3 IT Tools That Have Withstood the Test of Time - Part 1
In this three part series, I'm going to highlight three IT tools that are, in my opinion, absolutely critical for businesses...
Though our economy continues to improve, it remains critical for business owners to make intelligent decisions about technology. We shouldn’t let our optimism get in the way of our better judgment. Hopefully we can all take a lesson from our slowly fading recession and remain cognizant of cash flow, making sure that our purchases are worth their value and can really aid companies in increasing ROI.
Since my induction into the technology industry in the 80’s, I’ve sat by and watched as many technology “one hit wonders” arrived and disappeared without fanfare. On the flip side, there have also been those which have become truly integrated and vital to my business operation. More often than not, these tools fall into the vital categories of efficiency, security, and convenience. The following time-tested software tools have been critical to my company for some time, and represent the most helpful and long-lasting tools that I have encountered to date.
Nagios
Nagios is perhaps one of the most useful and popular applications available today. It serves as a powerful alerting tool, monitoring computer systems and networks to keep everything in check. And, best of all, this open-source software is entirely free to use.
The name Nagios is a recursive acronym for “Nagios Ain’t Gonna Insist On Sainthood,” with sainthood being a reference to the original name of the software, NetSaint. Though Nagios might not break into sainthood, most IT aficionados agree on the undeniable value of this incredible product. The software was named by Linux users in a “Just for Fun Poll” on Linux.com as the favorite IT operations tool, amassing over fifty percent of the vote.
It’s no secret why people love this tool - it's free, powerful and flexible. Administrators at companies large and small are often tasked with supervising a plethora of hardware and software, and find themselves incapable of physically monitoring each one. Nagios is a godsend to these administrators; it keeps track of all the services in the infrastructure, raises alerts before small issues snowball into large ones, provides a look into the entire system's status, and much more. And, although the system may take a moderate amount of configuration, it does this all for free – my favorite price.
Coming up in part 2: Command Line Interface
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