OCS Inventory

OCS Inventory, short for Open Computers and Software Inventory, is an open-source asset management solution. It scans and inventories the devices in an IT department, so administrators know the hardware and software of every machine. Its GitHub repository dates the project from 2001 and lists the web console under the GPL-2.0 licence.

Agents report the software and hardware composition of each computer or server. The product also queries the network to discover active elements that cannot take an agent, and since version 2.0 it includes SNMP scans that add data about printers, switches and other network hardware.

Once the inventory is in place, the central server can send packages that the agent downloads over HTTP or HTTPS and runs, which keeps software environments uniform. The project site says OCS is used as a deployment tool on parks of more than 150 000 machines. Plugins extend the product through APIs, and listed operating systems include Windows, Linux, BSD, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, macOS and Android.

The project is entering version 3.0, a redesign with a RESTful API-driven architecture, a cross-platform Dart-based agent and a Vue.js web interface. FactorFX is named as the main contributor.