Ecora Software's Enterprise Auditor 3.5, an update to the company's configuration management software that helps admins keep track of server configuration, security and compliance while tracking changes to a system, captured the Bronze Award in the network and systems management category.

The software's new features include the ability to audit information for thousands of new configuration settings on systems running Microsoft's Windows and Exchange Server. It is also able to produce fact-finding reports on system configuration.

"I use it a lot at the beginning of a consulting engagement, and I can ask the servers how they are set up, and they'll tell me," one judge said. "You can sit at one workstation and collect all of this data. It puts all the data in a database and you can run any kind of report that you want."

"It's most useful for people who don't have a well-established change-management system," the judge added. "If you have really rigid change management in place, then you probably have this data, but most people who are managing Windows servers don't have well-established change management."

The price for the software begins at $995 per server.

Jennifer Lawinski, news writer