baramundi and LOGINventory

Both take inventory of devices. Still, they are built for different tasks.

baramundi says so itself. The manufacturer’s documentation (German) says the following about the asset functions (translated from German):

“The baramundi Assets do not replace a complete asset management system.”

They are meant as stock keeping: you can see which devices are on hand and ready for use.

For customers who use both, the split usually looks like this: software distribution and mobile devices run through baramundi. Asset management, handouts with signature, reports, and analyses run through LOGINventory.

baramundi knows what is installed on a device. LOGINventory also knows what has happened to the device since it came into the company.

The lifecycle history of every device

In LOGINventory, an asset begins with the order. You can create devices before delivery, with invoice, purchase price, cost center, and a ready-made label. On the first scan, LOGINventory recognizes them by serial number and merges the data.

From then on, everything collects on the device: handouts and returns, repairs, notes, entries from other systems. These lifecycle entries are kept permanently, even after the device has long been decommissioned. Years later, you can still trace who had it and when. And because purchase date, warranty, and condition are in one place, you see early which devices need to be replaced next year.

Device handout, with signature

You handle the handout on your phone: scan the label, choose the recipient, display the terms of use, have them sign. Accessories such as the charging cable and bag are recorded in the same step. The lifecycle entry and the handover certificate are created automatically, and the return works the same way. The documentation describes how to set this up under Hand Out / Return.

In baramundi, you assign a contact and a cost center to an asset. A handout with signature doesn’t appear in baramundi’s documentation.

Keeping track of the warranty

LOGINventory retrieves the warranty data from Dell, HP, and Lenovo automatically and shows which devices are about to fall out of warranty. baramundi doesn’t have this lookup. The documentation lists the supported manufacturers.

Documents that update themselves

The inventory produces designed documents with your logo: client and server documentation, a switch with everything connected to it, the handover certificate of a device. Plus dynamic documents such as the emergency manual based on the BSI template. You write the text once, and the data in it is current every time it’s opened. Examples are on the page about IT documentation.

Analyses and dashboards in the application

In LOGINventory, every list is a query that you adapt in the editor, without a line of code. If you’d rather ask in plain language, let LIA (AI Assistant) build the query. From your queries, you put together dashboards yourself by drag & drop. You decide whether a click on a bar filters the other charts and a double click goes one level deeper.

Queries build on each other. Under the query for a location, each further query shows only that location’s devices, and through sharing the site manager sees exactly that subset. For each node, you decide whether someone can only view, edit data, or create their own queries.

In its console, baramundi offers views and a start page with up to six predefined widgets. For custom reports, baramundi relies on a separate data warehouse with Power BI, as described in baramundi’s reporting tutorial.

A network map you can work with

Both show which device is connected to which switch port. baramundi presents this in a Network Map with ports on the connections.

With the network map from LOGINventory, you document your network:

• One map per location or floor. Each map is generated from a query and saved. You create as many as you need.
• On your floor plan. In the map, the devices sit where they sit in the building.
• Changes at a glance. When you open a saved map, LOGINventory highlights what has changed since: new devices, re-plugged cables, disconnected connections. What that looks like is shown in the documentation under Highlighting of changes.
• Labeling by your rules. From values in the inventory and your own text.
• VLANs and virtual machines. VLANs are shown on the connections, virtual machines at their host.

Inventorying Windows computers and servers without an agent

For software distribution and remote control, baramundi needs an agent on the device; that is in the nature of the task. The inventory of a Windows computer also runs in baramundi as a job that the baramundi Management Agent executes on the device. Network devices, Linux devices, and industrial devices, on the other hand, baramundi discovers without an agent as well.

LOGINventory queries Windows computers and servers over protocols that are already active on the network. Nothing has to be installed on the devices. A computer that lacks the baramundi agent still shows up in LOGINventory with hardware and software. Laptops that are rarely on the company network report in through an Offline Agent or a logon script. Both are optional, not required. How this works is explained on the page Agentless discovery.

Licenses

baramundi offers its own license module in which you maintain licenses and contracts and compare them against installations. In the SAM Edition, LOGINventory calculates by the vendors’ rules, down to the core requirement of virtual servers derived from the host’s hardware, and reminds you of cancellation deadlines before a contract renews. More on the software asset management page.