Hull City Council

With almost 250,000 residents and a student population of 16,000, Hull is a magnificent waterfront city that boasts a relaxing atmosphere and a mix of culture, shopping and nightlife, making Hull a great place to live, learn, work or visit. Located on the banks of the River Humber, Hull is a vibrant European city and cultural centre as well as a major port that handles 15% of the UK’s seaborne trade.

Challenges

Hull City Council had used the Centennial Discovery product for more than 4 years. This was integrated into the Axios Assyst Service Management product to feed asset information, for over 5000 computers across more than 200 sites, into the configuration management database (CMDB). Hull CC had a particular problem with users moving desktop computers between or within sites , generating help desk calls when their computer no longer worked.

Hull City Council required:

• The capability to capture computer switch port history to track computer moves
• The capability to Identify unmanaged hubs and switches under desks
• Integration into the Axios Assyst CMDB for configuration history
• The capability to remotely deliver software packages and patches
• A manageable solution for license and software asset management (SAM)
• An asset management solution that can be used by all areas of the IT department

The Solution

Certero AssetStudio™ provided Hull City Council with:

• A discovery of all networked computer hardware across their sites
• A full hardware and software inventory of their client computers
• The ability to capture client computer switch port history
• The ability to identify the switch port location of any computer
• The ability to identify free switch ports
• An integrated “real-time” view of software licenses and compliance
• A feed into the Axios Assyst service management tool CMDB
• A web based asset management solution that could be used by everyone in IT

Certero and AssetStudio™ ticked all the boxes. AssetStudio™ was installed on a single server in less than 1 day and key staff trained within 1 day.

What Hull City Council Said

Steve Moffat, Principal Officer for IT Infrastructure said "After reviewing our product portfolio we identified a need to improve in the area of IT Asset Management. We wanted to build on our already comprehensive IT asset management capability to include Software Asset Management and Software Delivery."

"Having been made aware of Certero and their new product AssetStudio we were very impressed as it enabled us to actively improve on what we believed was a comprehensive solution. AssetStudio’s unique usability and functionality coupled with the ease of integration into the Axios Assyst CMDB has enabled us to realise our objective to improve in this area, particularly in Software Asset Management."

"Working closely with Certero has been refreshing due to their absolute customer focus and as a result they played a pivotal role in helping us achieve the improvements and to extract maximum value out of AssetStudio. The integrated License Management provides procurement staff with a real-time view of over and under licensing. I would certainly recommend Certero and AssetStudio to any organisation looking for an intuitive, comprehensive IT Asset Management, Inventory and Discovery Tool."

If you would like more information about AssetStudio™ then please contact us using the details at the top of this page or fill in our Online Enquiry Form.