5 Best Asset Management Software Of 2023

To make the best asset management software choice for your organization, you need to consider your specific business needs and requirements. Here are a few critical questions that you should ask when exploring asset management software options:

We also recommend researching the vendor’s reputation and track record to ensure it consistently delivers the exceptional quality you expect. The five asset management software options listed in this Forbes review—Asset Panda, ManageEngine AssetExplorer, MMSOFT Pulseway, GoCodes and Ivanti— are all top solutions that offer a full suite of essential features that make these providers worthy of a closer look.

Several different categories of asset management software are available, each directed to specific needs. It’s vital that you select the solution that best fits your organization’s business requirements. Here are five popular types of asset management software:

The exact features you need in your asset management software will depend on the type of assets you intend to manage. Here is a list of top features found in many different types of asset management solutions:

You want to be confident that the asset management software you select is compatible with your company’s technology and software, including your current operating system. The software provider should give you a detailed list of system requirements necessary to run the software.

Get crystal clear on what’s expected from your team and what you can count on your software provider to do for you. For example, consider whether your IT team will be responsible for software installation and updates or whether that is handled through the provider. Also, make sure you understand where the software will be hosted—on a web server or cloud-based—and who will be hosting the software—your company or the software provider.

Finally, asset management software should provide extensive security features to protect your assets and sensitive data from unauthorized access, loss or corruption. Top security features include secure data encryption, two-factor authentication, firewalls and intrusion detection, secure data backups, and regular security updates and patches.

Strong analytics and reporting are crucial to making smart asset purchase and allocation decisions. Your asset management software should provide a full range of analytics and reporting capabilities that will help you gain insights into asset usage, performance, costs and other trends that are relevant to your business.

You may want to track and analyze:

You also want to ensure that your software provides robust reports that will give you greater visibility into the total value of your deployed assets and will help you make more informed asset decisions. Check out what types of reports are available—and whether custom reports are offered—before purchasing asset management software.

Three insights you might have missed from the Cisco Live event

The mantra of networking giant Cisco Systems Inc. was well understood long before Cisco Live 2023 kicked off in Las Vegas last week — future-proofing in an increasingly hybrid world.

But such a vision posed some big questions: How might artificial intelligence disrupt best-laid plans? And what might Cisco’s plan to respond to the future look like?

In a wrap-up commentary of the event written for SiliconANGLE, Zeus Kerravala (pictured, right at bottom), principal analyst at ZK Research, wrote that Cisco had rolled out the “most comprehensive set of announcements that I can remember” at this year’s event.

“They spanned the entire product set, but had a singular focus of raising the value of the end-to-end Cisco platform,” Kerravala wrote. “Accomplishing this would add value to both Cisco and its customers.”

In addition to commentary from Kerravala, theCUBE industry analysts John Furrier and Dave Vellante (left) discussed the road ahead and the broader solutions being built during SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio theCUBE’s coverage of the event. (* Disclosure below.) 

Here are three key insights you may have missed:

When it comes to companies that differentiate on ease of use, Furrier raised the example of Apple Inc. during an analysis with Kerravala, which is now worth nearly $3 trillion.

“Furrier theorized that if Cisco can pull this off, it can be the next trillion-dollar company. Cisco currently stands at about $200 billion in value, meaning $1 trillion would indicate a fivefold increase,” Kerravala wrote in his wrap-up commentary. “Can Cisco get there? Only time will tell, but the one thing I do know is that it won’t achieve this without the evolution to a platform.”

The shift in thinking also applies to the company more broadly, in an effort to move beyond a perception of Cisco solely as a networking company, according to Bob O’Donnell, president and chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research LLC.

“They are inherently involved with the creation and the delivery of applications. This stuff happens all over the place, and it’s making those network connections happen and then monitoring them … that is really their key to success moving forward,” O’Donnell said.

Part of what was revealed at this year’s Cisco Live event was the company’s vision for multicloud network and security, with a goal to unify its network and security offerings, in part, to enable developers to build on its platform.

When it came to the company’s message on simplification and complexity, Cisco received high marks, according to Vellante.

“Now, it’s got to play out over the next several years,” Vellante said. “To me, they announced three superclouds. They announced the networking supercloud, a security supercloud and a full stack observability supercloud, which sort of weaves through the other two. Now, over the next couple years, we’re going to see those things come together.”

In addition to that theme of simplicity, Furrier said he felt as though unification was another big part of Cisco Live — that even though the company used to have unified as a part of their compute model, in this case they were thinking bigger with unified platforms.

All of it together represents a big shift for the company, according to Vellante.

“Cisco’s in the process of moving from a product culture to a platform culture. From push the next feature to let the ecosystem and the customers guide us as to what features we want to enable on the platform,” he said. “That’s a different mindset, different thinking. The mindset can’t be understated. It’s the culture.”

Here’s the complete video analysis with Dave Vellante and John Furrier, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Cisco Live event:

Networking professionals often keep a close eye on Cisco Live, which often includes a number of product announcements. This year was no different, but most were geared toward building broader solutions, as Kerravala wrote in his wrap-up commentary.

During Cisco Live, the company rolled out upgrades to Panoptica, a cloud-native security development platform. Panoptica emerged out of Outshift, a Cisco initiative aimed at exploring new frontiers in cloud through research and open-source project contributions, along with new software development. Panoptica ensures security thanks to its end-to-end capabilities, covering areas from runtime to deployment, according to Vijoy Pandey (right, at top), senior vice president of Outshift at Cisco.

“It does everything from how, what and where in the application security space with the context and prioritization of attack parts,” he said. “Now, Panoptica is also tackling runtime security, deploy time security, as well as develop time security, because, again, it needs to be end-to-end. You can’t just look at runtime and forget about the developers. That’s where the friction is.”

That security market is, of course, large and fragmented, a reality that spurred Cisco’s new Security Cloud, which is a generative AI-driven approach to cybersecurity.

“The attackers are getting more sophisticated, they’re getting more coordinated, and our defenses are getting more isolated because of the point solutions,” said Jeetu Patel, executive vice president and general manager of the Security and Collaboration Business Units at Cisco. “That just doesn’t make any sense. It should be the other way around.”

The company is also utilizing AI to incorporate features, such as noise isolation and voice optimization, into Webex to enable enhanced telepresence, according to Snorre Kjesbu, senior vice president and general manager of collaboration devices at Cisco.

“We’ve been working on machine learning and AI and had those features out in our products since 2016. We just launched a brand new product this week here at Cisco Live, which is the Room Bar Pro … it gives us 20 times the AI, machine learning capabilities that anyone has had in the past,” Kjesbu said.

Here’s theCUBE’s complete video interview with Snorre Kjesbu:

In an effort to bring automation to the factory floor, automobile manufacturer Audi AG has sought to revolutionize its production processes through the implementation of a smart factory.

“We wanted to go down this smart factory route. At some point we figured out, ‘Hey, we need to change something,’” said Henning Loeser, head of the Audi Production Lab.

That’s where the P-Lab comes into play, according to Loeser.

“We’re the group of nerds that get to play around with technology and figure out, hands-on, is this helpful for us in production or not?” he said. “[People in the data center] introduced us to the concept of hyperconverged infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines and all of that.”

The company didn’t want to throw away all of its equipment just to change a protocol.

“We needed to figure out … how do you tunnel a field pass protocol that’s key for automation through a Layer 3 network to a hyperconverged infrastructure, that then does the compute and gets the data back down to the shop floor so that it does what it’s supposed to do? That was quite a challenge,” Loeser said.

Audi collaborated with Cisco to address part of its needs, with its eyes toward its goal of a more technologically advanced manufacturing environment. In addition to Audi, Cisco Live was an opportunity to hear from other companies that have incorporated Cisco solutions into their offerings, including cruise line operator Royal Caribbean Group. The company implemented a full-stack observability approach, utilizing Cisco’s AppDynamics.

The company had a challenge regarding customers informing the company that their website was down or that they couldn’t make cruise bookings, according to Alice McElroy, director of IT service management at Royal Caribbean.

“We started this journey of wanting to simplify and figure out, ‘How do we use tools to help us get out of that?’ We turned to [AppDynamics] at that point,” McElroy said. “We went through that transformation, and as we got AppDynamics in place, we were able to reduce the number of people that it took to resolve issues. We got great results in our mean time to resolution.”

Here’s theCUBE’s full interview with Henning Loeser:

To watch more of theCUBE’s coverage of the Cisco Live event, here’s our complete event video playlist:

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU

Dawkins, Schlenk Named to Wizards Executive Team; Thompson Promoted to SVP of Monumental Basketball

Michael Winger Appoints Trio of Experienced Leaders to Steer Monumental Basketball     

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Monumental Basketball President Michael Winger announced his updated executive leadership team for Monumental Basketball today, naming Will Dawkins as Wizards general manager and Travis Schlenk as Wizards senior vice president of player personnel and promoting John Thompson III to senior vice president of Monumental Basketball.

“We are very encouraged with the progress we’ve made in a short period of time in re-imagining our front office structure, putting together an experienced group of deep-thinking leaders who understand how to build a high-performing organization,” said Winger.  “Will, Travis and John all have radically different life and professional experiences, which will help us grow and change as we continue to add talent to our team.” 

Dawkins will be charged with immersing himself in the day-to-day operations of the Wizards, managing basketball operations and overseeing the Capital City Go-Go. Schlenk will oversee all Wizards player personnel evaluation, including managing the scouting staff.  Thompson’s elevated role will be focused on exploring and implementing best practices for the Wizards, Mystics and Go-Go while ensuring accountability for excellence across the organization.  

Dawkins joins the Wizards after spending the last 15 seasons with the Oklahoma City Thunder where he held a variety of positions throughout the organization.  He elevated all the way from front office intern, video coordinator and scouting coordinator to director of college player personnel, vice president of identification and intelligence, and his most recent position of vice president of basketball operations that he has held for the last three seasons. During his time with the Thunder, Dawkins had influence on all facets of the operation, assisting with roster and staff development while also developing long and short-term strategic planning for the organization that included player evaluations and acquisitions. The Emerson College alum was part of a Thunder front office that helped assemble teams that contributed to the second-best winning percentages in the NBA from 2010 to 2020, with a Finals appearance in 2012 and four appearances in the Western Conference Finals.

“Over the course of my career I’ve committed myself to doing everything I could, step-by-step, to help build a successful NBA organization, and I’m grateful to have the opportunity to now help lead a proud franchise like the Washington Wizards,” said Dawkins.  “I want to thank Mr. Leonsis and Michael for the opportunity to be part of a group that shares the same core values for developing a team that I believe in, values that fans in an incredible basketball city like D.C. can rally behind.”

Schlenk brings 25 seasons of NBA experience to the Wizards, including the last six seasons with the Atlanta Hawks.  He began his time in Atlanta as the team’s general manager and head of basketball operations in 2017 before being promoted to president of basketball operations prior to the 2019-20 season.  The following year, the Hawks reached the Eastern Conference Finals with a roster comprised of draft picks made during his tenure complemented by veteran players he acquired via trade and free agency.  Prior to his time at the Hawks, Schlenk spent 13 seasons with the Golden State Warriors, including the final six as assistant general manager where he assisted in the management of all day-to-day basketball operations activities and helped guide the Warriors to three consecutive NBA Finals and two NBA championships (2015 and 2017).  He joined the Warriors after working as a video coordinator with the Miami Heat and director of basketball operations at the University of Georgia and began his career with the Orlando Magic. 

“I’ve enjoyed doing business with Michael throughout our different stops in the NBA, and having the opportunity to now work alongside him to restore a winning environment with the Wizards is a special opportunity,” said Schlenk.  “We are all ready to collaborate on the best ways to begin and sustain that process, and we’re excited to have a great starting point ahead of us with the upcoming draft.”

Thompson has spent the last four seasons as Monumental Basketball’s vice president of player development and engagement. He has a vast array of basketball experience, most notably his 13 years (2004-2017) as head coach at iconic Georgetown University. Thompson achieved several coaching milestones at the helm of the Hoyas, including an NCAA Final Four appearance, two NCAA Sweet-16 appearances, three Big East regular season championships and one Big East tournament championship. In his four years as head coach at Princeton, Thompson won three Ivy League championships. Overall, he owns a stellar 346-193 (.641) all-time record and was named Big East Coach of the Year (2013), NABC Coach of the Year (2007) and was a two-time recipient of the Black Coaches Association (BCA) Male Coach of the Year. Following his tenure at Georgetown, he served as an assistant coach for the USA Men’s National Team where he supported Head Coach Jeff Van Gundy as the team qualified for the 2019 FIBA World Cup.

“I have had the benefit of spending the last four seasons working with all three teams under Monumental Basketball and I’m looking forward to being able to share that experience as we constantly improve and expand our operations,” said Thompson.  “There is much potential for growth across the board in our organization and we collectively are taking great pride and responsibility in putting us on the right track to achieve our goals.”

Dawkins will join Leonsis and Winger for an introductory press conference today at 12 p.m. at District E.  Schlenk, Thompson and Wizards Head Coach Wes Unseld Jr. (along with Leonsis, Winger and Dawkins) will be available to media following the on-stage portion of the press conference. 

The press conference will be aired live in its entirety by NBC Sports Washington, will be streamed live on the Wizards digital channels (YouTube, Twitter and Facebook) and air live on The Team 980 and 106.7 The Fan on the Audacy network.