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Hi Guys,

Im new to Spiceworks and had a couple questions!

When a remote site is setup as a remote collector and reports back to the Central Server.

What is controlled by the Central Server and what is controlled by the Collector?

  1. What to Scan for? / Scheduled scanning?

  2. Which events to track and notify?

  3. Authentication for the devices on site?

What is the advantages to having a Central Server - Remote Collector setup as opposed to have Standalone setups reporting events via SMTP?

2 Spice ups
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The Remote Collector (RC) is traditionally used to scan a remote location locally. You can install it on a machine at a remote site, and it scans the machines and reports back to the Central Server (CS).

To that end, the RC is in charge of the IP range it discovers (the Your Networks section of the Settings → Inventory → Device Scanning). Any device discovered by the RC is tagged as belonging to that “site” and reported back to the CS.

Once a device is discovered, the CS is the install that schedules the updates (the Scan Schedules section of the CS Settings → Inventory → Device Scanning). Each scan type in that section updates a specific type of information from machines and is separated by groups in the main Inventory section. For instance, when you enter the Networking group into the All scan category, the CS looks at the devices listed in the Networking group from it’s Inventory, then checks which site that device belongs to. With that information in hand, it then tells the appropriate RCs to scan the devices in that group.

As for credentials, they all get pulled down from the CS, so you should make sure that the creds that are entered there will work for the remote sites.

As for why to do it instead of using SNMP traps (which is what I assumed you meant), first, the app doesn’t accept SNMP traps. Second, it helps distribute the network load over WAN link (multiple remote locations being scanned from a single installation can choke WAN end points). Third, depending on your set up, it can also help distribute server load. Because the RCs are doing the scanning, the CS isn’t doing that as well as everything else.

You can read a bit more about it here: https://community.spiceworks.com/support/inventory/docs/remote-sites

I hope that all helps! Let us know if you have any other questions!

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Hi Matt,

This is a great and informative answer thank you!

With the SNMP / SMTP thing, what I actually meant though was:
Is there an advantage to having a CS, compared to just having separate standalone installs of spiceworks at each location, which when they scan, report events via email?

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The biggest benefit is having all of your data in one place (the CS). Even though the RCs are doing the scanning, they are reporting it all back to the CS. The entire inventory is in one location. All the events are in one central repository. You should, of course, do whatever makes the most sense for you though. If you’re just looking to use Spiceworks to email alerts, them maybe the standalone instances are the simplest solution to the problem. You’re going to be there only one to make that call…