Spiceworks, the Austin-based free IT management software vendor, is making strides with the release of a new version of its software. The new version – the 17th release from the company – comes with support for larger networks (upt0 1000 computers). To put this in perspective, the previous version supported networks with fewer than 500 computers. Other key feature additions in this version include real-time SQL Server monitoring, enhanced scan scheduling, editable network maps, help desk queues and SSL support.

For the uninitiated, Spiceworks offers free IT management software that lets you monitor your network, manage IT assets and run a help desk. The company claims to have over 830,000 business users in 196 countries worldwide. The software can also be run in MSP mode for service providers who provide network management and help desk services for their clients. How do they keep it free? They run ads inside the user interface.

Some of the features they announced in this release includes:

• Real-Time SQL Server Monitoring – provides real-time monitoring of key SQL Server performance metrics, including transaction load, I/O throughput and disk space consumption.
• Dynamic Scan Control – gives users more flexibility and control over how their networks are scanned, including allowing individual and customized scans by device, subnet and department. Better support for remote locations is also included.
• SSL Support – offers full SSL encryption to provide greater security within organizations and for MSPs and businesses using the software to remotely manage multiple offices and locations.
• Customizable Network Maps – provides the ability to create and view multiple network maps, edit existing network elements and add new elements, change the layout and organization of the elements, and add annotations.
• Help Desk Routing and Queuing – allows users to group and work help desk tickets based on the content or source in the ticket – such as “all printer problems” or “tickets from the marketing organization.” Rules can be based on any data attribute in the system, including title, summary, source, severity, employee, or user defined attributes.

Spiceworks also reached out to its community to add support for multiple languages in the software – 10 languages to be exact including German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Danish and Croatian. The Spiceworks community continues to add more languages to the software.

Spiceworks also told me that most Spiceworks users are located here in the USA but they also have users in parts of Europe, Australia, India, Brazil etc.

Spiceworks has an interesting business model when it comes to IT management software and there are a lot of eyes on it to see how it performs. More details on the release here.