Open Source / Low Cost NMS for Server Hardware / Application Monitoring

Wed Jul 22 19:47:59 UTC 2009

We've been using Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold for many years.  Their recent improvements to the product have been mainly system monitoring stuff.

The product has grown in capabilities hugely since version 4 when we started with them (they are on version 12 now), and with that improvement in capabilities, the price has gone up a bit.  It's still a whole lot less than most other options, however.

There isn't too much in the way of agents, but we've integrated a ton of proprietary systems with WhatsUp Gold via it's SQL database back-end.

They also have fully scriptable monitoring as a standard feature now.

Anyways, thought I'd put in my two cents...

- Erik

-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Huff [mailto:mhuff at ox.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 1:08 PM
To: 'nanog at nanog.org'
Subject: Open Source / Low Cost NMS for Server Hardware / Application Monitoring

I apologize for not starting a new thread before, I didn't realize that the nanog mailing list created a thread-index rather than using the subject.

Even though NANOG is primarily for network operators, I know that a number of members work in NOCs where there is also monitoring of servers/applications. I would appreciate it if anyone has suggestions about monitoring systems that would be applicable to our environment. We have a large number of custom applications on a large number of hosts including Windows 2003/2008, Linux x86/x86_64 and Solaris Sparc/x86_64. We are looking for a better way of monitoring our environment. We are looking for recommendations for opensource or low-cost. We would prefer solutions where the basic monitoring is ready out of the box. Native agents with custom scripting would be highly desired (rather than SNMP/DMI/WMI polling).

Some of our requirements:

.       Native agents for Windows 2003/2008, Linux, Linux x86_64, Solaris Sparc and Solaris x86_64. Either binaries or source code.
.       Ability to send alerts via email, pager and/or snmp
.       Monitoring of OS properties like memory, disk, cpu, etc...
.       Ability to extend agents with scripting to allow monitoring of custom services
.       Plug-in architecture for third-party add-ons
.       Reliable Architecture
.       Reasonable user interface
.       Non-blocking polling
.       Active Project (New Releases on regular basis and have existed for a reasonable period)

Based on our research and feedback from NANOG, we have put a preliminary list of product to evaluate:

Hyperic         http://www.hyperic.com/
OpenNMS         http://www.opennms.org/wiki/Main_Page
opsview         http://www.opsview.org/
osimius         http://www.osmius.net/en/
PandoraFMS              http://pandorafms.org/
Zabbix          http://www.zabbix.com/
Groundwork              http://www.groundworkopensource.com/
Nagios          http://www.nagios.org
Zenoss          http://zenoss.com
OpManager               http://www.manageengine.com
Orion                   http://www.solarwinds.com/products/orion/
BigBrother              http://bb4.com/
Argus                   http://argus.tcp4me.com/
Xymon                   http://www.xymon.com
Spiceworks              http://www.spiceworks.com/
ICINGA          http://www.icinga.org

----
Matthew Huff       | One Manhattanville Rd
OTA Management LLC | Purchase, NY 10577
http://www.ox.com  | Phone: 914-460-4039
aim: matthewbhuff  | Fax:   914-460-4139