E-commerce Business Streamlines CMDB Maintenance with Lansweeper
An ITAM solution was needed to support rapid growth
«Our company had grown enormously in a relatively short period of time — we’d nearly tripled in size — and it was becoming impossible to track everything manually on spreadsheets. We had hit a threshold and needed an IT management solution, that’s when we discovered Lansweeper» said Tom Woodling, Operations Engineer at a fast growing E-commerce retail company.
- Needed an informational overview of their networked devices and license counts for auditing purposes
- Creating a reliable source of information on software and hardware assets
- Faster access to relevant data and reporting tools
- Better managing of the fast-growing IT environment with the current team
Lansweeper Results
- Gained full visibility across the network infrastructure and 8.000 assets
- Simplified CMDB maintenance with Lansweeper’s SQL Report Builder
- Eliminated time-consuming manual tasks
- Enabled rapid execution of patches and upgrades
«Reports that used to take days to get can now be done in a matter of minutes.»
Eliminate Time-Consuming Manual Tasks
«About three years ago, I was trying to implement a bit of rigor and control into our IT management operations,» Tom Woolding said. «My goal was to be able to easily answer questions like ‘How many PCs do we have?’ or ‘Which PCs are running Windows 10?’ We wanted to have a high degree of confidence in that data. Lansweeper tracks it all brilliantly. For example, when we migrate a PC from Windows 7 to Windows 10, it creates a complete audit trail with all the important information.
«It’s fine if you have a hundred laptops on a spreadsheet, you could just about keep track of that. But when all of a sudden it’s decided that you are going to handout a thousand laptops in the space of three months, it gets a bit tricky.»
«Another advantage is that Lansweeper tells me when servers aren’t getting patches. Instead of having to individually trawl through different systems every day, I just check Lansweeper’s reports. Lansweeper even proactively warns me when things aren’t working or when patches and updates are needed.
Lansweeper’s Accurate Inventory data keeps CMBD up to date
«My favorite feature in lansweeper is definitely the SQL Report Builder. I just think it’s fantastic. On the Lansweeper server, I have it set up with an ODBC connection, and I use PowerShell to build scripts that can query directly in Lansweeper. Then I literally just copy the SQL reports from Lansweeper directly to the scripts, and test them in Lansweeper safely, securely and quickly. Once I’m satisfied with the information that’s coming back, I can do stuff with it. In fact, that’s how we maintain our CMBD. We run scheduled tasks, get the information from Lansweeper, compare it to the information in the CMDB, and if there are updates needed, Lansweeper pushes them through. And, I can go in and make changes in minutes by just altering the reports.
«SQL Report Builder is a really unique capability that opens up a huge range of possibilities for us. For example, because of the business we’re in, we have many different types of printers. They’re all on different network segments, and no one’s thought of managing them together before. This will be the gateway for pushing Lansweeper across the entire network. Eventually, we’ll be using Lansweeper to scan every IP device with a compatible protocol that runs on any of our networks.
Asset Discovery is not an afterthought
«We also use Lansweeper for troubleshooting issues. In most companies, asset discovery is an afterthought to the main helpdesk CRM system, and when there’s an issue, it can take ages to get a response. Adding new features takes forever. With Lansweeper, responses are fast. Every time I’ve had a request, they provide good, clear answers with a great deal of professionalism.
«Lansweeper has saved me a tremendous amount of time, and because it has a really nice interface, everyone who has access to the system finds it really easy to use and navigate. I’m really happy to be using Lansweeper, and I use it every day.»
«Lansweeper has saved me a tremendous amount of time, and because it has a really nice interface, everyone who has access to the system finds it really easy to use and navigate.»