23,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Over 2 million IT pros have installed Spiceworks. It helps them with their daily tasks, streamlines processes, and even saves them money, all for free! Getting Started with Spiceworks is an ideal resource to install Spiceworks and run it on your network. After all, over 2 million IT pros can't be wrong, so learn how to join the Spiceworks IT revolution.
"Getting Started with Spiceworks" starts from downloading the app to having a fully functional Spiceworks installation in just a few minutes. It will cover Network Inventory, Help Desk, Self-Service User Portal, knowledge bases, and more in detail for you to get the most out of Spiceworks.Whether you have a decade of experience or you are new to the IT field, Spiceworks has tools for every IT pro's needs. You will learn how to make your daily tasks easier, streamline existing processes, and even save money with Spiceworks.
"Getting Started with Spiceworks" will walk you through the Spiceworks installation step-by-step. It will cover topics such as configuring Spiceworks to scan your network and organize information, setting up Help Desk and Self-Service User Portal, running reports that dazzle and streamline your purchasing process, and connecting with other IT pros around your area or around the world thoroughly.
"Getting Started with Spiceworks" will provide insights and tips from experts on Spiceworks. It is an ideal guide to progress quickly from installation to Spiceworks being an essential part of your IT day.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 167
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
Ähnliche
Table of Contents
Getting Started with Spiceworks
Getting Started with Spiceworks
Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: August 2013
Production Reference: 1160813
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-78216-684-9
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Suresh Mogre (<[email protected]>)
Credits
Authors
Darren Schoen
Nitish Kumar
Acquisition Editor
Kunal Parikh
Commissioning Editor
Sruthi Kutty
Technical Editors
Ruchita Bhansali
Amit Ramadas
Pragati Singh
Aniruddha Vanage
Copy Editors
Gladson Monteiro
Sayanee Mukherjee
Adithi Shetty
Laxmi Subramanian
Project Coordinator
Amigya Khurana
Proofreader
Katherine Tarr
Indexer
Monica Ajmera Mehta
Production Coordinator
Adonia Jones
Cover Work
Adonia Jones
About the Authors
Darren Schoen has always been passionate about technology. He realized this the first time he logged into Prodigy with his DeskPro (through DOS of course). He has come a long way since those amber screens. Although he spent 16 years in another career, in 2001 he decided to pursue this passion and jumped into the IT field. Today, he is the Director of Technology Infrastructure at Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Ft Lauderdale, FL along with being an official Spice Trainer where he travels around the U.S. educating users on Spiceworks. He is on the board of several organizations, always keeping technology and innovation in focus. If that doesn't keep him busy enough, he is also an active speaker around the U.S. and has written a variety of blogs and articles for many publications. Darren is always plugged in, but when he gets some free cycles, he is known to be an avid gamer, a Doctor Who fan, and enjoys reading Hugh Howey and watching live music. Although technology is his life, he does take time out to watch the moon rise on the beach with his wife, Thais, and walk his Boston Terrier, Rocky.
First and foremost, I would like to thank my wife, Thais, for her unconditional support and understanding while I was writing this book. Next, I would like to thank my family, who has always encouraged me to pursue my wildest dreams, no matter how crazy they sounded at times! I wish to also thank my contacts at Packt Publishing: Amigya Khurana and Ameya Sawant, along with my co-author Nitish Kumar, for such an amazing experience while writing this book. I would like to thank my friends and associates who understood when I had to devote time to this project: Dave Schleuter, Tim Weeks, Ricky Lawton, Peter Sze, and Ruth Hinds.
I want to also thank every user or presenter I have come into contact with the past few years, whether I was attending, presenting, or educating, I have learned something from every one of you.
Lastly, I want to thank everyone at Spiceworks and Spiceworks University because if they didn't create this awesome piece of software, this book would not be possible; the founders of Spiceworks, Scott Abel, Jay Hallberg, Francis Sullivan, and Greg Kattawar; the incredible team at Spiceworks itself (and these are only a few): Jen Slaski, Nicole Tanzillo, Ashley Connell, Jessica Noland, Raychelle Geggatt, Sheryl Floyd, and Todd Dorroca, and the great team of Spice Trainers that have taught me so much, including Bob Beatty, Grey Howe, Justin Davidson, and Philip Moya.
Nitish Kumar is a Wintel Lead at HT Media Ltd. and an independent tech blogger about various technologies. He has been working on several Microsoft technologies and open source solutions (including but not limited to Spiceworks, ManageEngine Products, Zabbix, MS Active Directory, MS Exchange Servers, and so on) for the past eight years, of which the last couple of years have been spent on bringing cost-effective solutions to corporates to simplify their complex requirements and to improve time management for their staff. He is a technology enthusiast and has been an active participant at various corporate events and public webinars. Mobile technologies have been of special interest to him and he has often written about various gadgets and their respective technologies. Nitish holds an MS degree in Software from the JK Institute of Applied Physics and Technology, and his areas of interest include Microsoft technologies, open source software, and mobile gadgets. He occasionally blogs at http://nitishkumar.net and can be reached over e-mail at <[email protected]>.
A huge thanks to my wife, Pooja, and colleagues for being there, and to my kiddo for enduring through the process of writing this book. Of course, thanks to the whole Spiceworks team and community, especially Jason himself for helping me out for smaller details; this book would not exist without them. Thanks to the team at Packt Publishing for their persistence and patience; it surely was hard to work with a chaotic person like me.
www.PacktPub.com
Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more
You might want to visit www.PacktPub.com for support files and downloads related to your book.
Did you know that Packt offers eBook versions of every book published, with PDF and ePub files available? You can upgrade to the eBook version at www.PacktPub.com and as a print book customer, you are entitled to a discount on the eBook copy. Get in touch with us at <[email protected]> for more details.
At www.PacktPub.com, you can also read a collection of free technical articles, sign up for a range of free newsletters and receive exclusive discounts and offers on Packt books and eBooks.
http://PacktLib.PacktPub.com
Do you need instant solutions to your IT questions? PacktLib is Packt's online digital book library. Here, you can access, read and search across Packt's entire library of books.
Why Subscribe?
Free Access for Packt account holders
If you have an account with Packt at www.PacktPub.com, you can use this to access PacktLib today and view nine entirely free books. Simply use your login credentials for immediate access.
Preface
Automated network inventory, full self-service help desk, robust reporting, system monitoring and alerts, Mobile Device Management, software and warranty tracking and inventory, dynamic network map and knowledge base, and also the vibrant online community to share/download content and tools are some of the features on system administrators' and IT pros' wish list, which will help them automate and make their daily tasks more efficient. There is a single product that over two million IT pros have installed that does all these and more. No more separate data silos where you have to export/import to see a comprehensive overview. No more having to manually monitor an e-mail box to track user issues. No more installing clients throughout your network to collect even the most basic information from your desktops and servers. If you are struggling with any or all of these challenges, Spiceworks is your solution.
This book provides a walkthrough from installation to configuration of all these topics and more. The screenshots illustrate important areas of the application and guides you throughout. In only an afternoon, you can traverse installation, network inventory, help desk, reporting, and more with the result being a fully functioning and powerful installation of Spiceworks providing you with important data.
One last thing, Spiceworks does all this for free. Yes, you read that right, absolutely free.
So, come along and find out what over two million IT pros already know, that Spiceworks is an essential enterprise tool that no organization should be without. Come join the Spiceworks IT revolution.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Setting Up Spiceworks, starts off with an overview of all aspects of the Spiceworks application. Then, we go through a step-by-step process of downloading and installing Spiceworks on your network.
Chapter 2, Configuring Network Inventory in Spiceworks, covers setting up of Spiceworks to scan your network, including best practices and Active Directory configuration.
Chapter 3, Configuring the Spiceworks Help Desk and User Portal, provides a detailed, step-by-step instruction on how to set up the Spiceworks Help Desk and self-serve User Portal. Customization of both the portal and help desk tickets are also covered.
Chapter 4, Configuring Other Spiceworks Features, talks about additional features in Spiceworks, such as Reporting, System monitoring and alerts, Mobile Device Management, Dynamic Network Map, Knowledge base, and Cloud services dashboard.
Chapter 5, Taking Spiceworks to the Next Level, tells you how to take things to the next level by leveraging the vibrant Spiceworks community to gain knowledge and interact with fellow IT Pros.
What you need for this book
You will need an open mind for this book. Throw out any preconceived notions you have about "free software" and look at Spiceworks for what it does well.
Here is what you will need:
Who this book is for
This book is for system administrators, IT pros, help desk technicians, IT directors, multiservice providers, and anyone else who wants to make their IT life easier.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "As you can see, if you need to put device-specific usernames and passwords into Spiceworks, you can by using the format, Domain\username."
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Clicking on Language Packs brings up the multitude of different ones that users have completed."
Note
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.
Tip
Tips and tricks appear like this.
Reader feedback
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or may have disliked. Reader feedback is important for us to develop titles that you really get the most out of.
To send us general feedback, simply send an e-mail to <[email protected]>, and mention the book title via the subject of your message.
If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide on www.packtpub.com/authors.
Customer support
Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.
Errata
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in the text or the code—we would be grateful if you would report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the erratasubmissionform link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded on our website, or added to any list of existing errata, under the Errata section of that title. Any existing errata can be viewed by selecting your title from http://www.packtpub.com/support.
Piracy
Piracy of copyright material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our works, in any form, on the Internet, please provide us with the location address or website name immediately so that we can pursue a remedy.
Please contact us at <[email protected]> with a link to the suspected pirated material.
We appreciate your help in protecting our authors, and our ability to bring you valuable content.
Questions
You can contact us at <[email protected]> if you are having a problem with any aspect of the book, and we will do our best to address it.
Chapter 1. Setting Up Spiceworks
Welcome to the wonderful, crazy world of Spiceworks! For those of you who don't know what exactly Spiceworks is, it is a free application for IT professionals (like you and me). It brings together many of the tasks that we do on an everyday basis and consolidates them into a single interface. Oh, did I mention it was free? Yes, free!. Spiceworks was started in 2006 by four veterans of the IT software business. They wanted to bring IT pros a tool that would make their jobs easier and give it away for nothing. That was a huge challenge, but seven years later Spiceworks has over two million users and is installed in every country on the planet. A lot has changed since 2006 and Spiceworks Beta. Let's go through a high-level overview of some of what Spiceworks actually delivers today:
Since this is a Getting Started book, we will be going over each of these areas in broad strokes with the result being, you having a working and fully-functional Spiceworks installed. Here is what you can expect from this book:
So are you ready to install Spiceworks and get this great Spicy stuff on your network? Let's jump right in!
Installing Spiceworks
First we need a machine to install Spiceworks on. Overall it is a pretty lightweight application with minimum system requirements as follows:
Note
A Spiceworks install works well in virtual environments. Just spin up a virtual machine, install one of the mentioned operating systems, and you are good to go.
Once our Spiceworks host is ready, we now have to download the install package. Simply open your browser and type:
www.spiceworks.com/packt
The install package is just 60 MB. Navigate to where you want the file to be downloaded to, and then click on Save. Once the Spiceworks package download is complete, double-click on it to start the install process.
Note
IIS does not need to be installed on the Windows machine you are working on because during the install Spiceworks installs its own IIS.
