Network monitoring
As soon as your network of machines gets slightly large, it helps to have a number of tools to watch the network for you. That way you know there is a problem before your crew does.
My Favorite two apps are:
- Nagios http://www.nagios.org (formerly netsaint) which is a very simple polling monitoring system. Its very easy to add lots of different checks, and it has a very simple interface. It also has a email/paging system, to alert you to potential problems - SamR
- Cricket - http://cricket.sourceforge.net/ - This is a terrific graphing tool, good for monitoring multiple data sources such as network throughput, disk space, license usage, render-cue usage etc. in a very efficient manor - SamR
Other worthy mentions
- http://bb4.com/ - Big Brother, similar to nagios, however I'm not sure its as good for managing large number of hosts. - SamR
* Backups *
Open Source
- http://www.amanda.org/ heavy duty network backup solution. - SamR
Commercial
- http://www.veritas.com/ - Heavy duty commerical backup solution - SamR