Asset Management

eG Enterprise now allows administrators to record asset information for every application, device, or server being managed. When an application, server, or device experiences performance degradation, through the Alarms window in the eG monitoring console, a help-desk person has single-click access to the asset information of each problematic application, server or device. Administrators can also configure the eG manager so that asset information can be included in email alerts sent out to users. By making useful asset details easily available to help desk staff and administrators, eG Enterprise helps minimize troubleshooting time and improves the efficiency of IT operations.

To record asset information, do the following:

  1. Select the Add/Modify option from the Components menu of the Infrastructure tile.
  2. Select a Category and then a Component type from the components page (see Figure 1) that then appears.
  3. All managed components of the chosen type will then be listed as depicted by Figure 1.
  4. To configure the asset details of a managed component, just click the asset icon corresponding to that component in Figure 1.

  5. This will lead you to Figure 1

    configuringassetdetails1

    Figure 1 : Recording asset information of a component

  6. Using Figure 1, you can record details such as the name of the asset, description, type, location and state. Additional details on manufacturer, serial number of the asset, maintenance information and license information can also be recorded. Ownership details including the person to be contacted in the event of an issue can also be recorded.

  7. If required, you can customize the asset details to capture more asset-related parameters that what is provided by default by the eG Enterprise system. For this purpose, custom fields can be added to the Asset Management page of Figure 1. To add custom fields, click the Add Custom Fields option at the bottom, right corner of Figure 1.

    addcustomfields

    Figure 2 : Adding custom fields

  8. Type the name of the new attribute that you want to capture against the Custom Attribute Display text box of Figure 2. Enter the value of new attribute in the Custom Attribute value text box.
  9. In the same way, you can add more asset parameters and configure their values.
  10. At any given point in time, you can delete an attribute-value pair by clicking the (-) icon corresponding to that pair in Figure 2
  11. Finally, click the Save button to register the changes.

  12. Asset information can also be mass imported into eG Enterprise from CSV files. For this, click the Import Asset Details button at the right, top corner of Figure 1. Figure 3 will then appear using which you can indicate the full path to the CSV/XLS file containing asset details.

    assetimport

    Figure 3 : Importing an XLS file with asset details

  13. The asset details should be provided in a specific format in the CSV/XLS file you upload. To know the format, download a sample CSV file by clicking the Download sample CSV link in Figure 7.69. An AssetDetails.csv file will then be downloaded.
  14. Once the file is downloaded, open the file, save it using any other name you want to (if required) and as any file type (CSV/XLS) of your choice,  and then open the file. In the file, you will find a series of columns, each of which represents a standard asset-related parameter – e.g., OS/DEVICE/APPLICATION, HOSTNAME, PORT, ASSETNAME, DESCRIPTION, etc. By default, eG Enterprise auto-discovers the OS/Device/Applications in the target environment and the corresponding hostname and port details. These details are auto-populated in the downloaded CSV file in the OS/DEVICE/APPLICATION, HOSTNAME and PORT columns. Replace the sample entries under each of the column heads with the details of the assets you want to manage. Each row should contain details of one asset.
  15. For an asset, besides the default/standard asset information, you can also maintain custom properties. To enable you to specify these custom properties, columns labeled ATTR2 and ATTR3 are provided in the sample CSV file. Replace these column labels with the names of the properties that you want to additionally capture for an asset.  However, before that, make sure that you add custom fields to your asset management page using steps 7 and 8 above. Make sure that the count of custom fields you add is equal to the count of custom attributes you specify in the sample file. Also, when labeling the columns for custom properties in the sample file, take care to assign the same names as the custom fields to these columns. 
  16. Click the Upload button in Figure 3 to upload the file to the eG manager and import its contents into the asset details repository.