Domain Information Visualisation Project

[Duresthar]

Greetings!

I'm in my final year at University (Nottingham Trent , In the UK) and i'm doing a project about displaying useful information for system administrators about the domain system. As part of my research I need to identify issues that system administrators have in their environment that oculd be solved by the collection of information about the domain(s) and then compiled in the form of a visual diagram or interface. I'd really appreciate any input that anyone might have about their issues.

One suggestion from one of my colleagues in the system administration field suggested a system which pings all the machiens on the domain and keeps track of them, and then alerts you if they can't be for a certain peroid.

Thanks!

Edit: Sorry just to confirm, i'm looking for problems that system administrators have with their domain systems. Thanks

[plexer]

Good idea but it's been done in many forms including nagios and also smart monitor by our own ozan

[AngryTechnician]

Also WhatsUp - and these are all systems you should look at when reviewing other systems currently on the market, which I assume is something required in the early stage of your project. I actually did a not dissimilar project in my final year at uni.

That it's been done before doesn't mean it's not a valid project. The trick is to produce something novel, or that reproduces some existing approach in a novel way.

Things to think about:

• How could an admin quickly find which of the 500 workstations a particular user is currently logged on to?
• Which workstation(s) are running a particular process RIGHT NOW?
• Which computers are low on disk space?
• Which have particular errors in their event logs?

[kmount]

• How could an admin quickly find which of the 500 workstations a particular user is currently logged on to?
• Which workstation(s) are running a particular process RIGHT NOW?
• Which computers are low on disk space?
• Which have particular errors in their event logs?

I'd like all of those please

[glennda]

Things to think about:

• How could an admin quickly find which of the 500 workstations a particular user is currently logged on to?
• Which workstation(s) are running a particular process RIGHT NOW?
• Which computers are low on disk space?
• Which have particular errors in their event logs?

I'd like all of those please

Wouldn't we all! Anything that makes life easier or reduces the amount of mmc snap ins you have to open is always good!

But Seriously a program that shows where users are logged in easier then sifting through the logs would be great

[DrPerceptron]

write a script in the short term? :P

Is there anything that you can import an architects drawing of a building into and then arrange all the PCs on that?

[mikedoubleu]

Hi Duresthar,

I have to second what everyone has said about a tool that keeps track of where users are logged in and represents it appropriately. It would be so nice for me to be able to select a user and it give me the name of their current client machine and even what they have been logged in to previously. I imagine it wouldn't be easy to pluck this out of the domain controller, but a VB script that runs at login and reports back to a database would work.

Maybe as an extension to this, I'd really love a program that will periodically check in with each switch on my network and keep a record of where all computers are plugged in. Most managed switches provide this facility but all of the programs I have found that can do it (particularly HP Procurve Manager Plus) cost an absolute mint!!

If you could combine the above, you could feasibly have graphical representations of where all your users are in a building :-)

I personally would love something that monitored when a computer had last received the group policy objects from our domain controllers. At the moment we have an issue with user profiles and client computers that have been messed up by an old version of the Novell client. Novell is now completely off our network, but its like a virus popping its head up every now and then, and this particularly issue causes some client machines not to download the latest group policy.

Hope thats helpful

Thanks

Mike

[Duresthar]

Thank for all the replies guys, i'm looking into all your suggestions and found a few solutions to finding out what computer a user is on. I found an oddly simple method that involves going into the Computer Management window, then going System Tools/Shared Folders/Sessions and then finding the user and the corresponding computer next to it, though apparently it sometimes gives an IP instead of a host name. But you have to look through the list manually, so I suppose that doesn't help too much but does mean that I could gather this information somehow via command line maybe, or via Microsoft's PsLoggonOn library you can download.

If you have more i'll happily read them!

[pete]

Kinda following on from AngryTechnicians points:

We just spent X on application Y. Management want to see if we're getting our money's worth, How often does it actually get used, and for roughly how long per session? Is that directed (per-lesson teacher says "open application Y") or are kids using it of their own accord at lunchtime/free time because it's a useful application?

We have 2 apps that roughly do the same thing and we pay annual costs for each one. Which gets used the most over the course of a term and by which user groups?

My network monitoring system finds it hard to distinguish between "eco-ninjas have switched "X" off at the wall" and "device is down and needs looking at". I can make rules based on time-of-day and historical eco-ninja activity in that area of the school to guesstimate when it should alert me and when it should ignore it. Can you think of a better way of determining the device state?

Hint - 1&2 are doable using existing tools and access to timetable information.

[albertwt]

How about using Spiceworks v4.5 ?