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Hi everyone, we’ve been working hard on our Inventory products, but have not provided a recent update on the status of the Inventory 8.0 beta or the general future of the Desktop app (Help Desk and Inventory). Below are details around where both are headed, and how it ties into what we’re working on for Help Desk and Inventory products.

Inventory 8.0 beta

The 2017 beta releases of Inventory 8.0 made it apparent that application performance would be a challenge for both Inventory and Help Desk. Since then, we’ve been working hard on the future of this product; and specifically looked at two technical options:

  • The first one, raised frequently by Spiceheads, is about using a 64-bit architecture. From our initial testing, upgrading the app to a 64-bit executable would provide minimal performance gains, if any at all. This is because the performance bottlenecks that the app experiences have little do to with the amount of memory the app can address and more to do with some fundamental architecture decisions, most notably the database and the single process architecture. Given that, we decided not to focus our efforts on updating to a 64-bit build.
  • Another option (one that many of you have also raised) is to change the database. We have found that this would alleviate some of the performance issues. However, the existing database is ingrained at almost every level in the app and would require a major overhaul for a fairly limited benefit. It isn’t a great “bang for the buck”.

Unified product/code-base

Because of the two limitations (above) we are currently looking at a 3rd, more promising option:

  • Modify the cloud code base of the software to make it installable on-prem, allowing us to leverage its scalability potential without sacrificing ease of setup and ease of use.

As Manish alluded to here , this third option is something that we are (and have been) actively working on - i.e. we started experimenting with making the Cloud Help Desk available as an installable/on-prem solution. We started with the Help Desk side of the application because we believe the performance issue is more acute on Help Desk than Inventory. Stay tuned on this, more news to come.

Even though we are less advanced on the Inventory side of things, we are considering the same type of option - with the https://community.spiceworks.com/blogs/products/2706-network-monitor-update recently released “Inventory online” code we hope to deliver a new Inventory on-prem. At this stage, the “new” Inventory on-prem is just a plan that we have not started to work on, so things might still change. Bear with us, we will update you on this. This was also mentioned by Manish here .

Future of Desktop app

Given the above, our current approach related to new versions of Desktop, is as follows:

  • Desktop 8.0 is on hold.

  • We are experimenting with modifying the cloud code-base version of the software to make it installable on-prem (as stated in the previous sections).

  • We are not planning any new functional version of 7.5.

  • We may release 7.5 patches if we discover severe issues that prevent normal usage for lots of users, or security issues, etc. For any outstanding non-critical bugs that are open (or those that may be discovered later) we do not currently have a plan to release a 7.5 patch to fix them. These decisions on severity will continue to be handled on an individual basis, and we do not have any outstanding issues deemed severe (so a 7.5 patch is not currently in the pipeline).

As an example of how these security patch decisions are made, we have had a few recent questions from users about the fact that 7.5 is currently on Apache version v2.2.34 (a version which has 2 CVE’s reported). We do our best to look at CVE’s quite thoroughly and we believe that these two are not severe and do not deserve patching, for these reasons:

  • The first CVE (CVE-2017-9798), is a variation on the OptionsBleed vulnerability. The vulnerability only affects Spiceworks installations where users have included a modified .htaccess file that includes a <Limit {method}> directive that uses an unrecognized HTTP method (not GET, POST, DELETE, PUT, PATCH, OPTIONS). By default, Spiceworks does not include this directive, and installations should be secure, provided that an .htaccess has not been added by the user. Please see this page for more information on how to further secure your installation: Apache HTTP Server 2.2 vulnerabilities - The Apache HTTP Server Project .

  • The second CVE (CVE-2016-8612) is a stability vulnerability that affects Apache servers using the “mod_cluster” module. Spiceworks included Apache webserver does not include this module, and as long the user has not modified the httpd configuration file to include that module, the Apache server should be stable. Please note that it does not appear that data has been able to be compromised from this vulnerability.

To conclude and be clear about the status of Desktop/“Help Desk and Inventory” v7.5:

  1. It is safe to continue to download and use Desktop 7.5. It is a mature code base with over ten years of engineering included.

  2. Desktop 7.5 is being used by tons of IT pros and will still be offered for download and supported for the foreseeable future (possibly years).

  3. The Spiceworks Support team will continue to provide the same level of support for 7.5, so we’ll still help you resolve and workaround problems. The main change will simply be in how we set expectations on bugs. As many of you know, up until now we would log bugs internally and let you know to expect a fix in a future patch or major release. Going forward we may log the issue, but we’ll focus more on trying to work around problems instead of recommending waiting on a bug fix in a patch.

  4. Don’t forget to upgrade to the most recent version of Desktop. If you are currently running 7.5.00074 or prior you may experience problems with a few features that will stop working soon, as explained here .

  5. As a reminder, Network Monitor’s latest update is here .

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Thanks for the update.

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Thanks for the update. I wondered if the delay was fixing the performance problems in the current local install software.

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Thanks for the update. Any ideas of timings on these things? People ask and it’s good to give some information

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Also the big thing is server 2016/win10 support. Some people have had success and some not so update on that would be good

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Thank you for the update. It is not what I want to hear though: fixes for lethal vulns in 7.5 only, 8.0 on hold, experimenting on cloud. Network monitor has been on hold for more than a year at least. It’s too easy to comment from the outside (but I’ll do it anyway :wink: ) : it looks to me that the the way forward is to go cloud + agent only. the agent can have hooks into inventory, helpdesk, network monitor and various other tools. 8.0 was going down the agent route anyway. I know that for some on-premises is a requirement, but there doesn’t seem to be capacity, cash or manpower to pursue both routes in parallel.

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No specific timeframes, but we are hard at work on the new on-prem Help Desk product. I would guess that we’ll likely have more to talk about in the coming weeks at SpiceWorld.

Are you referring to install the Cloud Inventory or IP Scanner agents on Server 2016/Win10 and having problems?

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We do think agent will provide more data and more consistently than we saw with the Desktop app scanning - this was one of the major drivers for building out the agent option with Cloud Inventory (and making use of agent for Inventory ecosystem products like IP Scanner and Connectivity Dashboard).

We are definitely keeping in mind that on-prem is required for some - as Francois said, though, we’re considering the same type of unified on-prem Inventory option (similar to what we’re actively working on for Help Desk). This is actually the goal behind the unified code base - allowing for both cloud and on-prem using a single code base so we don’t have to maintain two apps completely separately.

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Thanks for the update. For me, if there were a cloud option and a local option that were the same, I would go with the cloud version without question. I looked at the current option here: Spiceworks Spiceworks but it lacks reporting and other things that I use in the local version.

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“Desktop 8.0 is on hold”

“We are not planning any new functional version of 7.5”

I had not been keeping up on the development of 8.0 recently. I already didn’t like the sound of it moving to agents. But based on this post it sounds like Spiceworks as an application is pretty much now dead, beyond what life we can stretch out of existing 7.5.00107 installs. :cry:

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We aren’t adding new features, but that isn’t the same as dead. As we wrote this post we’re talking about/thinking about Inventory as a host of products including on-prem, online, and potentially a future on-prem/online unified version of Inventory.

That is, the existing on-prem version is still supported (by my team), and we consider it to be a mature and fully featured product. Going forward we’re expanding Inventory (online) and may follow the same unified model as we’re employing now for Help Desk.

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Thank you

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For those that weren’t able to make it to SpiceWorld, was any info on 8/timelines released? This is the newest post I’ve found regarding it…

Thanks!

@benb

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This is the latest update on Inventory in general: https://community.spiceworks.com/blogs/products/3134-spiceworld-2018-solving-it-challenges-faster

But the info in this post is still current/accurate. Thanks for checking in!

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I’ve been using Spiceworks for about 10 years now and and have implemented it in 2 of the last 3 organizations I’ve worked for. I have to say, I’m very disappointed in the direction that it’s going. I have no problem with the idea of moving it into the cloud. But, why does that always mean a watered down version of what the on-prem can do.

In the cloud version, I can’t create forms for the portal, user created apps is now dead and the reporting tool is a joke. Many IT dept. live off of metrics and there just aren’t any in the cloud version. I have no problem with the use of agents but, what do you do about printers, switches and all the other devices that you can’t install an agent on?

I currently have an on-prem running ver. 7.5.00107. I have been having frequent “Server Busy” messages over the lest year to the point where it’s getting unbearable. I work with support and it looks like we solve it but, inevitably it comes right back 1-2 months later (at best, if not sooner).

My director has been very frustrated with this product and my only recommendation is to move on to something different.

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thanks for the update. how about those that help develop the 8.0 from the beginning? I’ve been reporting lots of bugs and assist on resolving them. The Beta 8 batch won’t be handed out?

my current version is still 8.0.00003 showing latest… we all should go back to 7.5?

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We’ve received this same feedback at SpiceWorld this year, regarding reporting, and it will be a focus for us soon on the cloud side.

There aren’t immediate plans for SNMP scanning, but the existing Inventory online “scanning agent” could be built out to collect printers, switches, and other networked hardware using SNMP like the on-prem Inventory does using its built-in scanner.

Thanks for your help with 8.0 beta! With the beta on hold the best version to run is 7.5. Generally we don’t recommend running beta versions in production - hopefully you’re just referring to your beta/test installation running 8.0. The latest stable version is 7.5.00107.

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Well this is disappointing. I was wondering why I hadn’t gotten an update notification in over a year.

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Here, I’ll summarize it for everyone: The State of Desktop app v8.0 is DEAD.

I would say that this is disappointing but its par for the course in Spiceworks vaporware. I predict that this next big promise will never see the light of day.

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or how about you open-source the spiceworks app, and allow the community to progress the development ?

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