Network Management

Spiceworks 4.0 released with Twitter intergration

In the past, I have taken a look at SpiceWorks network management tool. ISurprisingly, it is a completely free tool and, to add some icing on that cake, they are based out of my home state - Texas.

So, when they contacted me to let me know that they were releasing a new major upgrade to SpiceWorks, I thought I would try to help them get the word out here.

The latest rev offers Twitter Integration, 3rd Party Application Plug-ins and Network Mapping. Here are the details on those features from the SpiceWorks press release:

• Network Mapping – the fully-integrated network mapping application automatically creates network diagrams that graphically display network elements, their relationships, and bandwidth consumption. The “Hotspot” mode uses enhanced visualization features to help IT managers visually monitor and troubleshoot network problems in real-time.
• Management Application Plug-ins – top technology vendors, including Microsoft, LiveOffice, Intel and Trend Micro, have built management widgets that plug into Spiceworks to help users better manage technology from those vendors. The LiveOffice Mail Archive Widget, for example, allows users to archive email accounts from within Spiceworks in a couple of clicks. The Microsoft License Organizer allows users to automatically track Microsoft licenses and to order additional licenses when needed. Additionally, Intel offers a plug-in that allows IT pros to see which computers are vPro-enabled.
• Help Desk Tickets Anywhere – users can control the Spiceworks help desk from any email-enabled device, including mobile phones. With a few simple key strokes, users can create new tickets, edit & update existing tickets, and delete tickets from anywhere – whether right next to a user’s desktop or half-way across town.
• Social Windows Event and Twitter Alerts – users can now see how other IT pros have prioritized and managed various Windows Events. With one-click they can view Windows event background pages and read community group discussions on how to best troubleshoot and resolve related problems. In addition, activity updates sent from within Spiceworks can now be automatically updated or “cc:’d” to a user’s Twitter account. These features help small businesses to use social networking tools to resolve and stay better informed on IT issues.

You can try out the latest version for yourself (no evaluation timeout) by signing up at the SpiceWorks website. I figure that if its already used by 700,000 IT Professionals, I can’t go wrong!

10 dumb things you can do to your Cisco router and how to fix them

I was shocked! My latest Cisco networking article was VERY popular and I didn’t expect that it would be. So far, it has received over 37 votes and 14 comments. Who knows how many web page impressions it has gotten (well, I guess the webmaster and guy monitoring SEO could tell me but I don’t really care that much).

The title says it all- 10 dumb things you can do to your Cisco router and how to fix them

The 10 Cisco IOS Router file management commands you must know

This month I posted another great article over at TechRepublic entitled The 10 Cisco IOS Router file management commands you must know. In this article, I cover how to navigate the Cisco IOS when it comes to managing file systems. Really, it works a lot like the Windows command line. Learn how to view, rename, copy, delete files (and much more) in this latest article!

Managing Cisco IOS IP Routing Authentication Keys

Key management is a way of controlling authentication keys used by routing protocols. You can think of these as “passwords” for your routers. Not all routing protocols can use key management. Only DRP Agent, Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), and Routing Information Protocol (RIP) Version 2 use key chains.

You must configure a key chain with keys to enable authentication. Although you can identify multiple key chains, we recommend using one key chain per interface per routing protocol. Upon specifying the key chain command, you enter key-chain configuration mode. A key chain must have at least one key and can have up to 2,147,483,647 keys.

Before you manage authentication keys, authentication must be enabled. To manage authentication keys, define a key chain, identify the keys that belong to the key chain, and specify how long each key is valid.

Each key has its own key identifier (specified with the key key-chain configuration command), which is stored locally. The combination of the key identifier and the interface associated with the message uniquely identifies the authentication algorithm and Message Digest 5 (MD5) authentication key in use.

You can configure multiple keys with lifetimes. Only one authentication packet is sent, regardless of how many valid keys exist. The lifetimes allow for overlap during key changes but please note that the router must know the time.

To configure a key, use the global configuration key chain (name of chain) command then the key-string command inside key configuration mode.

For more information on managing Cisco IOS authentication keys, please see Cisco’s IOS IP Routing Command Reference for the key chain (and other key related) commands.

5 Networking buzz words you should know

In today’s quick tip, let me offer 5 Networking “buzz words” you should know:

1. Get VPN – Group Encrypted Transport – Developed by Cisco in 2006 to allow secure connections over the Internet which is very easy to implement and maintain.
2. GDOI – Group Domain of Interpretation – Provide a “key” to decrypt or encrypt your data - related to ISAKMP - see RFC3547 for more information.
3. MTU -  Maximum Transmission Unit – In relation to IP, it sets an upper packet size limit for maximum packets.
4. ICMP – Internet Control Message Protocol -  Messages that are contained within IP packets such as 0 for Echo Reply or 5 for Redirect. ICMP could be called the network managment protocol for IP.
5. WCCP - Web Cache Communication Protocol - WCCP is a protocol for communication between routers and Web caches. Two versions exist: WCCP Version 1 (WCCPv1) and WCCP Version2 (WCCPv2). The two versions are incompatible. Cisco IOS images can support either of the two versions or both.

For more information see the Cisco Internetworking Terms and Acronyms.

Read my latest article- Use SNMP with VMware ESX to monitor server statistics

In my latest SearchVMware.com article, I show you, step by step, how to enable and configure SNMP in VMware ESX and ESXi Server. From there, I move on to demonstrating a few different applications that can be used to monitor your VMware ESX Servers using SNMP. Monitoring VMware ESX Servers with SNMP applications is becoming more and more common so I hope you will read my article to learn more about it.

To see the full article, visit: Use SNMP with VMware ESX to monitor server statistics

Prevent router changes from multiple users with Cisco IOS configuration lock

In my latest article, I covered a new Cisco IOS feature used to prevent multipe admins from making changes on a Cisco router IOS, at the same time. This could prevent downtime and outages due to partially implemented or conflicting configurations. Read how to configure the new Cisco IOS configuration lock in my latest article.

PacketTrap Perspective network management - now support VMware Virtualization

I attended a webinar put on by PacketTrap network management this week. I was interested to see one of their latest features of their network management system - Perspective. The new feature is VMware Virtualization support.It works like this - PacketTrap uses SNMP to talk to each VMware ESX host system, pulling back statistics on host and guest performance. Perspective collects the following data:

• Hostname
• IP address
• Operating System
• Application Statistics
• Services Running
• CPU
• VM Memory
• Disk Usage by VM

You can download a free evaluation of PacketTrap Perspective and their virtualization features at their website.

Configure Cisco routers to save core dumps for troubleshooting crashes

I recently wrote an article for on how to configure your router to send a core dump of all current RAM memory to a TFTP server when/if the router crashes. I believe this is very important to configure on every router so that you can troubleshoot a router crashing issue with the Cisco TAC, when it happens to you. You don’t want to have to wait for another router crash do you? For the full article, please read: Configure Cisco routers to save core dumps for troubleshooting crashes

Use extended ping and extended traceroute to better troubleshoot your Cisco network

In one of my recent articles, I covered how to use the Cisco IOS extended ping and traceroute commands to troubleshoot your network. Knowledge of how these commands work is critical to solving many networking issues. The extended options give you so much power! Read the full article at: Use extended ping and extended traceroute to better troubleshoot your Cisco network