IT Infrastructure Management made Ez

  1. Do you have a SOHO Network ?
  2. Are you new to the field of Networking & Network management ?
  3. Are you pressurised by your seniors to properly Manage & provide Reports ?

If answer to all the above given questions is YES.....then I'll briefly guide in effectively manage your Network using some free NSM tools. The tools mentioned have been successfully deployed in Windows environment.

  • Syslog - Kiwi Syslog Daemon - http://www.kiwisyslog.com
  • Bandwidth Monitoring - Multi Router Traffic Grapher (MRTG) - http://www.mrtg.com
  • TFTP - Solarwinds TFTP Server - http://www.solarwinds.net
  • Network & Systems Management - IBM Director Server - http://www.ibm.com - Comes Free with IBM Servers (You can monitor SNMP devices, IBM Director agents using this application. It can also provide visual & SMS alerts when any device is down or rebooted. Can provide PC Health statistics for Servers. It supports Wake-up On LAN (WOL) & hence Servers can be remotely shut down & woken up on a scheduled time using this application. A GSM/CDMA modem can also be configured in this application to send Alert messages. If a GSM/CDMA modem is unavailable then you can tie-up with your local Wireless Phone operator to provide an E-mail to SMS gateway. These are just a gist of things & lots more are possible if you explore further)
  • RADIUS Server (with Active Directory authentication) - Internet Authentication Service (IAS) - http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/110/cvpn3k_pix_ias.pdf - Windows 2000 & 2003 Servers have an available Service called Internet Authentication Service which needs to be installed & configured properly to authenticate RADIUS clients using ADS. If you have a Cisco Firewall & a Datacenter containing Windows 2003 Servers then all the VPN clients can be authenticated using IAS
  • Monitoring Port Status - Alive - http://www.exact-test.com - You can monitor application specific Ports like Port 53 for DNS, Port 80 for HTTP, using this application. The polling is done every minute
  • SSL-VPN Server - Free for Personal use - http://www.sshtools.com/showSslExplorer.do - It is a very easy to implement SSL based VPN solution. Its completely wizard based & by going through the help can implement it without any problem. This solution is helpful in accessing VPN from within a Corporate Network since outbound Port 443 is open in all Corporate Networks. The application allows for File/Printer Sharing, Remote Desktop, Telnet, SSH, VNC & many other functionalities. The main authentication can be integrated with LDAP which also has support for SMS-based password authentication
  • IT Infrastructure Asset Management Software - http://www.spiceworks.com - It is an SNMP based Asset Management application which can poll all the devices (Network equipments, Servers, Printers, Scanners) in your Intranet & pull up all the info about the device. It can give you all details about the device like Serial No., Manufacturer, Model No., RAM, etc. It also gives details about the Softwares, Anti-Virus updates, Hotfixes & many more critical information required for IT Infrastructure Asset Management. The configuration is wizard based & can be easily implemented
  • Dynamic DNS Update - http://www.no-ip.com - It is a small service that runs on your PC which maps your latest Public IP, while on the Internet, to your on chosen free registered domain name
  • Remote PC Control (without Firewall Port Blocking hassles) - http://www.logmein.com - Once the LogMeIn client is running on your PC you can remotely control your PC's desktop (through Internet) without opening any specific Port on the Corporate Firewall. This happens since the Remote Desktop Emulation is ActiveX control based

If you know about any other tools please update me too.

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