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A remote monitoring solution suggestion

HI there, I have beebn looking at a solution to being able to to control and monitor my network of PC's and Servers.
I have been looking at (and used previously) Kaseya which is very powerful, but quite expensive. I know GFi does one too, but what I wanted was some suggestions to have a tool intsalled to monitor the following (but not exclusively.)

Remote control PCs for support work & training

Monitor installed software on each individual machine

schedule and control Windows updates

remote scripting?

Alerts on disk space and backup successes.

Internet/email usage (proxy?)

These are not all I want but they are the mian essentials.
Has anyone had any success wiht this sort of thing and what are the costs/pitfalls involved.
Thanks
Craig
MrBungle50

SOLUTION

lloydclinton

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arnold

For remote monitoring, you have to have the remote system with access to the LAN i.e. via VPN or you would have to open ports on the external firewall through which the remote system will get to the underlying sysems.
An option could be to use nagios within your LAN that will report/ties in with a nagios instance at a remote location.
opennms, http://www.opennms.org/

You can have cacti.net setup locally and then access its web interface.

Installed software information could be pulled by snmp queries.
snmpwalk -v 2c -c <community_name> <hostname> HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrSWInstalledName
etc.
You may have to use multiple opensource that provide what set of information that is not available within others.

mrbungle50

ASKER

Thanks guys, Looking like a good couple of solutions, The opsview looks great but by no means does it look free.
Am I on the wrong part of the solution page or am I missing something altogether?
The enterprise solution looks like it costs especially wiht add-ons.
Does your free version have many features?
Cheers and thanks
Craig
MrBungle50

lloydclinton

OPSview is free. It is fully feature loaded and you can use free 3rd party software to monitor other aspects of the systems. I suggest trying the VM which is available for download.

mrbungle50

ASKER

Thanks found the right secton. obviously they directed me to the enterprise section to squeeze some $$ from a prospective cleint.
I am downloading the VM will let you know how it works.
Cheers
Craig
MrBungle50

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

mathi28

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mrbungle50

ASKER

Thanks guys I am splitting the points because you both gave me insight into what to look for.
I eventually went for GFI hound dog
It seems to do what I need nad have telephone support here in Australia
Thanks again
Craig
MrBungle50