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

[Erik.Amundson at oati.net (Erik Amundson)]

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