Computer Lab Management Tools

As described above, computer lab management requires a great deal of effort. Many tools are available to handle the management of servers, networks, and security measures. Based on their functions, these tools can be classified into two categories, server management tools and network management tools.

Server Management Tools
The tools in this category can be used to accomplish the following tasks:

 • Server management: The tools can be used for fault detection, performance tuning, antivirus protection, operating system and application software updates, directory service management, server backup and recovery, and remote software installation.

• Server monitoring: The tools can be used for server operation management, access auditing, event tracking, and notification service when issues arise. Usually, most of these tools are included in a server operating system. There are also some tools designed for specific tasks and are able to be used with different operating systems. These tools are for disk imaging, virus prevention, fault detection,
and for creating management reports. In the following, more information is given about the management tools.

• Tools for disk imaging: It may take many days to install operating systems and application software packages. Disk imaging tools are useful for reducing the installation time and for quickly restoring a failed computer system due to hard drive corruption, virus infection, and wrongly configured operating systems or applications. It can be used to image a hard disk on one computer and copy the image to the hard disks of other computers simultaneously. With a disk imaging tool, one can install operating systems and application software in a computer lab. If all the computers in the lab use Windows operating systems such as Windows XP Professional or Windows 2000 Professional, you can also use the tool Remote Installation Services (RIS) which is included in Windows Server 2003. RIS can be used to create the image of a hard disk on a source computer and copy the image to many other computers.
There are other useful computer system management software packages that can be used for the server management in a computer lab.

• Antivirus tool: This tool can be used to check the files stored on disks and automatically remove spyware, viruses, Trojan horses, and worms. It can also check incoming and outgoing e-mail attachments for viruses.

• Operating system management utility: This type of tool can be used to recover systems from crashes, repair damaged operating systems, optimize hard drives’ performance, and fix hard disk faults.

• Activity undo tool: This tool can be used to undo the activities performed on a computer system. It can undo the activities several days back. For example, if a student made a mistake several days ago, such as accidentally deleting an important file, he/she can still undo the wrong operation.


This content is brought to you by Exam Key. Are you seeking for this Cisco Field Technician 640-692 exam assistance? Let’s get the advantage of 642-648 Exam and pass your IT certification exam on first attempt with 100% money back guaranty.