Asset Management feature

Hi Antoine,

Some references that may be of interest:
1) Multipe IP's can be retrieved in the session type 'System Information Report', which could be a sub-entry under a parent 'host' type entry, https://forum.devolutions.net/topics/41547/support-for-multiple-ip-addresses-on-the-asset-network-tab
2) The powershell capabilities for managing the 'system inventory' type asset are improving https://forum.devolutions.net/topics/41694/system-information-report-powershell-capabilities
3) In the context of asset discovery, the syncronizers have improved to reduce duplicates being created, https://forum.devolutions.net/topics/41588/hyper-v-syncronizer-destination-folder-additions
4) The session type 'report' allows displaying target lists of assets and attributes which can be exported to csv/xlsx etc https://docs.devolutions.net/rdm/kb/knowledge-base/configure-report-entry-type/
5) Certian types of assetts allow linking to others, for example software can be linked to servers/hosts https://forum.devolutions.net/topics/39916/software-licencing-entry-enhancements

Joe

Hello Antoine,

I'll go over some of your points to help clarify some of the questions you have.

Why Asset fields are available for each Session

In one word, versatility. A lot of our users like to create an entry for a specific machine to be used to connect to it through something like RDP or SSH, while also letting them add additional information about the machine through the Asset section. At its core, Remote Desktop Manager is a remote connection utility with asset management features, not a pure asset manager. Recently, we've created the "Asset" entry type that might make it a bit more streamlined for users who want to strictly create assets in certain cases, rather than creating an RDP entry, for example.

Asset type categories are not well designed : no use to have mouse, keyboard (this is usually not tracked ?)

Again this is for versatility, it might not be useful for your needs but it is used by some of our users.

but important storage type SAN is missing - this is not the same as NAS at all

We could add a new network category for SAN. I will note this.

now, about service providers like AWS, Azure, Gandi, etc... there should be a way to create a kind of platform Asset that could handle various identifiers...

How would you see this being integrated within RDM? We allow setting the server role on the entries but I'm not sure this is what you're looking for.


For your other points, I believe quite a few of them have been addressed by Joe's post (thanks, by the way!).
We're always listening to feedback to improve our products and it helps us prioritize features more quickly if we see that a lot of our users are interested in something. If you're missing specific features when it comes to asset management, I would encourage you to look for existing threads on our Feature Request forum and chime in, or if no thread already exists for your request, creating one (or going more into details in this current one if you have specific ideas in mind). It's also possible to contact our support team to have a demo session to help you figure out how best to use the existing features within RDM to achieve what you need.

Let me know if there's anything else we can help you with.

Regards,

First of all, as usual, Devolutions support team is wonderful. Each time I had to ask (for feature requests or precise PowerShell support a long time ago), I got very specific answers with a great customer oriented help. So, thanks ! Now, for the very subject : give me one or two days and I will post here a description of what I would like to have. I will try to be precise.
Stay tuned.

Regards.

So, let's explain my strategy to attempt to continue to use Devolutions RDM for connection management (it's obviously the main purpose) but integrate Assets management (migration from an old Access application).
Context : I am managing few customers as an independent administrator/architect.
I am using PowerShell a lot to do massive modifications in RDM entries, access to credentials, etc... (another subject that I can talk for hours). This organization is required if I want to access easily entries by group and names.
From top level to lower :

[Many] Customer folder
--- [One] Company entry - this is to be able to affect assets to a Company
--- Assets folder
------- [Many many] Asset entry (description of physical server, physical hypervisor, Azure VM or AWS instance)
----------- [Many] Session entry (could be RDM, SSH, credentials, web site consoles, web sites hosted by asset)
--- Cloud Providers folder (few examples)
------- AWS folder
---------- [Many] Session entry (could be web site console, many credentials)
------- Azure folder
---------- [Many] Session entry (could be web site console, many credentials)
------- Gandi folder
---------- [Many] Session entry (could be web site console, API credentials)
------- Cisco Meraki folder
---------- [Many] Session entry (could be web site console, API credentials)
--- Websites folder
------ [Many] Web site entry (usually not critical web sites that have only one credential and not related to asset)
--- Emails folder
------ [Many] Email entry (for mailboxes that are not related to cloud provider nor asset)
--- IPLists folder
------ [Many] IPList entry (I am using it to manage networks and individual IPs - this feature could be improved also)
--- Licenses folder
------- [Many] Software licence entry

You see the problem ? For Cloud providers, I am using folders, but I would like to have a specific Entry type so I can manage name of the provider, location, identifier, billing information, all very specific information related to a could provider. And I need to precise that I will not used custom cloud provider consoles available in RDM. I want to use the web provider's one, because I loose a lot of information by using a not original one.

For completion, I don't manage Certificates in RDM because I need full features of a PKI (I am using XCA).

Regards
Antoine Davous

Thank you for describing your environment, this gives a good perspective as to what your needs are.

From what I understand, you would be interested in us adding a new entry type for "Cloud providers". This entry type is not meant to be a dashboard, but simply a way to store information within RDM. The kinds of fields you would need would be the name of the provider, location, identifier, billing information, and other specific information related to a could provider.

Is this correct? If I'm not missing anything, I will open an internal ticket for this.

Regards,

Yes, it's correct. A specific "specialized" entry that is not a connection or an asset (like you've done in RDM with specific entries Email, Web, IPList,...) that can handle a the provider name, the subscription name, few identifiers, location, various fields related to billing info, contact and company links (already well managed in RDM),... This entry purpose is to gather Session sub-entries for each provider (connection to console, API credentials, etc...). This entry will also store general documentation/logs related to provider more than one of its connection entry which make no sense. Again, this entry should not be a refactored Devolutions RDM console for each of theses providers that I won't use because I prefer to connect to provider's full original one usually via web browser.

Regards
Antoine Davous

Let's be precise : I have sometimes multiple AWS accounts and Azure subscriptions for a given customer.
And very often, mails from AWS for example does not show the name of account but its ID. Very difficult to remember
So it would nice to have, at a very beginning :

Cloud provider (or Cloud Services provider ?)
Provider : [Azure, AWS, ... choice list that can be completed]
Name : [Azure subscription name or AWS account name or ...]
Identifier : [Azure subscription ID or AWS account ID or ...]
(Location will not help because inside the same account, there can be multiple regions)
Provider's contact : [already supported in RDM]
Company : [the company that is owning this account - already supported in RDM]

And all usual Comments, tags, Custom fields, Documentation, logs RDM features.
Thanks for your time.

Antoine Davous

Perfect, thank you for the additional information. I think we're on the same page for this. I will open an internal ticket.

Regards,