Managing IT isn’t as easy as it may sound. IT has so many different facets and niches, and most small IT departments manage several major systems from the Phone System and the Network, to the toaster and coffee maker. Consolidating management of these systems is necessary to maintaining them at their best performance, and guiding these systems into the future. Being able to effectively use preventative maintenance, and greening the routine is even harder to accomplish with these disparate systems. Perhaps the most difficult system to deal with, is the people system. Users can take up the majority of every IT Administrator’s time and more importantly energy.

Spiceworks, based in Austin, TX, has set out to make our lives as IT personnel easier in any way they can. From their offices in the beautiful hills in north Austin, they produce software that has allowed admins from around the world to get a grip on their IT Systems.
Below is a list of a few of the features and services their software provides:

• Help Desk
  • User Portal for the Help Desk (AD or Web Credentials)
• Network Scanning (SNMP, SSH, and WMI)
  • Systems Inventory (online AND offline).
  • Network Map!
• Reports (and reporting user privileges to go with them).
• Monitoring and Alerts (AV, Software, IT Services, Printers, and much more)
• IT Services (Keep track of your vendors, service contracts, etc . . .)

All of that and more, and the best part part is their extensive online community. The Spiceworks Community includes several thousand IT Pros, from every part of the world, and every part of IT. Members share everything from tips and tricks, to plugins and how-tos. Also, they have a rapid-release cycle, and every few months they jump back in to beta and work toward a polished final product. One more thing about their release cycle that stands out is that they aren’t afraid to admit when there are bugs, and they aren’t afraid to do a minor release to fix said bugs. Using Spiceworks to manage our IT infrastructure, has allowed us to focus better on long-term and major projects. Priceless output from free software.

Now that you’ve just read about possibly the best software company and product ever, it gets better. Spiceworks is on the cusp of releasing version 4.5 to the world. This release is substantial and includes several new awesome features:

• Scan Scheduling
• Built-In Apache Web Server
• Editable Network Map
• Help Desk Queues
• New Extensions for Power Management (Green the routine right?)
• 30% performance improvement
• and more . . .

You can beta test 4.5 and add your expertise to the build, or wait for the release. I haven’t heard the official word, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see it on the shelf before Christmas.

If you’re still confused check out their slideshow below. However, if you already use Spiceworks check out Spiceworks TV for training and more . . .
Cick here to go to Spiceworks TV

Spiceworks Intro

View more documents from spiceworks.

The great thing about programs like this is that they include about 95% of the basic functionality of the expensive versions. I admit that there are certain things that would be nice, like more filters. However there is an extensive list of plugins that I haven’t tried that might do some cool stuff.