Anyone use NCM to manage their network device inventory? We are considering it since NCM captures a lot of into about each device. Currently we use it just to snag the configs of all routers and chassis switches.
Casonline - point noted. We do plan to expand this functionality in the near future and we're tracking it as a feature request (with lots of votes).
--Christine
We use a number of NCM reports, including data from NCM to provide a reconciliation function to our asset management systems.
I'm not sure if that's what you mean by 'manage network inventory' - but NCM certainly has a large amount of inventory information available.
The major inventory related component missing for us is the switch port mapping - which the product manager is tired of getting beaten up about (and is a high priority road map item). We currently source this data from Ciscoworks LMS.
Dave.
Well what it looks like it is great at is gathering information about gear. I was floored by the amount of data it pulled back. We are now buying the 3000 license and will pull in all of our network gear into it to run inventory reports. This saves us a ton of time from manual inventory.
We're trying to understand what are all the different ways our customers use NCM inventory data to help us with planning for future enhancements.
What are your specific use-cases for wanting all this inventory data?
If others have comments, please don't hesitate to chime in!
We have a few thousand Cisco devices out there what we do not have proper inventory of and we have an asset management push on. So we will be using NCM to collect data for all the devices and run reports giving us information like model, serial, IOS version etc. We will take it as far as getting reports of all cards in routers and chassis switches with their model and serial etc.
It would be amazing if a partnership with Cisco would allow an individual to link their SmartNet contracts with NCM and be able to compare that with the existing equipment inventory. Even better yet, if it brought in end-of-life and end-of-support dates and shows you what you should be trying to replace. But that would be a lot of wishful thinking=)
This is exactly the kind of thing that my manager and I are looking for. I hope that it will be considered as a near-future enhancement - not wishful thinking!! :>)
We are integrating with Maintenance contracts.
I'd like to see the ability to do custom inventory for things OTHER THAN Cisco. For example, I'd like to be able to inventory a node, say a foundry switch, and get the serial number. This would operate sort of like custom pollers.
you could relate custom inventory elements to types of devices/vendors.
This would be huge to a lot of people, including myself, in that I can now maintain an inventory report of all my switches/routers, etc with S/N info and then cross ref that with maintenance contracts. AND it would work for vendors other than Cisco.
Bump....any word on these updates?
Indeed; where is the udpate? Currently what I have been trying to gather is my Parent/Child Associations.
As I have found reports for NCM that will show me node details; mainly name,serial,ip, machine type, model, etc.
What I also have is a Cisco Cards report that shows just about every other module in the device. It shows all the hardware sensors; when basically all i want are Card Types/Names of 1 through 13 (or my modules installed in a 65xx or 45xx).
Currently these are two different reports. Can we lookup a Modules associated chassis and cultivate a a report to show the chassis; and then the line cards/modules in the chassis with Serial #'s of each line card and their association to the Master Serial (Or Chassis Serial) ...
I have scoured the reports and have not seen anything tie these together. Help would be appreciated
Does anyone have a way to report on cisco hardware and smartnet and/or when the warranty is about to expire.
What is the updated way to report on this?
