How global IT consulting firm, Capgemini, powered asset discovery for their retail client's CMDB with runZero
Download PDFProblem
A French manufacturer and retailer of luxury products contracted with Capgemini to deploy an asset discovery solution and to set up the integration with the new CMDB to store the company's IT asset inventory. However, they were struggling to get the data they needed via unauthenticated scans–especially for managed assets (e.g., routers and switches) and unmanaged assets. They knew they had to explore other asset discovery options.
Solution
One of the primary requirements established for the project was unauthenticated asset discovery. As they looked into other solutions, they discovered runZero, which delivered everything their client needed: speed, accuracy, a rich API, and unauthenticated scans. runZero's asset discovery was fast, efficient, and worked flawlessly without credentials.
Outcomes
runZero enabled the Capgemini team to finish the asset discovery project for their client. The solution is in production, scanning the French retailer's multi-national network and supporting the support and operations department. To help with assessing gaps between the runZero scan results and the CMDB, they set up their first integration with PowerBI for reporting. Now, Capgemini has other ideas for capitalizing on runZero's asset discovery capabilities. As they work on their ‘Datacenter Move to Cloud' project, they will be able to leverage runZero to provide a precise project plan with known scope, schedule, and cost estimates.
Why runZero?
IT teams need an accurate and comprehensive asset inventory that accounts for all devices connected to their network–managed and unmanaged. As these teams try to leverage the discovery capabilities built into their CMDBs and vulnerability scanners, they're discovering that these solutions are not only hard to use, but provide incomplete results. runZero makes it possible to build an accurate, comprehensive asset inventory–without credentials–and enrich asset data in CMDBs, like ServiceNow ITOM.
Problem: Asset visibility is a major gap
A French manufacturer and retailer of luxury products contracted with Capgemini to deploy a new CMDB to store and manage the company's IT asset inventory. Francois Brunet managed the project.
The client’s CISO and End user Support Global Manager laid out the requirements for Brunet:
- Visibility across an expansive environment - The client wanted to capture information about the IT assets they owned and had purchased, which would be a challenge because of the sheer size of the company. The giant retail company owned an enormous inventory of IT assets spread throughout multiple datacenters, warehouses, and retail stores from multiple brands in several geographic regions.
- Unauthenticated scanning - The CISO specifically required that the asset inventory solution be unauthenticated, meaning the scans needed to be able to gather information about devices on the network without credentials.
- Scalability across multiple regions - The solution had to span a global network divided into three regions and serve the company’s support and operations departments.
In the first two years of the project, Brunet and his Capgemini team turned to industry-standard ServiceNow ITOM (IT Operation Management) to create a proof-of-concept (POC). The POC revealed that the ServiceNow met their requirements, but they were struggling to get the asset data they needed via unauthenticated scans–especially into managed and unmanaged assets. The team looked at Qualys as an alternative data source for ServiceNow Discovery, but the system (scanned through appliances) was too slow.
It was impossible to go to production with any of the solutions they had tried.
Solution: Unauthenticated asset discovery with runZero
Brunet's team needed another solution. They discovered runZero, which delivered everything they'd been looking for: operational speed and unauthenticated discovery. runZero's asset discovery process was fast and efficient and worked flawlessly without credentials.
Brunet was very pleased with the accuracy of runZero’s ability to discover and capture data for networked devices. The speed of runZero’s discovery capability was orders of magnitude better than other solutions. runZero scanned an entire retail store in under two minutes, sometimes completing the process in just thirty seconds. The team was also able to scan a small data center in less than six minutes and a large data center in thirty minutes.
Eventually, the client’s IT team put runZero to a major test by scanning a /12 subnet with over a million usable hosts per subnet. The process ran in five days.
"This would have been completely impossible with other asset inventory tools."
Outcomes: runZero delivers a source of truth for ServiceNow ITOM
runZero enabled Brunet and Capgemini in the third year of the engagement to complete the CMDB project for the client. The solution is now in production, scanning the French retailer's multi-national network and supporting the support and operations department. Accurate asset inventory is important not only for security reasons but for financial reasons. As an example, one of Capgemini's clients had outsourced their data center management to a third-party company. The management company was billing the client for several thousands of devices. When Capgemini ran runZero for the client, the discovery process reduced the over-estimated asset inventory by a third. This reduction in inventory translated to substantial cost savings for the client.
runZero helped Capgemini accurately determine the number of devices in their client's inventory. As a result, they learned that they were being billed for more devices than they actually had.
Another benefit the Capgemini team found with runZero is the product's rich API feature. On their first attempt to import asset inventory data from an AWS cloud implementation, they were 100% successful.
Appreciating the power of runZero, Capgemini has other ideas for capitalizing on the solution’s powerful capabilities. As the company works on ‘Datacenter Move to Cloud’ studies for clients, runZero will give them an accurate picture of the client’s asset inventory, enabling Capgemini to provide a precise project plan with known scope, schedule, and cost estimates.
Francois Brunet, Capgemini's project manager, knows runZero was the key to the success of this engagement. runZero came to the rescue, delivering key benefits that the project manager knows will continue to be part of Capgemini's arsenal of solutions.
Power ServiceNow ITOM asset discovery with runZero
The days of wondering how you’re going to get quality asset data into your CMDB are over.
Start a free trial