Tools for collecting SQL Server instances

Due to the proliferation of personal firewalls, inconsistent network library configurations, and multiple-instance support, SQL Server installations are becoming increasingly difficult to discover, assess, and maintain.

Peter Ward from WardyIT Solutions while presenting in the SQL Saturday event at Auckland last weekend has asked all of us the following question:

“Do you know how many instances are there in your network?”

Only two people in the entire room have raised their hands.

He mentioned about the following tools being available for collecting sql server instances in a network.

Sqlping from www.sqlsecurity.com

SQLPing 3.0 is a free tool available which performs both active and passive scans of your network in order to identify all of the SQL Server/MSDE installations in your enterprise.
SQLPing 3.0 is designed to remedy this problem by combining all known means of SQL Server/MSDE discovery into a single tool which can be used to ferret-out servers you never knew existed on your network so you can properly secure them. .NET Framework v2.0 Required.

You can find more information about SQLPING here

Microsoft assessment and planning toolkit (MAP Toolkit)

MAP Toolkit is a free tool from Microsoft that does a lot more than just scanning the network and identifying all instances of SQL Servers. Some of the features are outlined below.

• Secure, Agentless Discovery and Inventory
• Generate Automated, Network-wide Readiness Assessments
• Quickly Create Reports and Proposals
• Capitalise on Cross-Sell and Up-Sell Opportunities
• Shorten Your Presales Cycle, Increase Your Opportunities
• Accelerate Server and PC Migration Planning
• Leverage Virtualisation to Help Reduce Customers' Costs

For more information please click here

SQLIO
In the presentation Peter also briefly mentioned about SQLIO as a tool to measure SAN performance. I have googled for SQLIO and came up with the following.

SQLIO is a free utility from Microsoft that measures storage IO performance. The name "SQLIO" is horribly misleading, because it doesn't really have anything to do with SQL Server. There is a lot of information about SQLIO in the SQLServerpedia website

There may be lot of other tools out there. Please suggest me other tools if you can