Network Inventory Scans With Newt Professional

By Author: Neyda Tayner
Total Articles: 19
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It can be pretty difficult IT pros to find the right tools to make Network Inventory tasks simple. At one time Network Inventory was both laborous and monotonous, causing techs to visit each machine and write down information. This took hours or days to accomplish. Software like NEWT Professional by Komodo Labs have been developed to alleviate these issues. Developed in 2003, the software has been updated with improvements that have greatly increased the speed of PC Audits. A Computer Audit of 100 PCs can be performed in just 5 minutes.
There are two main ways to perform Network Inventory, each with its own pros and cons. These are: using an agent or going agentless. Normally agent-based software must be installed on every system to be scanned, and usually must be manually updated. Agentless methods, on the other hand, can be met with Windows security scan errors on some PCs, which requires visits to those machines to troubleshoot and change settings, sometimes taking days or weeks. NEWT Professional uses a hybrid method to gets around these security limitations that stop ...
... agentless software in its tracks. NEWT's method avoids the need to install agents manually on PCs to be audited as well. This is all done automatically and transparent to the user, and is what gives NEWT it's speed and deep scanning ability. It's like having the benefits of agentless without having the negative issues associated with agentless applications.
NEWT scans common PC Audit data such as CPU type, product keys, software inventory, computer and monitor serial numbers, memory, operating system, hard drives, printers, etc., and also provides more detailed information not offered by other software packages, such as CPU temperature, hard drive type (IDE vs SATA/SATA-II) and even the brand and serial number of each stick of RAM. These pieces of data are impossible to detect remotely by other means and gives you a total network inventory. Even the video monitor's display type is even shown accurately as LCD or CRT, a feature unavailable in most competing software products. This can be invaluable when performing video monitor upgrades from CRT to LCD, for example. New agent-only features are being developed all the time.
NEWT Professional is available as a Free Download through the Komodo Labs website. This free software is nearly identical to the full version, and is able to scan up to 25 nodes for unlimited time. This allows smaller Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and other organizations with smaller networks to use the software free, without expiration. Komodo Laboratories is committed to the idea that small organizations deserve a free Network Scanning product.
Visit http://www.komodolabs.com for more information.