Main Features

IT assets account for the largest proportion of the overall IT spend, therefore, ensuring they are properly managed and maintained becomes one of the highest priority corporate goals for any organisation where TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) is high on the agenda.

Without a comprehensive management program in place, IT assets can cost far more than necessary through waste and redundancy (direct costs) and overly complex management and maintenance (indirect costs). By implementing an effective IT asset management program, companies can view every asset in their enterprise, allowing them to control and manage IT assets, eliminate waste and redundancy, and comply with ever-tightening government compliance regulations.

The annual cost of supporting this IT infrastructure can often result in costs spiraling out of control, where the initial purchase price of IT assets pales into insignificance. Understanding leasing arrangements and undertaking proactive asset management ensures compliance with software license agreements and makes budget forecasting more accurate. Knowing how many of your users are using a specific application at any given time will allow for both effective trimming of software budgets and a realistic prediction of future software investment.

Information is key. Without this, decisions on upgrades and the roll-out of new technology will not be taken from an entirely informed position. From a cost-saving standpoint, knowing the inventory of IT assets is critical when deciding whether to purchase more assets, redistribute current assets, or retire them completely - along with their costly maintenance contracts and renewal fees.

Recognising that organisations have differing requirements, NetSupport DNA is available in a modular format, allowing you to pick and choose only those features that best meet the current needs of your organisation.

With NetSupport DNA You Get The Full Picture

What sets NetSupport DNA apart is its ability to report on your assets no matter where they are, going beyond just a local or wide area network. NetSupport’s Internet Gateway technology provides a stable and secure method for tracking assets that may ordinarily be ‘hidden’ on a remote network or behind firewalls.

NetSupport DNA integrates with Active Directory enabling you to configure the PC’s and Users within the DNA Console to mirror their relative position within the Active Directory Container structure. Changes made within the AD structure are automatically reflected within DNA. User Information can also be retrieved from Active Directory.

New Features in Version 3

 User Interface

The NetSupport DNA User Interface has been totally refreshed for version 3. Included among the changes is the introduction of separate PC and User tree views, making it easier to distinguish between the physical asset and items associated with the user (such as Internet and Application usage), as well as a completely new navigation bar and dynamic component "action panels".

 Communication Gateway

The introduction of NetSupport’s Gateway technology provides a stable and secure method for locating and connecting to Clients on Remote Networks securely via the Internet. Multiple remote locations can communicate data back to a central location with the use of the included Client and Server gateway components.

 Energy Monitor

Aimed at helping organisations reduce their carbon footprint, meet internal energy saving targets and reduce operational costs, the new Energy Monitor component tracks all powered-on systems across the enterprise, highlighting their energy consumption and associated costs. Working day hours can be defined making it easy to identify out of hours wastage.

 Active Directory Integration

Full Active Directory Integration is provided in v3. The NetSupport DNA tree view can now mirror your Active Directory structure. Support has been provided to enable membership of AD groups to control logon/access rights to the DNA Console.

 Console Roles

Access rights for Console Operators are now controlled by defined profiles or ‘Roles’. Once created the Role can be assigned to multiple operators. Roles can be linked to a Windows Group and are relevant when Active Directory is being used.

 Change PC Owner

When DNA connects to a Client PC for the first time it will automatically ‘bind’ the logged on user as the PC Owner. A new ‘Bind Users’ dialog allows you to manually change the PC Owner details if this is not the permanent ‘owner’.

 Software Inventory

The newly introduced ‘Installed Programs’ option mirrors the add/remove programs structure of your Client machines, detailing the license levels for the displayed applications. NetSupport DNA now features three level software inventory : Software Programs (eg MS Office), Software Applications (eg MS Word) and Software Resources (eg Letter.doc)

License management is further enhanced with the ability to assign licenses to specific departments.

 License Administration

The process for assigning license information to a PC’s asset data has been refined. New ‘Leasing Administration’ and ‘Maintenance Administration’ dialogs have been added enabling operators to quickly assign licenses to any number of PCs.

 Internet Metering

Support for Sub-Url’s added allowing you to restrict both complete and specific pages within a website.

 Additional Hardware

Peripheral Hardware items such as PDAs or Mobile phones can now be assigned to multiple machines simultaneously extending NetSupport DNA's use as a central reporting point for technology assets.

 Query Tool

The NetSupport DNA Query tool is a unique utility that allows an operator to produce custom reports and data views based on all database fields. This has been extended to include totalling functions for values such as time and costs.

 Database Wizard

New ‘Miscellaneous Settings’ dialog added to the DNA Database Wizard enabling you to enter the SQL Server address, set a timeout for Database Queries, force Active Directory Authentication and add DNA Gateway settings.