Agent vs. Agentless IT Asset Management Solutions
Technology has made us depend more on machines and less on human beings over the years. In an agentless technology environment, a machine’s native, embedded management functionality is used to retrieve information. IT agents are software installed on the servers to monitor the network.
In the 90s, agents used to be heavy and slowed down the network’s performance as they occupied a lot of space in the CPU and memory resources on the servers they ran on. During that period, it was observed that when the agent malfunctioned, it impacted the server’s performance and the applications it monitored.
Benefits of Agent-based Asset Management
Agent-based IT monitoring systems require installing one or more agent software on each target system. These agents collect performance and availability metrics from the company’s servers, desktops, laptops,, virtual machines, printers, operating systems, middleware, and software applications. These agents then transmit the collected data to a central monitoring station.
- Much more detailed hardware inventory
Once the system knows where to look for the information in an agent-based IT asset management software solution, it scans each platform or device and gathers the data. It collects platform configurations and extracts information about the software and applications. Hence the network administrator gets a more comprehensive report on the hardware inventory.
- Usage Metrics
The network administrator can quickly get the applications and users’ usage-related data in an agent-based environment. They can extract active usage via SAM (Software Asset Management) toolsets.
Add a point about how agentless is more realtime
Benefits of Agentless Asset Management
In an agentless IT monitoring tool, one does not require installing an agent software to perform monitoring. These monitoring tools typically collect information and data by either leveraging APIs provided by the target systems or by using management protocols or specifications like the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), or Common Information Model (CIM).
- Quick implementation
Since there are no associated software and applications to be downloaded along with these asset management systems, the time to implement them is much less than the agent-based systems. It is more of a plug-and-play kind of setup.
- Less security process
Due to the plug-and-play nature of the agentless Asset Management system, the security requirements are less. The network administrators use application monitoring software in an organization to check the network performance.
- Discover everything on the network
The users can discover everything in the network like printers, scanners, routers, etc. Different permission levels are allocated to different users based on their department and group. In an organization working in Bangalore, the employee does not need the information of printers and scanners in other cities.
Agent-based vs. Agentless Methods:
- Overhead on the network– Agentless methods use a more significant bandwidth than agent-based methods.
- Maintenance- Agent-based methods require occasional patching, monitoring, and troubleshooting of agents on the target system side.
- Deployment- We need to install agents in target systems in agent-based methods.
- Metrics’ breadth and depth- Agent-based methods provide deeper insights into the inventory and performance of IT assets, and the network administrators can monitor a wider variety of metrics. A network performance monitor has been used in agent-based methods.
- Overhead on resources- Agent-based method can consume a certain amount of computing resources on the target system, which might impact the performance of the resource-constrained systems.
- Reliability- Both the methods are equally reliable.
- Expandability- Agentless methods do not provide the flexibility to customize and expand.
Conclusion/CTA
Need a better conclusion. Add that infraon Asset supports both agent and non-agent.. And depending on customer scenario we can choose which way to go.
