Using HPSIM as an asset management tool...

[Michael Sole_1]

OK, here is a strange request.

I really like HPSIM, it is a far superior product to even my own company's Device Management tool (IMO).

I would like to use it as an asset management tool. In order to accomplish this I would need to "attach" static elements (like keyboards and monitors) to the networked elements.

Can this be accomplished with HPSIM?

[David Claypool]

It might not be a good match and I'll tell you why...

I'm surprised that keyboards would be part of what you need to track. First of all, they aren't instrumented with an electronic serial number and secondly, they're less than $10 each. Even if 1,000 of them walked out the door...well, you know what I mean.

I'm assuming you're talking about doing asset tracking on workstations/desktops. Because of the way that servers are generally deployed, with 1 keyboard/video/mouse tasked through multiple servers through a KVM switch, depending on which server was active through the switch would be where the monitor appeared to be attached. That would make the monitor look like it was floating around from server to server. Because of that, HP SIM does not collect data from monitors.

[Michael Sole_1]

Actually we use Cherry keyboards as part of a public computing environment. Each one has a serial number. These keyboards are $125 a piece and we have around 600 of them. IMO thats an asset worth tracking.

So far as my servers are concerned (everyone a Proliant G3) I am satisfied with the asset info associated. However in the environment I am managing we have workstations that are utility terminals (they are used for getting on the public system) Attached to those stations are Monitors and KB I would like to track.

Basically, is there any way I can add some user definable fields to each object?

That would take care of my problem.