Spiceworks Updates Free Management Software

In an effort to help IT managers deal with the increasing complexity of networks, Spiceworks has released an updated version of free IT management software.

It now boasts expanded features, including real-time SQL Server monitoring, enhanced scan scheduling, editable network maps, help desk queues and SSL support. All of these additions are designed to help users manage networks of up to 1,000 computers.

The Spiceworks IT Desktop is a free social IT management application used by organisations to automatically inventory, monitor, troubleshoot, report on and run a helpdesk for their IT networks.

Features available in this 17th release of the Spiceworks IT Desktop software include real-time monitoring of key SQL Server performance metrics, including transaction load, I/O throughput, disk space consumption and dynamic scan control, allowing individual and customised scans by device, subnet and department. Better support for remote locations is also included.

In addition, the software offers full SSL encryption to provide greater security within organisations and for MSPs and businesses using the software to remotely manage multiple offices and locations. It also provides the ability to create and view multiple network maps, edit existing network elements and add new elements, change the layout and organisation of the elements, and add annotations.

“Our user base continues to grow not only in number but in the size and complexity of the networks our software helps manage,” said Scott Abel, co-founder and CEO of Spiceworks. “These larger organisations have asked us for more sophisticated IT management capabilities typically found only in products that cost thousands of dollars and take days or weeks to implement. Today we’re delivering several of their most popular feature requests and look forward to adding more in the coming months.”

Other features include helpdesk routing and queuing, which allows users to group and work on helpdesk tickets based on the content or source of the ticket – such as “all printer problems” or “tickets from the marketing organisation.” Rules can be based on any data attribute in the system, including title, summary, source, severity, employee or user-defined attributes.

The latest version also expands international support, offering translations of the Spiceworks software in more than 10 languages, including German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Danish and Croatian. All translations were crowdsourced by the Spiceworks user community, the company noted.

In November, Spiceworks released a plug-in for its free social IT management software application, which enables IT professionals to automatically regulate the power consumption of networked computers. The downloadable Power Manager plug-in – developed in cooperation with Intel – is designed to link everyday network and systems management tasks with green IT initiatives.