Spiceworks Thoughts I: Spicy Thoughts
Now the point of this post is not to rant and rave about how good Spiceworks is like some cheap PR release, or paid post. Rather, in implementing Spiceworks, and seeing their architecture, and the unique way that they market themselves, it got me thinking about a few issues in Software development and marketing that I will flesh out a bit in my next few posts. But, I figured an introduction to the rpogram, and what it does is probably good background material…
At the beginning of the summer, my employer was thinking about setting up a type of network/system monitoring solution to keep track of the 50+ systems we ahve in our office and shop. We looked into a couple of options at the time, and started to set up IRM. IRM (Information Resource Manager) was a great program for what we needed, or so it looked. Of course, the setup was monstrous, with hours spent handbombing in information and data, copying CD-keys, tons and tons of work. We stuck with it for a few days, and finally put that project on hold due to other deadlines coming up etc. etc. etc.
Fast forward to yesterday. A friend of mine on an IRC channel a frequent sent me a link to Spiceworks.com. I looked at Spiceworks, and it is really slick - just need to download it and install it, and it automatically scans your network, picks up systems, determines which OS and software is installed, which services are running, etc. It alerts you to any problems in your network, monitors drives for space, or out-of-date antivirus information and more. Best of all, it’s free!
Actually, not true - the best thing is the Spiceworks is written in Ruby on Rails…
in the story …
Spiceworks.com has a bad link. check it out.
Thanks for pointing that out! It’s been fixed