The software can be downloaded from the Spiceworks web site at:

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1 Spiceworks 2.0 Review One of the biggest headaches a network or system administrator faces is managing all of the equipment, software and services their network provides. From servers to workstations, office suites to system utilities, user account management to web services, the amount of information an administrator is expected to know and understand can be overwhelming. While there are many commercial products available to help make collecting, organizing and assimilating this kind of information easier, most are extremely expensive, and thus cost-prohibitive for small business or non-profits working with limited budgets. Things are about to change. A new company called Spiceworks, has heard the calls of harried administrators and has responded with a flagship application, called Spiceworks Desktop 2.0. The software was designed to make network management not only easier, but to do so in a way that would not break the budgets of smaller businesses. Like Google, it's free, but ad supported. Here's the official description of the application from the Spiceworks web site: "Designed for small- and medium-sized businesses, Spiceworks single, easy-to-use interface combines Network Inventory, Help Desk, Reporting, Monitoring and Troubleshooting. And, it connects you with other IT pros to share ideas, solve problems and decide what additional features you need in Spiceworks." The software can be downloaded from the Spiceworks web site at: Installation is fairly straightforward; with the only option of note being whether you want to configure the software's built-in web server component to be accessible via port "80" or some other special network port (i.e., "8080"). Enabling the web server allows you to access the program via a browser at " (or by machine name if you have DNS enabled on your network). You will be prompted to set up at least one user account during installation, and this account should have a valid and active address. Being free, Spiceworks is advertiser supported, so your address will be transmitted to Spiceworks and fall under the usual "share among our affiliates" privacy clause. The software installs as either a persistent Windows service or as an application that can be set to launch on startup, and when active, the application is resident in the system tray for quick and easy access. Neither method is required, but in order to get the most out of the product it is best that it be constantly running so that it can monitor your network in "real time", update its inventory databases, and send administrative alerts if configured to do so. If run as a service, Spiceworks will grab about 70MB of system memory in order to perform these tasks, so make the sure the machine you are installing it on has plenty of RAM to spare.

2 Once installed, and after your first login, you are presented with a "dashboard" style page like below: This dashboard, called "My Spiceworks", acts as your home page for the program and groups together blocks of information that the program has collected about your network. Upon your first login, you will be presented with a popup alert recommending that you perform a full network scan so that Spiceworks can discover as much information about your systems as it can. The scan uses SNMP (for appliances, printers and copiers), SSH for UNIX/Linux computers, or

3 Windows Management Interface calls for Microsoft computers. The scanner can be configured to target entire subnets for rapid collection, or individual hosts, or to use specific credentials should some machines require special administrative privileges. For an office of about 50 computers, the scan should take about 30 minutes. Once the scan is complete, the dashboard will update and display items such as as current inventory, recent hardware additions, recent software additions, administrative alerts, pending help-desk tickets, and some optional blocks for Spiceworks news, MS Security bulletins, and Notes. The results of your initial scan should be impressive to say the least. In our test network all of the Windows computers were identified, and a software inventory for each was retrieved. The same applied to our Linux servers, however a software inventory was skipped as it would require additional special privileges and account information. One pleasant surprise was that the scan was able to correctly detect and identify several networked copiers and printers, and provided some fairly detailed configuration information for the devices themselves. There were a couple of computers that were detected, but not fully identified by the initial scan. Spiceworks classified these devices as "Unknowns" and presented suggestions on how to resolve their identities by adjusting the scan settings to account for things such as Administrative account privileges and access type (SSH vs. WMI). The screenshot below shows some sample scanning scenarios we created for the test network:

4 Once your initial scan is complete, and you've resolved any issues with "Unknowns", the full listing can be seen on the "Inventory" page. Inventory is displayed in the upper part of the page by type: Workstations, Servers, Printers, Networking (routers, switches, etc.), Others, Unknown, Software, and User Defined. In the lower part of the page you see a general overview of your network, including such information as operating system (OS) totals, anti-virus presence and status, manufacturer totals, and network information. Clicking a category will take you to a list of all devices that fall under that classification.

5 Clicking on a device will update the lower portion of the page to show you a tabbed section with some generic information about the device, its configuration settings, and its software inventory. At the very bottom of the General Info sheet is a link to show the complete profile of the selected computer:

6 It is also possible to view a software inventory of the selected computer, or for the network as a whole. Software inventory is determined by what is listed in the Add/Remove programs list, so

7 not only do you get a list of standard applications, version numbers, and installation dates, but also service packs and security tweaks so that you can be sure your systems are up to date and protected against the latest security threats. You can also learn where the software is installed, where it is not installed, and which license and product keys were detected. One nice addition is a "software compliance" component built into the Software Inventory page. Clicking a title will produce a details page where you can specify how many licenses you own for that application. Spiceworks can be set to generate an administrative alert should the program detect computers running unlicensed or un-inventoried software. After reviewing the results of the initial inventory scan, you can move on to configuring of the rest of the application should you wish to try some of its other features. These include a help desk, an internal messaging system, reporting, and system monitors and alerts. To help with this process, Spiceworks uses a clever analogy called the "Spicemeter", which resembles a thermometer. The Spicemeter can be seen at the upper right of any Spiceworks page, and it acts as an indicator of your progress utilizing all the available Spiceworks features. A low temperature point indicates you are just getting started, while a red hot chili pepper indicates that

8 you are a Spiceworks veteran. Clicking the Spicemeter takes you to a checklist of pending tasks that you can complete to increase your overall level of Spiceworks functionality. The Help Desk feature is a fairly straightforward ticketing system very similar to other webbased help-desk systems. Users can either submit a ticket via the Spiceworks page or via provided you have set up a dedicated address to catch the requests. Spiceworks will send an automated acknowledgment of a submitted ticket back to the end user, letting them know their problem has been received and is being addressed. Existing tickets are presented in a list by time received, and clicking a ticket allows you to classify its severity, assign it to a specific technician, edit the contents (or add additional notes), or close it outright. Closed tickets will appear to disappear from the list, but can be recalled via a drop list filter in the upper right of the window.

9 Spiceworks comes with a number of pre-formatted reports for various aspects of the program, such as Applications by Computer, Disk Usage, Software Compliance, Inventory Summaries, and Help Desk Tickets.

10 Altogether there are twenty four "canned" reports present, but Spiceworks also allows you to create additional reports using a limited set of pre-defined criteria built into a report generation module. This module allows you to assemble queries using criteria of interest, and configure the results to display nearly any way you like. You can also import reports created by other users from within the Spiceworks community. If you configured the mail component, Spiceworks can use the information provided to send administrative alerts based on certain conditions, such as a software license violation, or a low disk pace notification, that might normally arise without your knowledge. Like the reports, there are a number of preconfigured monitors built into Spiceworks, and the software allows you to add additional alerts via the configuration of a few simple parameters. The alerts themselves can be configured to be either sent via (if critical), or displayed as a notification in the My Spiceworks home page.

11 Last, but not least, is the Spiceworks community itself. Clicking the "Community" tab in the upper part of the page will connect you directly to the Spiceworks web site, where you have been automatically logged in to a personal space created just for you. Here you can utilize the Spiceworks forums to post questions, submit answers, and track follow up discussions on topics relating not only to Spiceworks itself, but other topics of interest to system and network administrators. There's an area for "News and Events" in the I.T. World, a "Questions and Answers" section for help with Spiceworks itself, an "Education Center" for improving your I.T. skills, a "Ratings and Review" area where real users provide real reviews of computer and network products. The people are friendly, and the Spiceworks crew respectable and genuinely concerned about your comments.

12 One of the nicest things about Spiceworks is that a lot of the program's features came about as a direct result of user feedback. By becoming a regular user and active participant in the Spiceworks community, you can, in a sense, help steer the development of the program in the directions you'd like to see it go. With Spiceworks, the users are the focus group, not some faceless marketing department. The company has come a long way in a very short time, and has produced a product noteworthy not only for its achievement, but also its philosophy. This is one program that is definitely worth having.