A Beta of Spiceworks 5.0 has been released to the public. This is an exciting release for all of us. I for one have watch Spiceworks grow over the years both as a company and as a software product. This release is one of the best I have seen.  There are several new features that I would like to point out.

Backup device configuration from Cisco, HP, and Dell equipment

(Image from Spiceworks)

How is this helpful?
Now if you have an HP, Dell, or Cisco device, Spiceworks can backup the configuration of that device and save the image for later use or just as a general backup.  This is extremely useful when you are making configuration changes to your network.  Now through Spiceworks, you can make a backup of the configuration before you make changes and add notes as to what you are doing and why the backup was created.  If your changes don’t work the way you want, you can have Spiceworks restore the previous configuration from the backup and reboot the device for you.  This can save you a TON of time and save you money by avoiding a long network outage due to a configuration problem.

General Speed Improvements!

Spiceworks knows that speed has been an issue when using Spiceworks in the past.  Well Spiceworks said back on June 7, 2010 that they hired a new employee (Adam Gashlin) who was going to be working on performance improvements.  Well Adam and the rest of the staff at Spiceworks have delivered in the means of a performance improvement of up to 30% in Spiceworks 5.0.