Network monitoring via Spiceworks

I've been testing some free network monitoring software from Spiceworks:

http://www.spiceworks.com/

It installs on a PC and then takes an inventory of devices connected to the network. If you give it domain admin credentials, it can also query PCs and servers it finds and log more detailed information about them - including gathering an inventory of the software installed on them.

My test system is working well and I think many small businesses with networks will find this a very useful tool. It is the best free inventory tool I've played with.

As well as inventory, it also monitors devices on the network. You can set up alerts that can do things like send you an e-mail when a server goes off line, or even if the free disk space on the server drops below 5%. Therefore it can also be used to help manage the network and identify systems that aren't working properly.

Spiceworks also includes a system for users to report problems and for a support team to manage the support requests. I haven't played with this, but it also appears like a useful facility.

Access to the information is via a web browser, and the software appears to work without installing agents on the PCs around the network. This makes the application easy to install and manage.

The default "My Spiceworks" page is easy to modify with applets that can be added, removed and move around the page.

There are advertising banners - which presumable provide the income stream - but these are not intrusive.

The system appears to be based on Ruby on Rails with data being held on a small sqlite3 database. However, the application has been converted to binary dll files so its not as hackable as a standard Rails app. However, a lot of data on the network PCs is accessible, which is good.

Therefore, if you are looking for a simple application that will help you to manage and keep track of the devices on your network, I'd recommend you give spiceworks a try. It's a good example of the free network software that is available.

 

I find a small shareware app called Didyma is simple and good to monitor devices on a small network. I've also used the free version of LogInventory to provide inventory on a small network. They work well enough on small networks, but of course don't provide the bells and whistles you get with products such as Whatsup Gold.

I think spiceworks sits nicely between the two. It seems to give you the best of the shareware/freeware apps with the feel and ease of use of the bigger commercial offerings.

This is another one of those nice little apps to add your tool box I think.

 

I like it. The best thing is that you get some history with it. For example, you can see which PCs users have used and when. It also has quite a nice query building engine, so you can customise your own reports.

However, it took me a little bit of fiddling to get it to work at its best. My conclusion was that it works best if you get the client PCs to run its agent at log on. I do that via an additional line to the vbs logon script:

Code:

WshShell.Run( "\\server\path\to\LPcInfo.exe \\server\path\to\data_holding_location ")

LPcInfo.exe being the LogInventory agent.

It's definitely worth playing with, and as it free to run on less the 20 systems you can do quite a long trial and test without worry of an impending deadline. So definitely worth considering along side similar products such as spiceworks.