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| The Quill Consultancy has also been proactive in supporting
the Tasmanian IT industry. Recently we came across an excellent piece of
network management software called MetaLAN that has been developed here
in Tasmania. Many small to medium networks (10 to 500 computers) would
benefit from a network administration management tool that can be used day
to day to manage the computers on the network.
Developed by Matthew Sanderson of Hammer-software, MetaLAN is a specialised and easy to use tool for Windows 9x/NT/2K/XP/2003 domain and workstation administrators and support staff. In the past some organisations have purchased and installed products like Microsoft SMS but unless they can dedicate resources to the running of these systems they generally have proven to not deliver the value to the business that were intended. As most organisations in Tasmania tend to be on the small size the dedication of resources to one aspect of their IT infrastructure is simply not possible. The beauty of MetaLAN is that it does most things a IT Professional needs to do day to day on a network. For example a report can be generated instantly on what percentage of machines are running what version of windows, what CPU’s are in use, how much RAM is in each box, and what disk capacity exists on each desktop. You can make a remote desktop or terminal service connection to Windows XP or Windows 2000 Servers running Terminal Server and a VNC connection to 2000 Professional, NT-4, Windows 98 or Windows 95. VNC is installed to the client for the connection to be made and then uninstalled when the administrator has completed the tasks required. MetaLAN is available for a 30 day trail by going to: http://www.hammer-software.com/ ProbeServer If more than one person is using MetaLAN on a network it is highly recommended that ProbeServer be used to interrogate the network. This will keep network traffic to a minimum providing the most accurate results and supply details for computers that are off line. ProbeServer is a FREE add on for MetaLAN and is available at: http://dl.hammer-software.com/ When MetaLAN is run it will display its control panel as shown below:
To probe the network you select the domain or workgroup and click on probe network and this actively goes out and gathers information about computers and users. From this control Panel you can select a MetaLAN module. Currently MetaLAN has six modules: The functionality of the each of these tools is discussed below: This tool allows you find what users are logged onto what computers on your network. It displays summary information about the selected computer and gives access to the management tools. The management tools are: Control - Start a Remote Control Session to the selected PC. Manage - Launch the Computer Management MMC for the selected computer. Message - Send a message to the selected computer. Details - Display a detailed view of the selected computer. Health - Monitor the health of the selected computer. Ping - Verify the online/offline status of the selected computer. Wake on LAN - Send a Wake On LAN packed to the selected computer. When loaded the Helpdesk module will look similar to the screen below:
The reporting module gives reporting options and has the ability to save reports as html files. It can also export all the information to a CSV file so the data can be easily imported into a database or spreadsheet for further interrogation. The reporting options are: By Operating System - This gives a pie chart and text break down on all Windows 95, NT and 2000 workstations and server computers with machine name and user name. By CPU - This gives a pie chart and text break down of CPU speed in MHZ on all Windows NT and 2000 workstations and server computers with machine name and user name. By Memory Size - This gives a pie chart and text break down of RAM size in Megabytes on all Windows NT and 2000 workstations and server computers with machine name and user name. By Free Hard Disk Space - This gives a pie chart and text break down of % of hard disk free on computers on the network. An example of a report is displayed below: This module reports on installed software for Windows NT, 2000, XP and Sever 2003 computers. The tool gives reporting options to display what software is installed and the ability to export all the information to a CSV file. This report can display software by computer or computers by software title. An example screen is shown below:
The RegCast Tool provides
the ability find all machines with or without certain registry, data,
values or keys. It also gives the ability to add or delete
information from the registry of the computers depending on if certain
entries exist or not. All registry data is imported using RegEdit
files that are created using the regedit.exe program that comes with
Windows.
Service Admin Tool Use this tool to install and uninstall services on computers
The Remote Control Tool allows: Remote control computers not found by MetaLAN. Remote control computers by IP Address. Force the uninstall of VNC from a computer. View Remote Control history logs.
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