Abstract: A mechanism for providing inventory information from distributed computing resources in an enterprise network in a manner that minimizes network traffic being sent from those computing resources to a centralized inventory server is provided. Bandwidth minimization is performed by generating a value corresponding to identifying information for each item inventoried on a computing resource and transmitting only those values to the inventory server. The generated value is shorter than a string containing the detailed information regarding the inventoried item, but is unique to that item. The inventory server then only requests more detailed information about an individual inventory item if a reported value has not previously been reported to the inventory server. In this manner, detailed information about a specific inventoried item is only transmitted through the network the first time that the item is inventoried and reported from any computer in the network.