Posted by Pascal Roy in 
Management tools are always useful, but good ones are hard to find. I think the best ones are very often the ones that are built for a single purpose instead of those huge applications that are supposed to do everything. One good example of this, is Solarwind’s Exchange Server Monitor. I came across this application because I needed something that would just sit there and let me see how the server was doing without having to check a remote desktop window constantly. I went back to see the other free tools and many of them can be extremely useful for the specific tasks they were built for.
- SolarWinds Free TFTP Server – upload and download executable images and configurations to network devices – our most popular free network monitoring tool!
- IP SLA Monitor – quickly troubleshoot network slowdowns between sites and easily understand device-to-device performance using sophisticated Cisco® IP SLA operations.
- Free Kiwi Syslog Server – receive, log, display, and forward syslog messages from network devices with this easy-to-use Syslog Server.
- Free Kiwi CatTools – simplify daily management tasks with the ability to manage and backup network
- VM Monitor – continuously monitor a VMware® ESX Server and its virtual machines with at-a-glance virtualization health statistics.
- SolarWinds Free Real-time NetFlow Analyzer – capture and analyze up to one hour of NetFlow data to see what types of traffic are on your network, where it’s coming from, & where it’s going.
- SolarWinds Free Exchange Monitor – continuously monitor Exchange and get real-time insight into services, mail queue sizes, and host server health with this clever desktop dashboard.
- SolarWinds Free NetFlow Configurator – configure NetFlow v5 via SNMP on supported Cisco® devices – a perfect complement to Orion NetFlow Traffic Analyzer and our free Real-time NetFlow Analyzer tool!
- SolarWinds Free Advanced Subnet Calculator – compute addresses for IP subnets – another perennial favorite in our suite of free network monitoring tools!
- SolarWinds Free Wake-On-LAN – remotely power up network PCs
I have not tested all of these tools of course, because some of them are too specific for my needs, but the Exchange Monitor and the Kiwi Syslog Server work great and do exactly what you expect them to.
Free tools are always welcome and the quality products offered by Solarwinds are an excellent addition to any administrator’s toolset.
I’ve used Servers Alive (free for 10 monitors, reasonably priced for more), at http://www.woodstone.nu
Painfully dated interface, surprisingly powerful and useful app.
Great tools, I’ve used them as well. Especially the NetFlow Configurator.
Lot of vendors started providing these kind of tools. Check this link, more relevant and a wide portfolio of their freebies.
http://www.manageengine.com/free-softwares-download.html