Spiceworks: Ad-supported asset management, help desk, network monitoring software and much more

Spiceworks is a company based in Austin, Texas that builds management tools for IT professionals.

As described by their own website:

"Your network may be complicated and expensive but your IT management tools don't need to be. Spiceworks IT Desktop is the only application that combines Network Inventory, Help Desk, Reporting, Monitoring and Troubleshooting in a single, easy-to-use interface designed for IT teams in small and medium businesses. Plus, Spiceworks lets you collaborate with IT pros around the world to solve problems, share ideas and decide what additional features you need in Spiceworks."

Obviously that is a little FLUFFY but I do have to agree that it is the only application I have seen that does all this. I have installed, used, and managed hardware in a small sized office using Spiceworks. The software is free to use if you don't mind seeing ads pop up on the right hand side of the browser when you log into the system. Personally I do not mind the ads and have actually found a few good deals for equipment from those ads. For people who do not want to see ads at all you can grab a paid-for version which also allows you to brand Spiceworks with your company logo. This is a great piece of software. I'd recommend it to any information technology consultant or even a full IT department for a larger company. Being able to run reports ranging from who has less then 25% of their HD free to who has what software installed to who has the latest windows updates installed (and everything inbetween). You can even make your own custom reports. I'll go as far to say it is a must have. That does not even include the help desk ticketing, the asset management, and all the customization you can add to it. Or how great the Spiceworks community is when it comes to support issues and asking for new features in the future. The only thing you need is a computer with Windows XP on it, the ability to click next on the installer, and an Internet browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox is what I know it works on). Once it is installed you can connect up to the Spiceworks management system from any machine in the local area network using a web browser. Very handy if Spiceworks is not installed on the machine you sit at.

With all that said there are a few things I have problems with. The first being the scanenr of the network that pulls out the information you want. You can set it to scan the entire network on a set schedule or manually . I recomend to chose the earlier as things change on machines/networks constantly. Spiceworks uses WMI to connect up to machines remotely to query it for information. Which works great about half of the time. Sometimes firewalls and other security settings get in the way, not exactly Spiceworks fault but still a bit of a headache. In their defense if a machine cannot be connected to it will give you a link to troubleshoot how to fix the issue. The second issue has to do with the help desk ticketing. While there is nothing wrong with it technically I do not like the way it is setup and there are many other ticketing systems that work better. In fact when I worked for an engineering firm in IT I did not use any ticketing system for over 200 users in my region. Sometimes it takes more time to fill in and manage the tickets then it does to just walk over to fix the issue. Some companies like this to really see who the problem users are and manage IT hours but to me it is not really worth it. Pretty much the Spiceworks ticketing system is more like an email system. Anyone can open up an internet browser and fill out a ticket then an email will be generated to the person who set it up.

Overall this is a heck of a piece of software especially for free. If you don't want ads but do not want to pay the small price they ask for you can always block Doubleclick at your firewall, neat little trick I figured out. It doesn't block all ads but 80% of them in Spiceworks.

Spiceworks official website