Mac / Windows monitoring software for small business?

dacount97

Hopefully this is the right place to ask this, but I know there are a few ppl in IT here.

I'm trying to get a handle on our employees' computers in our business. Is there any kind of monitoring software I can set up for PCs and Macs where I can keep an eye if Carbonite is still runinng or if they are using a bunch of CPU % or memory? Right now it's a smattering of Laptops and PCs (Mac and Windows) that ppl take home (sometimes), so bonus points if I can remotely lock / change password / wipe if need be, outside of our network. Everything I find seems very spammy or is an obvious advertisement, I'm looking for solutions that ppl are actually using and like to use.

I use Nagios for our server / website monitoring, but these computers are all DHCP and we do not use an AD, so I'd rather use something that I can install on each computer that can "call home". Probably only 20 computers, for now.

Even a nudge in the right direction would be great, and I'm not opposed to throwing something on a VM to test it out, I just don't have the time to do it currently. Small business, so nothing too $$$ either, if possible.

Thanks!

wrong_button

Maybe it's too general, but have you looked at something like Real VNC? It doesn't take care of your "calling home" necessarily, but gives you pretty quick access. Maybe some scripting to check statuses once you're in if you need?

see317

You might look into LogMeIn. It should do everything you need, but I'm not sure how much it would cost for 20 machines.

Cog

We do have a SysAdmin/IT thread, also, try asking there.

dacount97

Thanks for everyone's replies.

I'm looking less for something so I can remotely control a computer and more of something that can send me an email if Joe's PC has been at 100% for the last hour, or the last time a backup ran was 3 months ago. 99% of the time they are here in the office, I would just rather "swing by" and say "I noticed your computer's been acting up, can I take a look at it" rather than getting the email that the boss' computer has crashed 7 times in the last month, why hasn't anyone come by to look at it?

Djeet

spiceworks and managed DNS?

What is it you're trying to do? "Joe's PC has been at 100% for the last hour" means nothing to me without context. Are you talking about CPU time? I see the value in knowing this, but that's because if CPU time is pegged something has gone seriously seriously wrong, and it isn't a matter of people torrenting or watching youtube.

With respect to backup, every backup solution I know of can be configured to fire off a notification when it has been attempted and was successful or not and give a report/log. Something that tries to check to see if a backup was done in the past X amount of time? Doesn't exist as far as I know (maybe you could find or develop something that would key into the VSS service and the archive bit?). You're looking at this backwards. You get the backup report on a daily/weekly basis; if there is an issue noted in the report you investigate.

This seems more an issue of workplace management issue rather than a tech issue. If you cannot trust your users you should have a meeting where you throw down the rules of operation, cause trying to throw tech at it is expensive and will tend to interfere with business operations (shit that was easy to do no longer is and requires interventions by helpdesk/IT).

Also you are mixing disaster recovery with illegitimate usage. Separate these things cause they are different things.

dacount97

Sorry, to be clearer:

This all started with my boss coming to me and saying "why hasn't Joe looked at my computer yet?" A) I didn't know they asked Joe (different issue) but more importantly I didn't know there was something wrong w/ their computer (It's "running slow").

This then sparked the conversation that we need "someone to go around to each computer and see if there are things wrong". Super vague and time consuming. Now I don't have the bandwith to do it myself, and I'm really not comfortable having a random person off the internet or google or what have you going around to everyone’s computer and poking around in it (another suggestion from the boss).

This made me think of Nagios, which I use to monitor our servers and sites and how it alerts me if there are specific things wrong, like HD space is less than 20% free, or if CPU usage has been at or above 90%, things like that. I assumed that there was a product out there that would handle that for the client computer side of things with the specific issues PCs have, and I kinda just tacked on things that I wish it would do (I currently log into Carbonite and have to check to see if all the computers have been backing up every so often, so I would rather the system email me than have to schedule / check that).

Maybe there isn't that kind of product out there, but that's what I'm trying to find out from ppl more experienced in this than me. I'm going to look into Spiceworks, thank you for that suggestion. It may at least knock off some of the more urgent things off my wishlist.

PS I also agree w/ the workplace management part, but I'm working with what's been set up and how things have operated for years and years. Baby steps to better things, hopefully.

Cog

Check what I posted in the IT thread, but look into SolarWinds ipMonitor. It can track cpu usage, memory usage, disk consumption, service up/down status, ping times, all kinds of crap, for up to 500 total counters, and send emails and (i think) text messages. I linked their demo video, and their website also has an interactive demo that you can poke around in yourself. It's agentless, aside from having to push out some WMI extensions. About the only thing it doesn't really check off your wishlist is the ability to report in when it's off your network, but you've set the bar pretty high and you're not really gonna cover everything on one package.

But ipMonitor is a really nice suite for small business.

Hit up Carbonite's customer support, they should be able to email you a daily report on your backup jobs. And you should really look at getting everyone on a domain, it makes this kind of management a fair bit simpler, at least on the windows side.