Agent vs. Agentless Discovery Guide: Choosing the Right Solution for Your IT Assets

Transcription

1 Agent vs. Agentless Discovery Guide: Choosing the Right Solution for Your IT Assets

2 Introduction With all of the technology in use today, keeping track of all of your assets has never been more important. From security concerns to budgeting, maintaining an accurate inventory of your assets and resources is a key component in managing your IT operations. However, manually recording each piece of hardware or software that your organization owns is inefficient and timeconsuming, which is where asset administration tools come in. Asset administration tools enable end-to-end tracking and monitoring of your assets, an essential component of protecting your organization s investments and resources. Without having to manually record each piece of hardware you have or software installed on devices, asset administration tools allow IT departments to keep track of all the devices and licenses on your network, and provide data for you to create actionable insights. However, not all of these tools are created the same. Typically, solutions on the market today are either classified as agent-based or agentless, and the differences between them can make a major impact not only on your bottom line but also on your most valuable resource: manpower. The Value of Asset Administration When we talk about IT asset inventory, we want to make sure that everything is properly accounted for and giving us the data we need to make more informed decisions. An IT asset is a flexible term. Tech Target describes assets as any companyowned information, system or hardware that is used in the course of business activities. 1 Since an IT asset includes both hardware and software plus ownership, licenses and more, your inventory can quickly feel overwhelming, and manually entering in this data is not only tedious but also takes you away from focusing on more important projects. In the market, vendors often sell discovery tools, but today there are many solutions that not only gather initial data but also continue to track and monitor your assets. An asset administration program eliminates the need for manual input through automated discovery and monitoring. These tools then continue to monitor and collect data such as location, users, total cost of ownership and more depending on your needs and the type of program you choose. Having a device monitoring, or asset administration, program in place with this ongoing information helps you improve cybersecurity and plan for the future. For example: Having data on total cost of ownership (TCO) is crucial for the lifecycle of any asset. While a laptop may have a higher ticket price, for example, you can show that a less expensive alternative is actually more costly down the road based on repair history, which helps justify spending more upfront to lower TCO over the life of the asset. Furthermore, you ll be able to get valuable information on your software in real-time. For instance, if you see that a license on a device is expiring soon, you can then create a ticket to update it or you can avoid costly overage fees by seeing too many licenses are installed beyond what your contract allows for. Eventually, you can use your data to proactively plan maintenance on assets. All of this data collection is possible through the use of agents however, agent-based systems aren t the only systems on the market today. Agentless solutions are increasingly becoming popular, too so what exactly do they do? Maintaining an accurate inventory of your assets and resources is a key component in managing your IT operations

3 Agent vs. Agentless: WHAT ARE THE BIG DIFFERENCES? Tech Target defines an agent as a program that gathers information or performs some other service without your immediate presence and on some regular schedule. 2 For IT, agent-based tools are installed directly on each individual device and run in the background of other programs, sending data back to your software solution. For example: If you have a computer lab, each laptop or desktop will have an agent installed on it that will collect data for you on the software licenses on that particular asset and information including status, location and more. However, agent-based systems aren t the only asset administration software out there, and more and more organizations are increasingly looking for more agile or flexible solutions. Agentless solutions don t require you to install them on each device in order to track IT inventory, making them more scalable and easier to implement. 3 An agentless asset management system remotely gathers all the data on your devices from a central tool that your technicians run on the server. As long as a device is IP-addressable, agentless programs will be able to document its existence as soon as it s present on the network. While it can appear that the only differences between agentless and agent-based solutions are how they gather data, there are many more factors that differ between them. THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AN AGENTLESS AND AGENT-BASED SYSTEM ARE MOST APPARENT WHEN YOU LOOK AT: 1. Aggregate Costs The cost of any asset is rarely ever just the price tag and cloud software is no exception. The true cost includes your current infrastructure, such as servers, network equipment, current hardware and software; and external service providers. In addition, installation time is also a huge factor, which can quickly become a drain on your already limited resources. One of the drawbacks of agent-based discovery tools is their reliance on manual input. While they will automatically collect data, agents need to be installed on every device in your inventory, from computers in a lab to each tablet issued to employees and other users, a time-consuming process that can delay the time to deployment. As a result, you may be left waiting longer for the time when you can begin discovery and monitoring. Furthermore, some devices, such as routers and switches, don t allow for agent installation, so if your organization has these you ll have to figure out a different way to catalog them. Agentless discovery tools, in contrast, have a shorter implementation time and use a local server for data collection, so the cost of ownership is much lower. You can be up and running much faster since they re less invasive on your devices, meaning that you don t need technicians to physically access the machine during deployment. Furthermore, for each new device that appears on your network, the solution will automatically discover its IP address and enter its data into your inventory catalog. As long as an asset is IPaddressable, it can be found. 1. Aggregate costs, including installation 2. Data collection 3. Maintenance and upkeep 3

4 2. Data Collection When it comes to data collection, the difference isn t so much in the type of data collected but how the data is collected. Agentless discovery can only occur when a device is within range of your server; as a result, agentless tools only work for assets on your network. This also means that if someone carries a device off campus to work at home, tracking stops as soon as they re out of range. software update, you ll have to manually go into each agent and bring it up to the new version. Plus, when you add new devices, you ll have to install an agent on each new piece of hardware that you purchase, meaning that there s more work for you in the long run which ultimately affects your TCO. In contrast, having an agent-based discovery tool enables information to be sent back to your solution even it s not on the network because an agent is installed on each device. This is valuable if your users have devices owned by your organization that they bring home for work. In addition, there are a few types of data that agents can collect that an agentless system won t be able to, such as BIOS footprints. So while every device you have may not be able to have an agent installed, you will be able to gather some data that agentless solutions can t. It s a tradeoff that you ll have to debate based on what your organization's needs are. 3. Maintenance and Upkeep Agentless solutions have an advantage with maintenance. For one thing, updates are pushed out from the server, so if your discovery tool needs to be updated, your technicians aren t spending time bringing multiple instances of code up to date. Furthermore, if you replace any devices or add additional assets, you don t have to spend time installing a new agent on them. Any machine that appears on the network will notify the server of its existence. With agent-based systems, agents themselves are another asset you have to keep track of meaning that you ll be managing these just as you would any of your other assets. As mentioned, for each Total Cost of Ownership and Long-Term Considerations While you may be calculating Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for your assets, calculating the TCO of your asset administration solution is just as important, especially when it comes to technician labor. Because budgets are often limited, it s important that you choose a solution that maximizes your team s efficiency and productivity because manpower is one of your most valuable resources. The right solution for your department will help you conserve your team s time. 4

5 TCO takes the following into account: DIRECT LABOR COSTS Tied to installation, this is the number of hours your team will need to devote to implementing a solution. INDIRECT LABOR COSTS Indirect labor costs are often hidden these can include downtime while you install, peer support through training, and the file and data management of your current software to ensure that your new solution will work alongside it. INFRASTRUCTURE AND MAINTENANCE This can include deploying and maintaining centralized servers, ensuring sufficient software licensing and compliance with license requirements, and upgrading software to improve performance and utilize new features. Guiding Questions All of these factors figure into long-term considerations for what kind of asset administration tool is best for your institution and department. The right solution not only collects data but also makes the most sense for you right now and in the long run. If a solution is difficult from the beginning, it will likely not be adopted by the team and be more complicated down the road. When looking at asset discovery and monitoring solutions, it can be helpful to have guiding questions such as: Are all of my devices IP-addressable? How much can I invest in manpower for implementation? In maintenance and upgrades? Does this solution work hand in hand with my help desk solution? My department s objectives? When looking for solutions for your IT department, it s crucial to look for a vendor that offers both a help desk and asset administration solution so that your data can flow seamlessly between the two, empowering you to make better decisions for your resources. The best IT solutions integrate their asset administration and help desk tools to better an organization's help desk AND asset replacement process. By integrating asset management with the help desk, IT departments can better assess their tickets, including open tickets, type of requests and technician workloads, while also assessing 5 asset health. Being able to see the work order history on each device is a critical component when assessing replacement cycles and helps with decisions of whether to continue to repair assets versus replacing the assets. Dude Solutions' TechnologyEssentials suite combines powerful help desk technology with an agile asset administration and mobile device management solution so that our clients get the best of both worlds. Help Desk and Insight talk to each other, providing data and information that bolsters each one so that clients can make more informed decisions for their organization. With our agentless discovery and monitoring, technicians are able to keep track of their assets quickly and seamlessly while also using their data to generate reports for increased visibility into the state of their IT organization. Ultimately, the right solution is one that will empower your team to make better decisions in the future and require as little extra work as possible. From schools to local government to manufacturing plants and healthcare facilities, all organizations must protect their assets carefully as resources are limited. With the right help desk and monitoring software, your team can take control of your asset administration and build a serviceoriented help desk.

6 ABOUT DUDE SOLUTIONS Dude Solutions is a leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider of operations management solutions to education, government, healthcare, senior living, manufacturing and membershipbased organizations. For nearly two decades, Dude Solutions has inspired clients to create better work and better lives. We combine innovative, user-friendly technology with the world s smartest operations engine, empowering operations leaders to transform the most important places in our lives. Today, more than 10,000 organizations use our award-winning software to manage maintenance, assets, energy, safety, IT, events and more. For more information, visit dudesolutions.com. FOOTNOTES 1. Definition: IT Asset. Margaret Rouse, TechTarget WhatIs.com, Definition: Agent (Intelligent Agent). Margaret Rouse, TechTarget WhatIs.com, definition/agent-intelligent-agent 3. Definition: Agentless. Margaret Rouse, TechTarget WhatIs. com, / info@dudesolutions.com / dudesolutions.com