Spiceworks Network Monitoring Software Review

Over the last few days, I have installed and have been using SpiceWorks to monitor my network and computer systems. I run a small company of about 10 to 12 computers, several servers, all connected through a 24-port switch and backboned into the Internet via a Dlink router connected to Comcast via a cable modem. On my network, I have some of the normal items that most small businesses (for purposes of this article I would define a small business as having less than 50 workstations) incorporate into their office. I have an Exchange server for email, a network color printer, a few workstations of various operating systems and finally an IP phone via Comcast. So I have a little bit of everything, just like most small offices.

This software has a number of nice built in features:

• A dashboard, which offers a quick glance at your network status

• A place to control your inventory

• A map of your network

• A built in Help Desk

• A Community Board

• And Health Checks

Looking at the Dashboard this software appears geared towards companies with small IT departments. However, there the software is so easy to use that I can imagine companies upward of 500 workstations can benefit from this software. It definitely works well for smaller organizations with an ok response time. The Dashboard itself can be customized so you are only looking at items that you want. For example, perhaps all you care about are the Health items and tickets generated from users you can have you Dashboard only display those items cutting down on the screen clutter. The default Dashboard seems a little cluttered, showing a lot of different information, however, again this is back to personal preference and all these items can be customized.

The Inventory area starts with a network discovery and then allows you to manipulate the data. The Inventory looks for the following items:

• Workstations

• Servers

• Printers

• Networking items

• Software

• Unknown Items

• Domain Controllers

I found that the software did a good job of finding your hardware and software. Some items one does need to go back in and tweak some. What is nice is being able to click on any device and find out the health of the item. When I clicked on my server, I was able to view things like the type of processor, memory amount, serial number of the OS, OS type, Bios version, as well as hard disk space available. I was also able to view NIC information, while the tab for software listed all the items installed onto the server along with version number and date of the installed software and the product key used during the installation. The Spiceworks software allows me to edit information as I need to, add asset and purchase price and date information, has a space for notes and will even show server events from the event log. One of the handy inventory tools allows me to compare computers, so it will look at two computers and let you know the differences from software to hardware. This can be handy when you want to ensure a user has the same software installed as another user.

Spiceworks also scans for all printers, but I found that the software is limited to network printers only. Therefore, in my case I have one network printer and one printer that is shared out but attached to a server. The software found the network printer, but did not find the printer attached to the server. It is easy to click on the configuration tab of the printer, but I did find that the printer consumables were not accurate. This is a bummer because anytime one is managing any number of printers one would want this information readably available. The software sis allow me to click on a link to go to the Admin Interface for the network printer, here I was able to find the toner consumables available for the color laser printer.

Although the network scan did find my computers, servers, etc on the network the network map did not overly impress me. The map did not reflect my network, and looked odd as well. The software does allow one to update manually network items, which is a good work around. I wish I could find a way to re-do the network map, but in my limited time with the software I have not found this capability.

The Help Desk feature is a nice add to this software. I am notified via emailed when there is a new ticket to be worked. I can then prioritize the items in the queue. This software even tracks if I had to make a purchase to complete the ticket, how handy is that! I can give a built in link to users so that they can go to a web site and submit a Helpdesk Ticket. When a user goes to submit a ticket, they can even include an attachment. Connected with the Helpdesk are How-To articles and other documentation options. This allows someone to put together some 'Best Practices" or How-to instructions that users can find easily. This allows someone to put together some 'Best Practices" or How-to instructions that users can use on their own. The built in reports are handy too as they can show you what computers you have been working on, how long, etc.

Overall, I think this is great software that would benefit any IT department. Because it tracks the entire inventory, status of your network, and work tickets, this is a very comprehensive product. Being a free product is the icing on the cake. The limit is 1000 devices on the network, and the software needs to be installed onto a Windows computer. The software will also find and pull information from MAC OS X, Linux and UNIX. The software is free since it includes ads from different vendors. For an Ad, free version the cost is $20.00 a month.