I've recently been hired by a small company, Windows on the Desktop, mix of Windows and Linux on the server side (Dependant on Exchange). I am looking for a good package that will allow me to both track the systems, schedule re-imaging, and plan other tasks I have to perform in my role.

I am somewhat pressed for time and would rather a drop-in solution as opposed to shoehorning or coding one myself. What do yall use for similar tasks?

-Galorin

Galorin,

I'm sure that there's a lot of purpose-built stuff for this, but personally:

What do you mean by "tracking the systems"? Monitoring their status? Tracking config/log files? Tracking changes?

For monitoring:
NMS - Nagios, Zenoss, Hyperic, etc.
Log files - Splunk (I don't use it), Zenoss, a few others
Config files - ticketing system, RCS/CVS by hand, Zenoss, Hyperic, internal wiki.
Change Tracking - ticketing system and wiki

Scheduling/Planning routine, recurring tasks:
My normal calendar (at the moment, KPilot/my Treo, but in the future a good iCal implementation)

Scheduling/Planning non-routine or non-recurring tasks:
Ticketing System (I use Eventum, but there's a bunch, RT, etc.)

In looking for advice/answers to something like this, you should consider the mailing lists for SAGE (the USENIX System Administration SIG) and LOPSA - the League of Professional System Administrators. Both have lots of knowledgeable people who are happy to provide advice.

Also, as a general reference, Tom Limoncelli's The Practice of System and Network Administration is an invaluable reference.

OCS inventory and GLPI
http://www.ocsinventory-ng.org/
http://www.glpi-project.org/?lang=en

Right now I'm testing some other things but I am looking forward to testing the above packages. I did get started on them a long time ago and if I remember correctly the ocs agent just works under Linux. Windows agent didn't work properly until I did a default install of the agent and altered the host file to point to the server. Got pulled onto other projects since then.

I'll take a look at those suggestions, ta. I forgot one thing though.

I am looking for a FLOSS solution similar to Acronis or Ghost Image Server, but without the big £££. I saw a few possibilities to test a while back, but can't find any. Ideally, I want something that doesn't need to run off a boot CD like G4L so as to reduce downtime while an image is being made.

Might take a look at Partimage. It's one of the projects on my to do list also. I'm thinking about setting up a partimage server. Then go to what ever box I need to on the network with a systemrescuecd. Use the partimage client on the cd to manage creating/restoring the images.
www.partimage.org