Case Story
Alexander SMK
System Management Kit for Linux & Windows

US Government Agency (3)
 
What if you could see problems develop before they fully manifest themselves? With Alexander SMK we did.

Ask any Network Administrator and they can tell you that managing all your systems can make your head explode. At least that is what it was like before life with the Alexander SMK. The most tedious part of my job used to be monitoring system performance of individual computers, and with 11 servers running Linux and Windows and over 100 workstations it was very time consuming.

Users would call complaining that their systems were running slowly and had projects due shortly so I had to drop everything and help them immediately. Why is it so that these things only happen when it's an “emergency situation” for the user?

I'd get to their computer, see what applications were running and which of them was using the most memory or not responding, check the event logs, etc., before being able to fully resolve the issue. Then one day while looking through a trade magazine, I stumbled across an ad for this product called Alexander SMK (System Management Kit). The ad said the following:

“Resolve system problems before they occur. The SMK's features range from pro-actively alerting you when a CPU fan is slowing down to enabling you to take over a troubled system, all through a standard web browser. The Alexander SMK makes system management simple...and fast.”

I thought, “Why not, we've been using the companion product Alexander SPK (System Protection Kit) for years, I'll give this shot.” So, I contacted my local reseller and within a few hours was pouring over the documentation and planning my installation. Installation of the Central Management Server took only a few minutes and with the help of SMS, the clients were installed automatically overnight. The next morning, I imported all of the systems though SMK’s License Manager and was getting e-mails warning me of potential system problems within a matter of minutes. One of my favorite features of the SMK is the ability to print out a detailed systems report or publish it to an HTML file and post to our intranet. Incidentally, it's one of my boss's favorite features as well.

Melissa Racob
Network Administrator
at a US Government Agency

return to Case Stories