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Audit and inventory of computers in Active Directory

Total Network Inventory makes it easy to keep track of computers in offices and organizations of all forms of ownership. It can work in corporate networks of any size, including those built on Active Directory.

Who is this solution for?

If your company has around a dozen computers, then you can go around them all and collect all the necessary information by writing it down manually. However, the more computing devices appear, the more time it takes to make an inventory of the network. When the total number of such devices exceeds a certain limit, it becomes very difficult to perform inventory tasks.

What tasks does this software solve?

With Total Network Inventory you can get detailed information about all computers and other devices connected to your network. The program will scan your network fast and easily, collecting all available information. Moreover, based on the collected data, you can build a variety of reports, which can be exported to popular formats in just a few clicks. Additional tools, such as the network map and advanced licensing module, will significantly expand the capabilities of network inventory and make this process really simple.

Scanning computers connected to AD

In order to start scanning the network, you need to specify an OU (organizational unit) from your Active Directory domain and then click the start button. After a short period of time, you will receive a list of all computers that meet the specified criteria. The scan time depends on the number of devices connected to the network, but usually, it takes no more than a few minutes.

With Total Network Inventory you can get information about both hardware and software of all your computers:

  • details about network adapters: model, MAC address, IP address, gateway, and hostname;
  • list of connected peripheral devices such as keyboards, mice, printers (including network printers), and connected USB devices.

In addition to the information on hardware equipment, the data about installed software is collected as well. From the reports provided, you can find out which operating system is installed, its version, installation date, system updates installed, license, and key information. Furthermore, you can see the list of installed programs, their version, and installation date. Total Network Inventory allows you to conduct a security audit: it collects information about available antiviruses, firewalls, and antispyware. It keeps the updating of the anti-virus databases under control.

In addition, you can also collect information about startup programs on each computer running Windows, what resources are open for public use (printers, hard disk partitions, etc.), what processes are running, and what accounts have been created.

The above-mentioned list is far from complete, Total Network Inventory can provide much more interesting information about all devices connected to the local network.

More details about Active Directory scanning

In order to perform a scan, you must first configure the synchronization of TNI with AD. To do this, you need to go to 'Settings', 'General' and then specify the domain controller. Here you can also configure other audit settings, such as what to synchronize (computers or users), and what actions to take on computers that were discovered on the network but not found in AD.

Before starting the scanning process, you need to add a list of scan tasks. Specify one or several nodes to be scanned. For Active Directory this can be the IP address or the name of the domain controller, which must be specified with the ''AD:'' prefix. For example, "AD:10.0.0.1" or "AD:servername". Among other data, the report will contain information collected from the 'Location' and 'Description' columns, if the domain administrator filled out these details.

After the scanning process is completed, some devices may appear in the program as stubs. They are created for computers that were found in Active Directory but were not scanned. Only basic information will be displayed for such computers: description, location, and version of the OS. Such stubs can be rescanned later in order to obtain complete information.

Thanks to the features listed above, Total Network Inventory greatly simplifies the administration and auditing of computers in Active Directory.

 

27 February 2024

Total Network Inventory 6.2: the beginning of big changes!

TNI has now the ability to work with SQL servers, which will make the program a full-fledged reliable multi-user product.

08 June 2023

TNI 6.1: New interface and functionalities for Data transfer mode

We have significantly redesigned the mechanism and interface of the "Data Transfer" window based on your feedback to the support team.