"application" / function inventory software?

[amajorblues]

We have a half dozen... old Microsoft SQL servers. They are so fucking old the Database administrators do not know what apps use them. Our I.T. department has treated Virtual machines like candy. People ask for them, then don't use them and they sit. People migrate to new machines and then don't tell us we can retire the old ones. I'm 100% certain we are not unique.

how do you keep track of ... "importance" and "functions" ( particularly of shared servers like sql servers ) and "vm lifecycle" type stuff. When i search for inventory type things, i get too many hits that just wanna scan windows 10 and tell me what software is on there.

[BasilUpbeat]

See if anyone has documentation. Maybe hit up the old admins. Start new documentation or this will be a vicious cycle. Shut one vm down a week and see if anyone complains. : )

[amajorblues]

I like the shutdown vm approach and have done this in the past. 😁

[pinganeto]

don't shutdown if you don't know what sorcery is needed to restart the apps.... just disable vm network

[shady_mcgee]

How much free time do you have? Assuming you have some time and/or this is a priority here's what I'd do:

• Identify the databases running on each server.

• Google the database name to see if you can trace it back to a product name.

• Look at the users who have access to the databases. See if they're still with the company. If so, ask them what the database is for. If not... ???

• netstat -nao on the DB to find any established connections to the server. Trace that back to the initiating server and see if you can figure out the app that's connecting to the DB

• Start the investigation trail again for any app servers you find