I'd suggest you read up on SNMP. And check out the following tools
(google them):
- net-snmp ( an SNMP agent )
- nagios ( very sophisticated network management tool )
- nmap ( good discovery tool )
- ntop ( traffic analysis, RMON agent, performance monitoring )
- sar ( system performance monitoring )
- argus (network performance monitornig)
- rsync (distributed configurations, files etc.)
- openssh (if you don't know what this is, you're in trouble)
- rcs, cvs or subversion (change control)
There are also a number of commercial tools availabe, but the above
list encompasses most of what you will need.