Products Overview
Although we do use our own tools to deliver a cost effective solution we are tool-agnostic, process oriented and can provide a holistic solution. Many of our client engagements have included in their Statements of Work the requirement to prepare a short list of third party ITAM tools with recommendations.
The ESI Toolset
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- Management Information Exchange (MIE)
The Management Information Exchange (MIE) platform, developed by ESI, significantly improves operational efficiency through process automation; reducing the manual effort required to manage business processes, for example when focused on the ITAM organization, managing IT Assets, Vendors and Contracts.
Built by practitioners, the MIE integrates 20 years of experience gained addressing client situations and is designed as a web-based collection of applications, or modules, which together form building blocks to address specific work areas associated with IT asset management. Application modules, for all intents and purposes, are individual applications that can fast-track a custom IT asset management solution with emphasis on software license management and hardware life cycle management, with support for contract tracking and audit trail tracking back to procurement.
The Management Information Exchange has an intuitive configurable dashboard and a comprehensive reporting capability to provide the IT asset management information you need at your fingertips.
The MIE has all the benefits of a hosted Software as a Service (SaaS) solution, no capital costs for infrastructure and combines the following to slash software license and maintenance costs while ensuring enterprise-wide license compliance: Summary of MIE functions.
- Asset data management.
- Inventory.
- Software and hardware.
- Vendors, Contracts, Entitlements, Warranties.
- Dashboard with real-time graphs.
- Workflow designer and engine.
- Workflow attachments.
- Full disposal tracking and management.
- Code-free / script-free import and export system - build import jobs to take data from other systems without writing code or scripts.
- Over 80 reports and growing.
- Self-service inventory.
- Built-in management and integrity testing to support initial inventory effort.
- Built-in accuracy calculator - reports on accuracy of data.
- Timed operations - imports and reports automatically on a given frequency.
- Import by email - send the file to be imported via email.
- Notifications.
- Comprehensive catch-point management with rules-based asset record construction / upkeep.
- Protects important data.
- Minimizes back-end data clean-up / entry / edit requirements (ESI solution requires almost no back-end data entry to keep asset information up to date).
- Full audit of all data sources.
- Bar code support and printing.
- Support for bar code scanners.
- A Self-Service Software Request Portal.
- Built-in financial incentive system (credits/debits). Calculation and processing of credits and debits, enabling a true cost of compliance picture at the business unit cost center level.
- Enables setting up an internal software exchange.
- Application usage.
- Auto-discovery and Electronic Software Distribution using an agent-based workstation management (auto-discovery, s/w usage, s/w installation and de-installation, notification) for WinTel workstations.
- Flexibility to take data feeds from existing auto-discovery tools.
- Discovery of non-networked devices.
- Write to Registry (WTR). Auto-discovery utility that can be carried by technicians on a memory stick.
- ActiveX. Internet Explorer add-in used to perform auto-discovery and all the functions that WTR performs. Allows plugging in auto-discovery capability to any website. Used by MIE’s catch point screens to perform auto-discovery of target workstation.
- Automated software harvesting.
- Administration of a software license pool.
- Real time compliance picture.
- Software authorization and alocation.
- Purchase order data from multiple vendors. This is achieved via a client-based Advanced Shipping Notices (ASN) processor integrated directly with the MIE via web services.
- Catch point screens to electronically capture the important ITAM data efficiently, and as close to the activity as possible, improving data accuracy.
- Product use rights.
- Advanced Shipping Notice (ASN) processsor.
The Advance Shipping Notice (ASN) Processor allows you to receive ASNs from various vendors, making the addition of new asset records highly automated. Much of the information needed to establish a new asset record can be received from a vendor’s ASN. This eliminates the need to manually type that information in, and, depending on the vendor, the information is highly accurate (even more so than auto-discovery).
With the capability to handle both hardware and software items the ASN Processor allows you to remain flexible in working with the ASN format for each vendor, and to perform integrity tests on the data to make sure the vendor has properly included the requested information. It integrates with the MIE or it can stand alone.
Review our White Paper™ entitled Total Asset Management. Working with Advance Shipping Notices (ASNs) for more information about ASNs.
- Workstation Data Assistant (WDA).
The WDA is an agent that is deployed to individual “Wintel” workstations. Once deployed, it serves as a platform which can be used to perform many automated tasks via its various snap-in modules. Snap-in modules include auto-discovery, software usage monitor, and a software installer. It is managed by the MIE and can be set to perform various tasks on a one-time or repeating schedule basis.
The WDA can be deployed by any existing software distribution system, or it can be deployed by the Active X component.
- Flash drive utility, Write-To-Registry (WTR).
WTR is a small auto-discovery utility and was primarily designed to be used by technicians to write the asset number into the system’s registry so that auto-discovery could then report the asset using it’s external bar-coded asset tag. WTR does perform that task, but it also performs the same auto-discovery as the WDA auto-discovery module and the ActiveX, returning hardware and software information for “Wintel” platforms.
It is typically used by technicians on machines that are initially being set up, or are off the network, or are being repaired and re-imaged. It is typically carried on a USB memory “stick”.
- Browser Add-on, Active-X.
The ActiveX component is used by our web-based inventory and catch point screens. It is an auto-discovery component that retrieves hardware and software information from “Wintel” devices.
ActiveX is used to perform web-based auto-discovery without having to deploy an auto-discovery tool.
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