The InterMapper Appliance

I'm not convinced this is what SJ had in mind, but I think the Mac mini lends itself perfectly to the task.

Now you can monitor thousands of devices across your network using a Mac mini as your command center.

$3,295 gets you Dartware's InterMapper Appliance, which includes a 1.25 GHz Mac mini with 1GB of RAM, pre-loaded with an unlimited-device license of InterMapper and one copy of InterMapper Remote.

InterMapper's active maps give a "visual, real-time view of traffic flows through and between critical network devices and links. It also queries your servers to let you know when you have problems..."

InterMapper Remote allows you to run the Mac mini headless, and  will run on Windows (NT/2000/XP/2003), Solaris, FreeBSD, RedHat Enterprise Linux, Fedora, SuSE, and many other Linux distributions.

Even if you're not on a large network, you might want to give InterMapper a try. They offer a  free, full-feature, non-expiring license to monitor up to 5 devices. Perfect for keeping an eye on that mini server farm you've been running out of your bedroom.

[Thanks, Mike!]