Network and device management. The very thought of it can send shivers down the spine of even the most experienced of network and infrastructure managers. There are quite a few products on the market that try to help you with this mammoth task. In this article we are going to focus specifically on Spiceworks.
Introduction
What sets Spiceworks apart from other network and device management tools? Well, for a start, it’s a free download, a trick which it pulls off by being ad-sponsored.
When you are using the Spiceworks interface (which is browser-based), you will see a skyscraper banner ad displayed all the time on the right hand side. The advertisements you see are IT-related, which makes sense. You can pay if you want to remove the ads. Surprisingly enough the ads don’t get in the way that much.
As I mentioned before, the interface is browser-based, so you can run it easily from any device, and allow your entire team to access it. At the time of this writing, the software does not have Active Directory-integrated security, but I believe the upcoming release, version 3, has that capability. If the version you're using is earlier, you simply need to create the users, and they can log in using their email addresses.
With those details out of the way, let's start talking about the features of this interface.
