[dba-Tech] System administration

Hi all

What do you use for administration? I mean real administration where you
schedule tasks and checks to document what has been done on your LAN and
what's next.

We run a small LAN on two locations (connected via VPN over ADSL2 lines)
with as much as possible hooked into AD, and Windows-only for servers as
well as workstations. About 10 workstations (mix of desktops and laptops).
Not much, but still it adds up to six physical servers, eight VMs for remote
desktops for remote clients, and about ten VMs for everything else (spam
filter, mail, database servers, DCs, etc.).

I've found it's quite a job to keep track of updates and backup of VMs,
data, configurations - we miss some kind of "bookkeeping for the system
admin" for all these tasks.
Before browsing all the good and bad advice that may be found on the web, I
wonder if anyone here have some practical experience to share.

/gustav