[geeks] WinNT management solution

[Hatle, Steven J.]

All,

In the course of my day job, I need to research solutions to monitor/manage
a 200 site network of Win2K servers and workstations.

This will be distributed over 200 geographical sites, with between 10 and 35
nodes at each location. The sites will be connected via a private frame
relay network, with some sites being connected through a VPN solution where
frame isn't available due to physical or cost considerations.

Beyond basic up/down reporting, we would like to watch network utilization
and latency, monitor the Cisco hardware connecting everything together,
monitor/restart certain NT services, be able to leverage the internal
hardware reporting of the machines (Insight Manager or OpenManage), and
since there will be no technical people at these sites, do as much remote
control as possible of the one file server and as many workstations as
practical.

Facility for hardware/software inventory and management, and software
updating a la' SMS would be nice, too.

All this will roll back to a central NOC that will monitor, handhold, and
invoke software or hardware support as necessary.

I've been doing the vendor dance for a while now, but I would appreciate any
"real-world" comments from you guys, without prejudicing anything by letting
you know who have been pitching us.

TIA,

Steve



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Steve Hatle
VUE - a Pearson company
shatle at vue.com
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