That’s it – I have taken the plunge and installed another computer on my desk – well actually it’s a thin client pointing to a virtual server instance. But the point is that I need to be even more aware of network activity than ever before, plus I have loaded my laptop to the hilt and it’s starting to quake – I definitely need to offload some processing and tools and a thin client seems like the perfect solution. The machine is a Wyse Winterm V50 and seems more than capable of running multiple RDP sessions together with a Telnet session. The monitor is an LG Flatron Slim with a resolution of 1280×1024 giving plenty of screen space.

Currently I am revisiting Spiceworks 1.7 on the virtual machine. It’s scanning the network at the moment and already identified over a hundred and fifty devices. Following the initial scan I can start getting information from the various alerts and monitors that can be set.The sorts of things that I specifically need to monitor include:

• Low Disk Space
• Printer Warnings
• Service Stoppages
• Downed Servers
• Unauthorised network devices
• Mis-configurations

I have also tested Microsoft System Center Essentials and a product called Servers Alive which can constantly test servers and services and give visual indicators of their status.

I still perform my daily checks but getting more up to date information on a more regular basis helps me to be proactive in monitoring the state of the network and allows me to take corrective action on potential problems – often in the early stages of them developing.I still need to find a tool that will allow me to access my Event Logs and Syslog information and make sense of them all as they contain invaluable data – but often too much data. To be useful I need the critical information presented quickly and cleanly.