Systems Monitoring, Helpdesk, and Content Filtering

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I’ve been extremely busy lately due to work.

Speaking of work, I have spent some time trying out some software and online services in an attempt to improve the network systems. First I’d like to start with Spiceworks. Spiceworks scans your network for devices and attempts to give you information about each devices, such as whether it is a workstation, server, router etc… and it will give you important information such as the applications that are installed and what OS each workstation and server is running. As far as I know, the free version of spice works is ideal for those who have less than 250 devices. It also doubles as a helpdesk portal. I haven’t really messed with the helpdesk portal too much so I can’t say much about it.

Finally, content filtering seems to be an important part of network security and employee productivity. We found that lots of people were spending more time on Facebook than actually working. To solve the problem we implemented openDNS. You can read more about how openDNS at http://www.opendns.com .