Keeping track of all this IT crap

[Ted Roche]

Ben Scott wrote:
>   I may have asked this here before, but if so, I seem to recall there
> wasn't a good answer at the time.  Or maybe I just forgot and can't
> find it in the archives.  Either way, worth asking again.
> 
>   Do people know of any good software to keep track of all this IT
> crap?  Users, computers (with make, model, serial, CPU, RAM, etc.),
> patch panels and their jacks, switches and their ports.  Most
> importantly, what is connected to what: User A has computer B plugged
> into jack C which is patched into port D of switch E.  Multiple times
> 100 users, two buildings, and eight switches, and damn things are
> confusing.
> 
>   I'm looking for FOSS so I can (1) be cheap and (2) extend it to do
> what it doesn't.
> 

Was just reading Time Management for SysAdmins 
(http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/timemgmt/) today, and Limoncelli was 
recommending a wiki. It's not RT, you have RT for that. And it's not an 
asset-management, inventory system, there are things for that. It's a 
set of note pages where you can stick your favorite spreadsheet, network 
diagram, procedures to set up a new user, form for users to fill out for 
more disk space, freeform and tending towards chaos but for your care 
and feeding. A decent one doesn't make it too hard to set up tables 
where they are appropriate.

Worth considering. I've seen too many projects get bogged down in trying 
to read the manual for the silver-bullet-software package.