Peregrine Systems unveils market`s most comprehensive automated asset management solution

Peregrine Systems, Inc, the leading provider of Infrastructure Management software solutions, represented in South Africa by MGX Enterprise Solutions, today announced an automated discovery and asset management solution, which delivers a unique ability to accurately identify and monitor valuable corporate assets.

The market`s most comprehensive solution, Peregrine`s AssetCenter Automated Inventory tightly links business processes to elements in the corporate infrastructure. It provides a quick return on investment by empowering managers to make informed strategic business decisions, such as how to structure network or system upgrades or ensure software license compliance.

Based in part on patented technology gained through Peregrine`s recent acquisition of Loran Technologies, the solution is an enhancement to AssetCenter, one of Peregrine`s key software solutions. AssetCenter enables companies to more effectively manage assets such as inventory, portfolio, contract and business data, which are critical to an organization`s business mission.

Using the new AssetCenter Automated Inventory module, customers can now automatically find assets, monitor changes in these assets over time and define relationships among assets. In the process, it automates and integrates two key asset management functions for the first time:

• Network infrastructure discovery and inventory - AssetCenter Automated Inventory finds and inventories all networked devices. It registers data on device manufacturer, model, firmware version, software and other devices to which it`s attached.

• Desktop, Mobile, Server, Client and PDA inventory - AssetCenter Automated Inventory scans important end-user IT assets, and automatically captures detailed information on the complete operating environment, including processors, system memory, disk space, application and operating system versions. The PDA Inventory component ensures that these increasingly important corporate assets can be tracked and better managed.

"Having an integrated asset management solution across IT and facilities allows Visa International to better manage the total lifecycle of our assets, and deliver greater value to our customers. By introducing automated inventory capabilities and workflows, we have alleviated the need to perform expensive walk-around audits for our strategic planning purposes," said Peter Faulkner, Manager, VISA International Asia-Pacific. "In conjunction with our base AssetCenter system, we`re always able to understand when our assets are placed into service and how they are being used, enabling us to maximize the return on our capital investments."

Key AssetCenter Automated Inventory Benefits

Key benefits of the AssetCenter Automated Inventory include:

• Faster asset management deployment - AssetCenter Automated Inventory significantly reduces the time required to implement an asset management solution by eliminating the need to manually inventory network and system devices. This level of automation is accomplished without the need to deploy agent technologies.

• Continuous accurate inventory - Infrastructure inventories generated by manual processes can quickly become out of date, thereby losing much of their usefulness and bringing their accuracy level into question. AssetCenter Automated Inventory delivers continuous updates, empowering Asset Managersto make real-time decisions based on a comprehensive view of their assets.

• Automated alerts of moves or changes - AssetCenter Automated Inventory allows enforcement of policies for moves, adds, or changes by automatically flagging unauthorized activity and generating actionable reports.

"One critical issue common to many companies is that they don`t know exactly how many assets they have, let alone what they are or where they are located," said Bill Keyworth, vice president of product marketing at Peregrine. "Now, thanks to AssetCenter Automated Inventory, they can define and monitor their valuable assets with absolute accuracy. These capabilities are unique in the industry and should keep AssetCenter at the top of corporate IT asset management solutions."