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My team is looking for a COTS tool that would allow us to document our different environments with the following info:

  • What applications & websites live on a server
  • What IPs map to a server
  • What load balance pools a server is in
  • Server configuration like #of cores, memory, disk space, os, installed dependencies and version #(.Net, python, git, powershell, etc. )

We want a tool that would allow us to query this information, as well as update it. A configuration management tool like chef or puppet, is too much. We simply want a documentation tool that is easy to use and provides us the capability to view any information about our servers in our environment. Nice to have features would be integration with our load balance server, network bots to detect servers, any automation really. Our team has a lot of servers in house, and we like to change what applications live where, servers in load balance pools, deploying new apps, etc.

A simple database with a UI in front of it would suffice, but we wanted to see if there is a tool that would do this for us (we also have plenty of other work on our plate). We currently use excel sheets to track this information, and I imagine a lot of other people do it this way too. I've spent time researching different tools but seem to come up short of any possible tool. Any tool you know of would be helpful.

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We have developed a framework where you can insert a PowerShell script, PS script that gets the inventory data from the server and stores data in the database. For some clients we recommend basic use of:

get-website |select name, applicationpool #Lists Websites and AppPools that contain them. Run on any Computer.

(this is example of documenting IIS settings but anything can be used, we have even created a more then 20 example scripts for IIS that documents all the deepest and hidden settings in the IIS)

What you can do is to enter this PS scripts in the application and then app will create inventory of your server and different components you have on the server.

Here is the screenshot of how it looks like: enter image description here

What you can do with this is to compare settings over time, if something has changed you are able to easy compare snapshots from let's say IIS configuration today and from the snapshot that was created 2 months ago.

And yes you can generate a nice xlsx file with all the settings for the export :-) The application is commercial app called Syskit and available here: https://www.syskit.com/.

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    So, among the asker's 4 requirements, this tool fits the "what websites" requirement, right? And only if the web server is IIS, right?
    – Nicolas Raoul ♦
    Commented Sep 4, 2017 at 3:08
  • I cannot see how this tool fits requirements 2-4, and thus the overall goal of the requested application. Did you miss to point that out? No offense meant, but the way it's put it rather looks like you just wanted to advertise your product, instead of answering the question. If the former meets the latter, there's no problem (as you disclosed your relation), but that at least it must.
    – Izzy
    Commented Sep 5, 2017 at 12:51
  • I am sorry guys I have tried just to offer one example. I wanted to point out that basically you can get into the tool what ever you want, so from the 1-4 requirements all 4 are possible just you need to write the script for this particular roles. If you want I will personally write the PowerShell scripts that be used freely or with the tool I have mentioned.
    – Frane Borozan
    Commented Oct 19, 2017 at 15:02

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