How include monitor type in hardware inventory

[Ron_159]

I am just now evaluating HP Systmes Insight Manager for the first time. All clients have the Insight management agent and it reports the monitor type. However, I cannot find where in the HP SIM reports to include this. I see all the items to include in the report, but nothing that refers to monitor type. Any ideas?

[David Claypool · Accepted solution]

When you say client, I assume you mean desktops? The Insight agent for client systems is end of life and no longer supported. The solution for client systems is HP Client Manager. It has a connector so it can be driven through HP SIM.

http://www.hp.com/go/easydeploy

Monitor is not a data collected item. It was never instrumented in the server agents because most servers either have no monitor or share one among several servers. Depending on the position of the switch, a monitor could appear to float from machine to machine each time data was collected.

[Ron_159]

Thanks for confirming that. Now that I know for sure, do you know of any creative solutions for gathering that type of data (monitor type) short of walking around. You see, I have been charged with a desktop refresh project of aprox 400 workstations. HP SIM has given me a good deal of info about the actual workstation, enough to help us make decisions about refresh. However, many of the users are financial traders and have 4 monitors. Some traders have new monitors and some have old. Gathering this data will help decide what to retire, replace or redeploy. I realize I am asking about a more robust asset managemnt solution. Is there something within the HP product line that can accomodate, or perhaps a third party suggestion?

[David Claypool]

When I said monitor is not a data collected item, I was speaking about HP SIM. It is, however, collected with HP Client Manager. Use the link above for more info.

[Ron_159]

Thanks, So you are saying that I need to deploy HP Client Manager software 6.0 to all workstations in order to gather that type of information into a report. Does this mean that I will also need to set up Altiris connector 6.0 for HP SIM and Altiris Notification Server?

[David Claypool]

You would only need HP SIM if you wanted. You would be able to do all of the reporting necessary from HP Client Manager.

[Ron_159]

Software requirements for the required Notification server indicate that this must be a server 2003 or 2000. I wish to evaluate this solution for a client. Getting a test server on their network requires a great deal of red tape. Will it install on XP professional and still provide good proof of concept? Will this also help with a software audit?

Thanks alot for your help and patience so far. It is very much appreciated.
^RF