Stories

E-commerce Business Streamlines CMDB Maintenance with Lansweeper

Learn how this organization gained full visibility across their network infrastructure and simplified CMDB maintenance with Lansweeper.

An ITAM solution was needed to support rapid growth

“Our company had grown enormously in a relatively short period of time — we’d nearly tripled in size — and it was becoming impossible to track everything manually on spreadsheets. We had hit a threshold and needed an IT management solution, that’s when we discovered Lansweeper” said Tom Woodling, Operations Engineer at a fast growing E-commerce retail company.

Manual Asset Tracking and CMDB Maintenance Is Unsustainable
This company struggled to keep up with a rapidly expanding IT environment using manual processes.
Spreadsheets couldn’t scale with fast growth
No reliable overview of devices, licenses, and network inventory
Time-consuming manual reporting and data updates
Difficulty maintaining an accurate and up-to-date CMDB
The Result
Constantly outdated data led to operational inefficiencies and limited control over the IT environment.
Automated Visibility and CMDB Updates with Lansweeper
Lansweeper provided accurate, always-up-to-date data to streamline asset management and reporting.
Full, automated visibility across all assets and infrastructure
Automated CMDB updates and reporting thanks to SQL Report Builder
Automated discovery and data syncing eliminated manual tasks
Faster patching and upgrades with proactive insights
The Payoff
Faster reporting with unrivaled accuracy and a scalable IT management process.

“Reports that used to take days to get can now be done in a matter of minutes.”

Tom Woodling
Operations Engineer

Eliminate Time-Consuming Manual Tasks

“About three years ago, I was trying to implement a bit of rigor and control into our IT management operations,” Tom Woolding said. “My goal was to be able to easily answer questions like ‘How many PCs do we have?’ or ‘Which PCs are running Windows 10?’ We wanted to have a high degree of confidence in that data. Lansweeper tracks it all brilliantly. For example, when we migrate a PC from Windows 7 to Windows 10, it creates a complete audit trail with all the important information.

“It’s fine if you have a hundred laptops on a spreadsheet, you could just about keep track of that. But when all of a sudden it’s decided that you are going to handout a thousand laptops in the space of three months, it gets a bit tricky.”

Tom Woodling
Operations Engineer

“Another advantage is that Lansweeper tells me when servers aren’t getting patches. Instead of having to individually trawl through different systems every day, I just check Lansweeper’s reports. Lansweeper even proactively warns me when things aren’t working or when patches and updates are needed.

Lansweeper’s Accurate Inventory data keeps CMBD up to date

“My favorite feature in lansweeper is definitely the SQL Report Builder. I just think it’s fantastic. On the Lansweeper server, I have it set up with an ODBC connection, and I use PowerShell to build scripts that can query directly in Lansweeper. Then I literally just copy the SQL reports from Lansweeper directly to the scripts, and test them in Lansweeper safely, securely and quickly. Once I’m satisfied with the information that’s coming back, I can do stuff with it. In fact, that’s how we maintain our CMBD. We run scheduled tasks, get the information from Lansweeper, compare it to the information in the CMDB, and if there are updates needed, Lansweeper pushes them through. And, I can go in and make changes in minutes by just altering the reports.

SQL Report Builder is a really unique capability that opens up a huge range of possibilities for us. For example, because of the business we’re in, we have many different types of printers. They’re all on different network segments, and no one’s thought of managing them together before. This will be the gateway for pushing Lansweeper across the entire network. Eventually, we’ll be using Lansweeper to scan every IP device with a compatible protocol that runs on any of our networks.

Asset Discovery is not an afterthought

“We also use Lansweeper for troubleshooting issues. In most companies, asset discovery is an afterthought to the main helpdesk CRM system, and when there’s an issue, it can take ages to get a response. Adding new features takes forever. With Lansweeper, responses are fast. Every time I’ve had a request, they provide good, clear answers with a great deal of professionalism.

“Lansweeper has saved me a tremendous amount of time, and because it has a really nice interface, everyone who has access to the system finds it really easy to use and navigate. I’m really happy to be using Lansweeper, and I use it every day.”

“Lansweeper has saved me a tremendous amount of time, and because it has a really nice interface, everyone who has access to the system finds it really easy to use and navigate.”

Tom Woodling
Operations Engineer