question on inventory software

[ghostmachine]

hi
may i know what protocol does those software inventory use when they gather information
on what type of software are installed on each PC? I believe it needs to use some remote connection protocol but exactly is that protocol? RPC?
thanks

[nihil]

I am sorry ghostmachine your question is a little confusing.

I assume that you are talking about software that takes an inventory of software on a machine in a remote location.

If that is the case, then all the ones that I have seen have a locally installed element that is called/submitted remotely, runs locally, and reports back. So anything that allows communication between the two devices will do the job.

If the program was trying to analyse 1200 machines remotely and in sequence it would probably take at least 50 hours. They either call something already installed, or install something and run it. A bit like a remote access trojan?

[Gigabite]

Hey ghostmachine, Are u talking about lets say for example trying to install a program, and it needs to use lets say IE7.0, and u got IE5.0 installed, so it will check and says that the program cant be installed, coz u need IE7.0, IS that wht u askin 4??????

[MrCoffee]

The question is worded a bit confusing I agree. There are serveral SMS style packages out there that will collect all sorts of information on workstations on a network. So with limits hardware and software gathering abilities. MOM (Microsoft Operations Management) comes to mind. There are MANY others.

Cheers!

[zencoder]

Originally posted here by Gigabite
Hey ghostmachine, Are u talking about lets say for example trying to install a program, and it needs to use lets say IE7.0, and u got IE5.0 installed, so it will check and says that the program cant be installed, coz u need IE7.0, IS that wht u askin 4??????

/me slaps Gigabite with the Merriam-Webster URI

Certainly, this has been covered, but I'll make sure it's clear.

SMS is the microsoft systems management...system(?) ... probably service... Systems Management Service, that allows a lot of automated remote administration, pushing of updates, monitoring of systems, inventory of them including software packages, etc.

There are also EASILY half a dozen prominent other software solutions that do the very same thing. So without knowing which one you are subject to, we can't give an answer that would resemble anything reasonable.

As nihil said, it's a client-server realtionship, most likely, so anything would do.

I'd bet on the tin-can_string-strand protocol...TCS^2 we call it, under review by IEEE for validation and ratification now!

[rapier57]

Most rely on SNMP, even with agents installed--or especially with agents installed. SMS once was fully dependent on SNMP.

You can use the WMI interface, in Windows systems, to gather information on installed software via scripting, without having an agent installed or using SNMP.

More and more, they are moving away from complete dependence on SNMP, since some networks actively block SNMP traffic outside of network segments, but still need the capability to conduct inventory.