network inventory / bandwidth metering software

[agresbach]

I am in charge of finding a good software package to do a hardware/software inventory of our Windows network at work. I have been playing with different ones i have found but wanted to see if anyone had any advice or experience with one they thought worked well.
basically we have around 100-150 devices (servers, pcs, etc) that would need to be inventoried. What we're looking to get from it is hardware specs, installed software, networking info (ip,etc) and that kind of stuff. Also something that has decent reporting so that we can try to get our software licensing under control. I have a budget of up to $700 to go with this

also, another software package i need to find is one to monitor our bandwidth usage. For example, we have been exceeding our bandwidth limit on our T1 line lately but cannot pinpoint who or what is causing it so we wanted to be able to moitor it in real time and gather reports if we exceed again we can pinpoint what IP might be using too much. i have the same budget of up to $700 on this as well.

any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. unfortunately i have been given a very short timeline to find solutions for these. i need to try to find something in the next couple days so any help would be great! thanks!

[glc]

Belarc Advisor is an excellent inventory tool, but you are not allowed to use it on a business network. Unfortunately, their commercial tool is priced a lot more than $700.

[agresbach]

Originally Posted by glc Belarc Advisor is an excellent inventory tool, but you are not allowed to use it on a business network. Unfortunately, their commercial tool is priced a lot more than $700.

ya i just noticed its pretty pricey and you dont get many licenses with that. any other suggestions?