A few weeks back Steve

Jones sent me over a link about a product called ASP

Enterprise Manager. I looked at it briefly but was too busy to really look

into it, so tagged for follow up and kept trying to clear my inbox. Then not

long after that I got an email from Wes Grant, the guy who is writing it asking

a question about how EM gets the security information. Over the course of the

email thread I got some information about the project that I wanted to pass on

to all of you.

To start with, it's freeware and open source. You can view the source code at

SourceForge (I have

not looked at the source yet). The idea for the project originated because Wes

had been using MyAdmin for MySQL

and wanted something similar and web based for his SQL projects. Wes said he

started small and then got more ambitious as he started to see how things went

together. He's using .Net and is currently working out the details of what he

wants to include and how to do it. Right now he is the only developer, but says

that once he gets the final design done he would welcome the help of others -

and I figured we might have a reader or two that would like to participate? Or

beta test once it gets going? If so, you can contact Wes via his web site.

Please note that the product is in design only. If it makes it to release

we'll do a review and tell you what we think, my goal is just to encourage open

source where I can!

Would you rely on an open source/freeware tool to do administration? What

features would it HAVE to have? Are you currently using any web based product to

do administration? Post your comments!