software solution, that is no longer the case. A number of server-based software inventory programs can do that for you. The same is true for high quality managed services offered today.

There are some major areas of corporate IT investments these approaches will not account for. These include dates of purchase, licensing agreements and often the dates by which licenses must be renewed. For your return on investment purposes, you will want to know how much you invested not only in the solution itself but also in the installation cost.

Read your license agreements! Understand how many users are allowed to access your software at any one time. Or how many times a software solution may be installed. Some software is very good at detecting any attempt to install a second copy elsewhere. Further information about compliance with the law related to software is at http://www.bsa.org/usa/.

Update your inventory regularly. Keep a copy offsite, along with your system backups. If a tornado does wipe your business out, you will have a current list to hand to your insurance adjuster.

The concept is simple---and it is in your interest. Get started. Now.

Seamless is for Pantyhose

When you hire a technician, you will immediately discover if she or he speaks Business, and knows how to help you plan your network. The minute you hear unexplained phrases like "systems architecture", "legacy" (instead of "old" or out of date) or "no longer supported by ...." you will know that the person you are talking with only speaks Geek. Usher that person to the door politely and close it firmly.

"Handshaking" is what people meeting each other do---not the language professional consultants use to explain why you could not get onto the Internet today. Usher that person to the door politely and close it firmly.

If your consultant proposes to install a new application on your server, the minute you hear how it will be "deployed" in a "seamless operation," usher that person to the door politely and close it firmly.

"Protocols" are for diplomats, not a consultant's discussions with you.

Seamless, however, is for pantyhose.

[Note: This essay is a revision of an article by the same author which appeared in the June 2003 Business Monthly.]

Clueless in Columbia?

Unless you run your business 100 % over the Internet, and own or lease no computers, servers, printers, scanners, routers or other peripherals, you probably have a financial investment in equipment and at least some software. You paid a systems integrator to install software and hardware, create user accounts on it and to connect workstations to it.

While building your network---or simply installing software, your systems integrator creates a number of master accounts and master passwords. Your integrator also will handle related documentation, whether it is in hard copy, on a DVD or downloaded from the Internet. Systems integrators using best business practices routinely will give you, the business owner, a list of all passwords and what they are used for. They will also give you the documentation for the systems you have just paid for, as well as an inventory of the documents being handed to you.

Why?

If the relationship between you and that provider ends suddenly without your having a complete list of all those master accounts and passwords, you could be left Clueless in Columbia.

When you finally find service and support from someone else, the new technician will ask you for master account names and passwords. If you do not have a list of these details, getting service from that second technician will be a lot more time-consuming (and therefore expensive!) than you had ever thought.

Minimally, you as a business owner should have access to a complete list of network master accounts and passwords. While you personally may never use them, or even know how to use them, here is a minimum list of information you as a business owner should have available---and stored electronically and securely where you can get at them---at all times.

The user name and master account password for creating and deleting user accounts on your network, including on the server and on the workstations;

Conventions for creating eMail account names and passwords;

The user name/master password to access and run your backup system;

The user name/master password to configure all major software applications, including your backup system and anti-virus solutions.

Full contact information for every software and hardware vendor whose products are on your system;

The serial number for every piece of hardware and software on your network;

The version number of every piece of hardware and software on your network. This includes the operating systems as well as applications---and is included in our Managed Services offering.

Full vendor documentation about every piece of equipment on your network.

The installation Product Key for software requiring one. This is not the same as a serial number.

For Microsoft Open License products, the Open License Order Confirmation, which contains the authorization number, license agreement number, and end of maintenance coverage.

Warrantee information, including the date that your warrantees run out---and whether the warrantee can be extended.

Today we offer managed services which monitor networks on a 24/7/365 basis. Our service includes a periodic report showing your hardware, software and versions---and their operating status.

We don't leave you Clueless in Columbia --- or anywhere else, for that matter.

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