I'm curious to know what kind of tools or methods, if any, you guys use for tracking and mapping physical hardware at the network drop level - things like individual NIC Cards, cables, drops, switches, servers themselves, workstations, etc. within a room or building.
Is this something you would typically do/find value in? Going beyond the IP layer, are there any software tools out there to help keep track of all that information?
At a past company they used Rackwise. At another company they picked Connectwise as it combined asset discovery and mapping with an IT help desk. I think for smaller IT Consulting firms there is a lot of value for these types of tools especially when it comes to asset discovery. So many times a customer will plug in a random computer, or worse, a router without any knowledge to the IT firm. Further, it seems they never know just how many computers they have or where they are all located.
I have in the past used Racktables.
Racktables is a nifty and robust solution for datacenter and server room asset management. It helps document hardware assets, network addresses, space in racks, networks configuration and much much more!
