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Open Source Network Management Beats IBM and HP

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the slow-and-steady-going-for-the-win dept.

mjhuot writes "Last week SearchNetworking.com announced their Product Leadership Awards for 2007. It was a pleasant surprise to see an open source project, OpenNMS, win the Gold in their Network and IT Management Platforms category. OpenNMS beat out the established players of Hewlett-Packard's OpenView and IBM's Tivoli. This was based on a user survey of all IT solutions, not just open source; it demonstrates that open source software is indeed making inroads into the enterprise."

100 comments

  1. Services, training and support nicely organized by Reverse+Gear · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have never used OpenNMS and don't know much about this product or any of the other commercial runner ups mentioned, but I noticed one thing from the OpenNMS homepage and that is that they have this OpenNMS Group which provides services, training and support for the product.
    I think this is a model that more many other Open Source products would have a lot to gain from following.

    One obvious benefit of this is that it allows the developers to get paid for working with the product, that way making it possible for some developers to spend more time with the product and they will be in very much direct contact with the users of the product, not only reading about the bugs in a Bugzilla. It allows for some the lead developers to really be devoted to the product which is a really big asset to any Open Source project where money can not be made from selling the program itself.

    Another good thing about this is that it gives the companies who have to choose between products confidence that they can put some trust in that this project is not going to stop being developed because some key developer for some reason is leaving the project.

    Of course some care have to be put into not making sure that model does not lead to one big costumer in the services, training and support department does not get to lead the development of the product, which could have negative side effects, but really I don't think the risk of this is too big, the worst that could happen from this is that the project gets forked, with one fork keeping on working for the "company version" of the product while the rest of the project goes in another direction, but if just the services, training and support groups follows the second group then whatever company can hire people to work on the company version of the product. It just means more good Open Source code and good jobs for OS developers, the GNU license should make sure that a company can not take the code and make it into a closed source project.

    1. Re:Services, training and support nicely organized by skoaldipper · · Score: 1

      One could probably compare OpenNMS to a tradtional startup company with no venture capital, and they beat out HP and IBM. That speaks volumes alone. I imagine the openNMS guys will eventually get swallowed up with a buyout from one of those two - which is an encouraging thought (although probably not their original intent). I admire GPL and FSF principles, but if it were me, I'd take that offer quicker than a cupcake left unguarded on the table.

      --
      I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
    2. Re:Services, training and support nicely organized by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Funny

      Of course some care have to be put into not making sure that model does not lead to one big costumer in the services, training and support department does not get to lead the development of the product,

      Why would someone who sells costumes have anything to do with software development? I'm confused.

      I develop software for a living, but I've never been required to wear any particular costume.

    3. Re:Services, training and support nicely organized by Fyre2012 · · Score: 1

      I've never been required to wear any particular costume.
      Not even a penguin outfit?
      --
      This is not the greatest .sig in the world, no. This is just a tribute.
    4. Re:Services, training and support nicely organized by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Not yet, but I'll happily dress in a penguin outfit before I dress in a butterfly costume.

    5. Re:Services, training and support nicely organized by mgiuca · · Score: 1

      I have never used OpenNMS and don't know much about this product or any of the other commercial runner ups mentioned, but I noticed one thing from the OpenNMS homepage and that is that they have this OpenNMS Group which provides services, training and support for the product.
      I think this is a model that more many other Open Source products would have a lot to gain from following.
      Yup. It sounds like the guy in charge (Tarus Balog; what an awesome name) knows how to run an open source business.

      Coincidentally, I was listening to FLOSS Weekly interview him yesterday (dated November 2006), where he talks all about how he runs this business. link.
    6. Re:Services, training and support nicely organized by stefanlasiewski · · Score: 1

      I develop software for a living, but I've never been required to wear any particular costume.

      Not true. I bet you're wearing a button-down shirt and slacks right now!

      But it is OK, as long as you are not wearing a particularly violent or gruesome costume (Silk tie; sport jacket, etc).

      --
      "Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
    7. Re:Services, training and support nicely organized by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Nope, I'm wearing a collared shirt and jeans. I could wear a t-shirt if I wished. I can't imagine working at a company that doesn't have a casual dress code; I did that in my first job out of college and it sucked (it didn't pay well either).

      You have a point though: I'm not allowed to wear shorts (I was at my last job though), particularly inappropriate clothing (swimsuits, etc.), and I might get in trouble if I wore a competitor's t-shirt.

    8. Re:Services, training and support nicely organized by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you are wrong, mostly OSS projects get started by somebody looking for a solution. but since no solution is available, he has to create his own.
      here the developer of the software is also the user, the same type of user as all others trying out or working with the software.

      so in fact the OSS developer is best suited to know what is really needed to have a usefull program.

      in commercial closed software, you have paid developers, who implement stuff they get from some project lead who got his to be implemented feature-list from a meeting with some other guys.
      nobody really cares about the users, just add features x, it can even be buggy. at the end of the day, the programmer goes home and doesn't care about it. he probably never used the _whole_ program himself and the chance that he ever met a user is even smaller.

      i have found that OSS software almost always fits my needs better because of this reason. the person creating it, is also using it.

  2. "inroads into the enterprise"...duh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The enterprise is the main place that open-source has been popular for years. Linux, BSD, Apache anyone?? It's the desktop where "making inroads" would be relevant.

  3. I can't get too... by C_Kode · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can't get too http://www.opennms.org/. Their network management sucks!!!! :P

    1. Re:I can't get too... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I have to admit that although one has absolutely nothing to do with the other, when a network management product developer's homepage won't load they immediately lose credibility with me... whether it says "Open" on the front of their name or not.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:I can't get too... by sbowles · · Score: 1

      I'm sure that their OpenNMS monitors are currently paging their support staff that the webserver has fallen over.

      --
      You sly dog: you got me monologuing! - Syndrome
    3. Re:I can't get too... by i_dream_in_black_and · · Score: 2, Funny

      so does your spelling

    4. Re:I can't get too... by Sortova · · Score: 5, Informative

      Grrr. We've been on Slashdot before but man, this sucks. OpenNMS sent me an alarm (and the fact that I can't get to my mail also alerted me) but what can you do. Usually Rackspace does a good job and I've opened a support ticket to see if they can do anything about it. Sorry.

    5. Re:I can't get too... by Sortova · · Score: 1

      FYI - the #opennms channel on irc.freenode.net is still up (grin)

    6. Re:I can't get too... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Never been slashdotted have you?

    7. Re:I can't get too... by Da_Weasel · · Score: 1

      OpenNMS does not make a network stay available, it is a tool used monitor said network for issues. People who make comments like your's immediately lose credibility with me.

      --
      If you must!
    8. Re:I can't get too... by drinkypoo · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      I explicitly stated that one really has nothing to do with the other, but I guess reading the comment is too much work. People who cannot tell the difference between "yours" and "your's" automatically lose credibility with me, but the idiots who can't read a comment before replying have none to lose.

      See if you can follow this logic: a corporation (or other entity) that hires (or otherwise employs) incompetents in one area is likely to do so in another.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    9. Re:I can't get too... by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      Being slashdotted has nothing to do with competence.

  4. acceptance speech by flynt · · Score: 3, Funny

    It was a pleasant surprise to see an open source project, OpenNMS, win the Gold in their Network and IT Management Platforms category.

    Wow, thank you thank you. I can't believe I'm up here. To be even nominated in this category along with such greats as HP OpenView and IBM Tivoli was honor enough. I need to thank so many people. First the programmers, without you none of this could have happened. My project managers brozow, dhustace, and tarus, you've been so great. How can I forget sourceforge for hosting out project? Wow, we've worked so hard on this for so long, to finally be recognized is so wonderful. I can't forget my parents, thanks mom and dad. And Richard Stallman, without you, none of this open-source stuff would have taken off thanks. It's been so hard, but I think you really like me, you really do like me.

    1. Re:acceptance speech by powerlord · · Score: 1

      You mean:

      Wow, thank you thank you. I can't believe I'm up here. To be even nominated in this category along with such greats as HP OpenView and IBM Tivoli was honor enough. I need to thank so many people. First the programmers, without you none of this could have happened. My project managers brozow, dhustace, and tarus, you've been so great. How can I forget sourceforge for hosting out project? ...

      .. Line noise starts to increase ...

      ... No, wait, this has to be said! Wow, we've worked so hard on this for so long, to finally be recognized is so wonderful. I can't forget my parents, thanks mom and dad. And Richard Stallman, without you, none of this open-source stuff would have taken off thanks.

      ... Line noise increases in frequency ...

      ... It's been so hard, but I think you really like me, you really do like ...

      ... NO CARRIER

      --
      This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
  5. Other alternatives by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is a number of alernative Open Source monitoring software available. Nagios, Cacti and my favourite ZABBIX. ZABBIX is much less resource hungry comparing to Nagios and especially to OpenNMS.

    1. Re:Other alternatives by otacon · · Score: 1

      Yeah, an in all honesty I don't really care for opennms, we use it currently at our enterprise (something of which I have no control of, I'm the 'Cisco' guy and apparently that is the 'server' guys realm) and at previous jobs I used both cacti and nagios and liked both of them more. But opennms isnt all that bad I guess, Ive used openview too and thats just awful.

      --
      In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
    2. Re:Other alternatives by mjhuot · · Score: 1

      Strange, I am on the network team and we use it for the network primarily. I have added server stuff just when I have had to.

    3. Re:Other alternatives by sleigher · · Score: 1

      Another that I have been using and is great for *NIX AND windows is Zenoss. http://www.zenoss.com/

      --
      All points of time and space are connected.
    4. Re:Other alternatives by flyingfsck · · Score: 1

      I have evaluated those. OpenNMS works very well, but it is Java based, so it requires Tomcat, making it hard to install. Nagios works, but I didn't quite like like it - it was still somewhat incomplete back then. Zabbix is nice, small, quick, quite complete. The conclusion I came to, is that if you wish to track thousands or even tens of thousands of machines, then OpenNMS is the way to go. Zabbix is for small installations and Nagios is for something in between with a few hundred up to a thousand machines. 'Hope this helps someone.

      --
      Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
  6. Deployed OpenNMS at my last job by flipmack · · Score: 1, Informative

    I actually worked with several open-source network management solutions at my last job...which I used to verify if our in-house network management solution worked properly. FWIW, OpenNMS was easier to setup and configure than the other options, but in the end, I ended up using nTop for the majority of my NMS needs, considering the fact that our test setup only had FOUR nodes. The OpenNMS folks were all very helpful though...I kind of wished I sent them a postcard to add to their wall.

    --
    semper ubi sub ubi
  7. Anyone actually known OpenNMS? by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I used to work for Tivoli and I know a little something about their system. It's CORBA-based, talks to a variety of databases (at the time I worked there, it supported DB2, Oracle, MSSQL, Sybase, and Informix) and supports many different types of Unix, plus NT and (last I looked) OS/2.

    Tivoli's system does, well, everything. It can do software inventories (with a fairly intelligent scan) and distribute software packages to groups of hosts that have been flagged as lacking specific packages, for example.

    As far as I can tell from everything I've read, OpenNMS only does monitoring and notification. And that's it. End of story. So how again does this even qualify to win this category? Does it actually do a lot more than people say it does? I'd love to see the official webpage, but it's down (MediaWiki rox121!1!1!!!)

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:Anyone actually known OpenNMS? by qwijibo · · Score: 1

      Didn't you get the memo? In any organization, no package is more useful than the most knowledgeable person maintaining it. Since training is skipped as an unnecessary cost in most companies, it shouldn't be surprising that most companies will never get more than the most basic functionality.

    2. Re:Anyone actually known OpenNMS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tivoli is an over priced piece of shit. The database is constantly corrupted, rollbacks rarely work, and oserv dumps core all the time (the object dispatcher).

      That's probably why it didn't win...

    3. Re:Anyone actually known OpenNMS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I served with Tivoli: I knew Tivoli; Tivoli was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Tivoli.

      (Loyd Bentson reference thrown in to complement previous Sally Field acceptance speech reference)

    4. Re:Anyone actually known OpenNMS? by RPI+Geek · · Score: 1

      That's exactly like what makes consultants like me (mostly Tivoli, some OpenView) happy. If IBM and HP made their products easy to use, I'd have to get a real job!

      --

      - "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
    5. Re:Anyone actually known OpenNMS? by qwijibo · · Score: 1

      That's the beauty of the scam. No matter how idiot proof someone makes something, a manager driven entirely by perceived (as opposed to actual) bottom line cost will find a less capable idiot.

      I also appreciate the blissful ignorance these people choose to live in. I certainly don't want to have to get a real job either.

    6. Re:Anyone actually known OpenNMS? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Tivoli is an over priced piece of shit. The database is constantly corrupted, rollbacks rarely work, and oserv dumps core all the time (the object dispatcher). That's probably why it didn't win...

      I think my point is that network monitoring is not network management. It's only one piece thereof. For all its faults (and they were many when I worked there and are probably even more by now) Tivoli is a complete package.

      Maybe nobody should win; certainly from what I've heard of OpenView and Unicenter TNG, Tivoli's competition is complete crap as well. But this package frankly isn't even competition.

      I was all excited to find that there was a management framework that would let me build a Tivoli-like (but working!) system. Turns out that it's not even vaguely close.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    7. Re:Anyone actually known OpenNMS? by Capt+James+McCarthy · · Score: 1

      It's not so much as the product complexity, as to the environmental complexity. (I Love/Hate Tivoli FWIW, cause it _can_ do anything).

      As complex as networks are now (for example, I support EL3/4,Sol 2.5.1 -> 10, NT4,W2k,2003), any product you deploy will be difficult for folks to deal with. Obviously many a product will function fine if everything on your networks were identical. But where's the fun in that?

      Not to poo-poo OpenNMS, and I've never used it personally so I guess I really don't have a right to speak on it, but what kind of AI engine lies behind it? (Prolog for one). If you want to monitor the little things, I'm sure it's fine, but if you want to have complex rulesets and have the system function as an extention to the SAs/Service Desk, the AI behind it really does help with multiple event sources to correlate the data.

      --
      There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
    8. Re:Anyone actually known OpenNMS? by namityadav · · Score: 1

      I agree that OpenNMS is more of a data-collection / events application than a true Network Management System. But support for CORBA (Isn't CORBA dead already? :-), various databases, remote upgrades and core NMS features (Like your specific Configuration Management requirements, Accounting and specific protocol management) can be added to OpenNMS more easily (Since it is open source - although I hate the fact that they chose to use GPL for licensing). Having worked on proprietary tools for building NMS for around 7 years, I can tell you that we don't need an NMS tool / framework can cover all the features that we would want. Thanks to the unique and weird requirements that different deployments / customers have, it's silly to expect a "Universal NMS" solution from an Open Source group or even a company like IBM or HP that just works. What we need is a solution / framework that lets us build our true NMS solution on top of it. And being open source, being less restrictive / less bloated than OpenView or Tivoli, and being more focussed on only the core aspects of NMS, I think OpenNMS deserves the attention that it got / gets.

    9. Re:Anyone actually known OpenNMS? by Capt+James+McCarthy · · Score: 1

      "Tivoli is an over priced piece of shit. The database is constantly corrupted, rollbacks rarely work, and oserv dumps core all the time (the object dispatcher)."

      I have a feeling the carbon based unit was the problem. Too many folks do not have these issues. It's a product that folks have to actually think about before using. If you don't want to think and plan your infrastructure support mechanics, then why would you be in Enterprise Management anyway?

      --
      There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
    10. Re:Anyone actually known OpenNMS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      oserv crashing sounds like shitty code to me. Oserv or whatever it is should NEVER crash no matter how stupid the user is.

    11. Re:Anyone actually known OpenNMS? by axiome · · Score: 0

      I was a Tivoli implementer back in the day as well. Tivoli is not the competition, rather the NetView portion of Tivoli is. I don't think this product is supposed to do the desktop management side of things like remote control, SD, or inventory.

    12. Re:Anyone actually known OpenNMS? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Well, I'm quite sure you're right, but the category is "Network and IT management platforms". This is not a Network or IT management platform. It is a Network monitoring platform. It's not a replacement/competitor for Tivoli or OpenView, it's a competitor to Big Brother. It doesn't DO anything! All it does it alert you. Okay, so that's something, but it doesn't do anything to your machines. It doesn't configure them. It doesn't tell you why there is a failure. It doesn't do, well, much. It may be the greatest network monitor ever conceived but that still don't make it a competitor to an actual management system. I'm not trying to take away from it anything it deserves... but one thing it doesn't deserve is to be in this category.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    13. Re:Anyone actually known OpenNMS? by morcego · · Score: 1

      I never used Tivoli, but I had some experience with NetView/6000 (pre-Tivoli) and, to tell you the trust, I'm still looking for an F/OSS nms that can do what it can.

      I really miss NetView.

      --
      morcego
    14. Re:Anyone actually known OpenNMS? by axiome · · Score: 0

      I agree with you there. I think people, even media like here, mix up network management and network monitoring. I never used OpenNMS, but it looks more like something like NetCool (which was acquired by tivoli after I left the field). Or even TEC in some ways... remember TEC? Ugh.

    15. Re:Anyone actually known OpenNMS? by drv4doe · · Score: 1

      No. OpenNMS only supports the F and P in the FCAPS model at this time.

    16. Re:Anyone actually known OpenNMS? by wenchmagnet · · Score: 1

      Disclaimer: I work for IBM Tivoli and these views are not my employers but my own.

      OpenNMS is a great development and more competition is only going to force everyone to improve. Having said that OpenNMS competes only with IBM Tivoli Netview which is pretty much the most entry level network management tool in the whole portfolio. For truly kickass network management you should check out Tivoli Netcool.

      There are tons of products under the Tivoli brand that range from backup, archival of filesytems, applications and databases, SAN/NAS storage management, identity and access management, security event and compliance management, privacy management, software distribution, asset management, a service desk, inventory, provisioning of network devices and SANs, remote OS installs for Windows and Linux, detailed monitoring for pretty much every OS under the sun and for SAP, Exchange, Domino, all major databases, WebSphere and Weblogic, transaction monitoring and synthetic transactions for benchmarking to very powerful network management under Netcool.

      Tivoli is a BEAST!

      The article is inaccurate, OpenNMS may well have fared better than Netview in reviews but comparing OpenNMS to Tivoli itself is akin to comparing a spanner with a whole workshop.

  8. Slashdotted! by hf256 · · Score: 1

    The OpenNMS homepage appears to be slashdotted. I've submitted it to Coral but no idea if/when it will get picked up.

  9. Yes OpenNMS has been slash-dotted by Eric+Damron · · Score: 1

    Only now when it's too late do they realize the power of the Geekie side!

    --
    The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
  10. Re:Digg.com by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unpossible! I resemble that remark!

  11. costumer:=customer in parent, sorry by Reverse+Gear · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sorry again my comments reflect I am not an native English speaker.

    In my post costumer should be customer.

    1. Re:costumer:=customer in parent, sorry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you had it correct the first time. Seriously. I mean, as customers don't we wear costumes at times too?

      Shoot, just last night I walked into a Blockbuster video store dressed in cheek aerated leather chaps with a gimp ball stuffed into my mouth looking for some S&M tapes. And what about Halloween trick or treaters? They are customers of their neighbors. So, don't be so hard on yourself my friend.

    2. Re:costumer:=customer in parent, sorry by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Funny

      You being a non-native English speaker doesn't mean I can't make some humor at your expense :-)

      I don't know why I was modded flamebait; it was supposed to be funny.

    3. Re:costumer:=customer in parent, sorry by jaseparlo · · Score: 1

      I would have modded you funny, but I had mod points last week when I didn't need them

      --
      All available data suggest that regardless of any of this, the sun will still come up tomorrow.
  12. OpenNMS versus Nagios? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How does OpenNMS compare to Nagios?

    1. Re:OpenNMS versus Nagios? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "How does OpenNMS compare to Nagios?"

      It's poller is dumber, is less flexible and quite fatter.

  13. Losing money... by AriesGeek · · Score: 1, Troll

    Hmmm.. We currently use Spectrum and are getting ready to make a change. I just sent this link to the boss and he came back with, "Yeah, but their website is currently down! What does that say about the company?"

    If OpenNMS wants to play with the big boys, they will have to beef things up a bit. Once you can withstand being slashdotted, then we'll talk.

    --
    Insert offensive troll-style sig here. Please mod or respond appropriately.
    1. Re:Losing money... by turbidostato · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "If OpenNMS wants to play with the big boys, they will have to beef things up a bit. Once you can withstand being slashdotted, then we'll talk."

      Let's see if I understood properly.

      Do you really imply that in order to develop a suitable network management solution you must pay big cash to your bandwith provider or else your product must be shit?

    2. Re:Losing money... by AriesGeek · · Score: 0, Troll

      Ummm.. Yeah, sure. In the real world, your website says a lot about you as a company.

      I work in healthcare. Network failures means people could possibly die. Suppose for a minute that Cisco had the same problem. Slashdot link means can't get to the website. Suppose they were slashdotted at the same time as a network failure and I couldn't get into TAC to open a case? Then what?

      So yeah. Burstable bandwidth, along with the ability to deal with problems like this as they arise and make the website usable again, means a lot.

      --
      Insert offensive troll-style sig here. Please mod or respond appropriately.
    3. Re:Losing money... by TBone · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Do you really imply that in order to develop a suitable network management solution you must pay big cash to your bandwith provider or else your product must be shit?

      You don't talk to managers much, I see.

      You understand the difference. Most of people here understand the difference. PHBs don't understand the difference.

      If you showed that to 95% of the non-technical managers who control puchase orders, they'd say, "If they can't keep their own website up, how can they be making a useful program to help you keep our network up?"

      --

      This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U

    4. Re:Losing money... by AriesGeek · · Score: 1

      Yeah. What he said. OpenNMS is now dead in the eyes of my manager for this very reason.

      --
      Insert offensive troll-style sig here. Please mod or respond appropriately.
    5. Re:Losing money... by Professor_UNIX · · Score: 1

      I just sent this link to the boss and he came back with, "Yeah, but their website is currently down! What does that say about the company?"
      Uhhh, try the link later? Is your boss that dimwitted with such a short attention span? The Slashdot effect usually has about a 4-5 hour half-life to it so tell him to check the link tonight or tomorrow.
    6. Re:Losing money... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      The boss should be thinking: "My employee is an idiot trying to send me to a site that he knew in all probability would be down right now, but had he sent it to me tomorrow, or next week even, I would be none the wiser. Hmm, I wonder how many other short sited decisions he's made that effects my company?"

    7. Re:Losing money... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Yeah, but the domain doesn't resolve! What does that say about the comment?"
      [www.ariesgeek.com could not be found. Please check the name and try again.]

    8. Re:Losing money... by antirelic · · Score: 1

      Your boss is part of the problem. Its bullshit statements like these that keep the big FUD vendors in business and legitimate startups from flourishing. The whole concept of "enterprise" is a bullshit web 2.0 falacy that keeps ONM out and HPOV in. What magic does HPOV do that ONM doesnt do? Lemme see... they all run on x86 hardware, use SNMP polling, databases, and some shit tk/web interface... i'm waiting to see something that is more impressive and robust than SCOTTY and have yet to find it.

      --
      20th century Marxism is not progress...
    9. Re:Losing money... by cornjones · · Score: 1

      Why would you choose now to show this to your manager?

      I bet they didn't just decide to check it out today and it happens to be down. When I checked, page was slashdotted. Who knows if they even host their own project or it is on sourceforge or similar.
      I hadn't heard of the this project but it could be very useful in my network. I will definitely check it out tomorrow when the servers cool down. Luckily, I can tell the difference between their website and their product. I will make my own decision on the project and then, perhaps, pitch it to my manager.

      Yeah, I know, with what they want us to pay for it, they should be able to afford a cds or more reliable network. No, wait...

    10. Re:Losing money... by mgiuca · · Score: 1

      OpenNMS has nothing to do with bandwidth. Looks like their website can't handle the stress, but the software itself is just designed to let you administer huge clusters of computers and get them back up and running quickly.

      guess it worked

    11. Re:Losing money... by Da_Weasel · · Score: 1

      That is exactly the problem. You don't even understand what the product is and your presenting it to your manager. Your lucky that the site is down. Because if your manager probably would have fired your dumb ass for showing him something when you didn't even take the time to find out what the product does.

      --
      If you must!
    12. Re:Losing money... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trollbait.

      I work in healthcare also. Specifically in a HIT company that hospitals pay to have me come on-site and install networks, network management, and all of the highly technical products that the typical healthcare IT staff isn't experienced enough to install themselves. Everyone in the industry knows that hospitals generally do not pay their network staff enough to get anyone half-qualified. You may be the exception, you may not. The typical hospital has a network management system that was installed years ago, hasn't been updated since the vendor they paid to install it did the installation, and half who's features do not work due to lack of maintenance. And please, don't talk about Cisco and network management products. Ask anyone on the ovforum list and you'll get a wider perspective on network management products. Many of the members have experience with multiple vendors products. A few of them actually work or did work for OpenNMS in the past (Shane O comes to mind).

      Oh, and your website is slashdotted, so you must not know what you are talking about and be a geek wannabe. See how ignorant that sounds?

    13. Re:Losing money... by AriesGeek · · Score: 1

      I guess I should expect to be flamed for going against slashdot groupthink.

      My manager and I show each other everything. I saw the article, I sent it up to him. If he had any interest, he would tell me to check into it. It's as simple as that.

      I'm glad you have such a nice, pleasant personality. I'm sure it gets you far in life. And I'm sure you're such a happy person.

      --
      Insert offensive troll-style sig here. Please mod or respond appropriately.
    14. Re:Losing money... by Sortova · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the defense. Our server usually has a load average of about 0.2 - 0.3 with peaks up to 1 or so (when the Mac mail.app clients hit the imap server). When the Slashdot article went up this is what I got from my hosting provider:

      At console, your server was very slow, and very hard to work with; I was unable to determine why SSH failed to respond to remote connections. Your server is under a lot of stress, the last load average I was able to get:

      load average: 162.58, 171.32, 149.41

      Heh.

      This server is about 5 years old, and since we had just gotten a new, refurb Dell 2650 installed (dual 3.0 GHz CPUs, 4GB RAM, etc.) I quickly moved the wiki to the new server. We put a squid proxy in front of it for acceleration and the site screams. I love this open source stuff (grin).

    15. Re:Losing money... by AriesGeek · · Score: 1

      Not sure what hospital system you work for, but it sounds like some serious violations / fines are in their future.

      My hospital system has an "IT department" of over 500 people, 18 of which are Network Engineers. Our IS budget is in the hundreds of millions annually. Our network infrastructure consists of over 8500 network nodes alone, supporting over 20,000 users. While we try to stay away from bleeding edge, we are known to be among the first to implement new technologies as they stabilize.

      Sure, our NMS is out of date. But we installed it, not our vendor. The problem is that we have outgrown our NMS.

      And I wasn't referring to Cisco's NMS, I was just referring to Cisco as a whole. ...and my website hasn't been up for years, by the way.

      I'm still trying to figure out how my post was a troll... Oh yeah... I went against Slashdot groupthink again.

      --
      Insert offensive troll-style sig here. Please mod or respond appropriately.
    16. Re:Losing money... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I must say that your arguments (valid as they may be) are weakened significantly by your repeated use of phrases like "I guess I should expect to be flamed for going against slashdot groupthink." in almost every post by you in this thread.

      I agree with the gist of your arguments. I fully understand the problem of technical details not being considered by management, and I agree that the OpenNMS website being unreachable is bad for OpenNMS itself, regardless of them having very little to do with eachother, technically.

      Your argumentative style sucks, however, and your personal flaming of author of the parent post to yours is ironic, at best, and unfortunate, at least.

      As you write in your closing paragraph - "I'm glad you have such a nice, pleasant personality." - one could indeed come to the conclusion that the exact same sarcastic sentiment applies equally well to yourself, at least based on your postings in this thread.

      I don't know you, so I have no idea what person you are really like. I am just observing what, and how, you write in your posts. You might do well to reconsider your style somewhat, especially when critizising others.

      This post of mine is intended as a polite flame, directed towards your writing style, not yourself as a person. How you respond to this, if at all, is entirely up to you, of course. Take care.

  14. Props, but hold on... by shrapnull · · Score: 1

    It's nice to see some recognition for an open solution, but the survey results were based on reader reviews and pollsters. I would assume the more assertive network administrators (those of us on a budget), have tried and are satisfied with many of the open souce alternatives to the proprietary and often expensive counterparts. I personally have use(d) OpenNMS, Nagios(netsaint), Zabbix, ZenOSS, etc... Compared to the cost of the competition it's pretty clear why an Open product comes out on top in reader polls.

    --
    If you're half as beautiful naked, you'd be 4 times as beautiful with twice as many clothes on.
  15. so what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    openNMS isn't as robust as the other packages. it doesn't have all the solutions that the others offer. thanks again, open source, for harolding a half assed effort as the best thing out there. wake me when you have a total solution.

  16. opennms vs HPOV NNM vs IBM Netview by losec · · Score: 1

    HP openview is a framework, so is tivoli. Those two have functions far beyond opennms and shouldn't be compared.
    Compare opennms functionallity with HP Openview NNM and IBM Tivoli Netview.
    Btw, Netview and HPOV NNM is almost same product when ibm bought an old license and forked.

  17. The dangers of open source! by StikyPad · · Score: 2, Funny

    Open Source Network Management Beats IBM and HP savagly. Caught after posting video on YouTube. Story at 11.

    --
    https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
  18. Munin by kbahey · · Score: 2, Informative

    You seem to have mentioned the low end of the spectrum (cacti).

    So, as long as we are there, let me mention my favorite : Munin.

    --
    2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
  19. FLOSS Weekly Interview by Refried+Beans · · Score: 1

    That's excellent news. If you want to learn more about OpenNMS and it's background, I highly recommend listening to FLOSS Weekly #15.

  20. Not the first time by ramrom · · Score: 1

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opennms/ On August 11, 2005, OpenNMS won the Product Excellence Award in the category Best Systems Management Tools at LinuxWorld Conference and Expo. The other 3 nominees were:
    * Userful DiscoverStation 4.0
    * IBM Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator
    * Novell ZENworks 7 Linux Management

    1. Re:Not the first time by ShinmaWa · · Score: 1

      So a open source package won against three commercial packages at a decidedly pro-open source conference. Amazing that.

      I bet that Microsoft products also fare very well at the PDC too.

      --
      The /. Effect: Thousands of users simultaneously accessing a site to not read its content.
  21. Not so open by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Doesn't run on windows...

    1. Re:Not so open by mjhuot · · Score: 1

      Doesn't run on windows... No one would stop you if you want to make it run on Windows. There have been some attempts to do so, unfortunately, icmp seems to be the big issue.
  22. off topic but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You really should update that mediawiki to at least 1.6.10, you know. PHP would also be a good idea.

  23. What's the benefit over ZenOSS by jimicus · · Score: 1

    At my current employer, I'm using Nagios (which is great as far as it goes, but needs a lot of configuration) and looking towards ZenOSS (which requires a lot less configuration because it can get everything natively through SNMP where available, but isn't anywhere near so flexible in terms of defining your own tests if SNMP isn't an option),

    Ideally I'd have a solution which offered the SNMP support and out of the box functionality of something like ZenOSS, while at the same time being dead easy to extend to run scripts and check things which can't easily be checked with SNMP. I don't have a lot of time to invest in the initial setup - obviously I'm prepared to invest more time in extending where necessary, but SNMP support should be as simple as "name the host and the SNMP community".

    1. Re:What's the benefit over ZenOSS by secolactico · · Score: 2, Informative

      Have you tried http://www.groundworkopensource.com/ ?

      It makes Nagios configuration/backups very easy. My only gripe it's that it only comes packaged in rpm (well, it is open source, so I guess you could roll your own) but it's a self contained rpm. Every dependency is there except for Mysql 5 and it can import your current nagios config files.

      It doesn't play nice with SELinux, tho.

      --
      No sig
    2. Re:What's the benefit over ZenOSS by jgehlbach · · Score: 3, Informative

      OpenNMS has world-class SNMP support, and configuring it literally could not be simpler. Tell OpenNMS what IP address ranges to discover and what community strings (or SNMPv3 USM users and passphrases) to use. Once the nodes finish scanning, SNMP data collection automagically begins for MIB objects that the system knows about. After a couple of data collection cycles, you'll have beautiful graphs of all this data.

      When SNMP is not an option, there are still many options for both monitoring ("are all the servers answering requests?") and data collection ("what kind of traffic are we seeing on the DSL line?"). The latest release has an HTTP collector that you can configure to pull stats from devices that lack SNMP support but have a web interface, such as many DSL / cable modems and SOHO routers. There is also a page sequence monitor for testing "chained" web pages. For more complex tests or custom applications, you can wrap any existing test scripts you have in a bit of code that implements the interface contract for the General Purpose poller monitor.

      As for time invested, OpenNMS is like any other sophisticated tool -- you get out of it what you put into it. If you just want to watch services and collect data, it will do that with almost no configuration. But take the red pill, and you'll find that the rabbit-hole is bottomless and full of things you never thought possible. The people who use and develop OpenNMS come from many backgrounds, bringing a great diversity of experience and needs. If you can think of it, somebody has probably made OpenNMS do it.

    3. Re:What's the benefit over ZenOSS by jgehlbach · · Score: 1

      Tread cautiously where Groundwork is concerned. There is an upsell the moment your boss starts asking for advanced reports or dashboards. Also, since it embeds Nagios, the scale limitations inherent in Nagios' fork()-happy design will bite you down the road.

    4. Re:What's the benefit over ZenOSS by morcego · · Score: 1

      Ideally I'd have a solution which offered the SNMP support and out of the box functionality of something like ZenOSS, while at the same time being dead easy to extend to run scripts and check things which can't easily be checked with SNMP.


      What is stopping you from creating your own SNMP agents ? Unless you some some esoteric piece of hardware, it is fairly easy to create one.
      --
      morcego
    5. Re:What's the benefit over ZenOSS by jimicus · · Score: 1

      What is stopping you from creating your own SNMP agents ? Unless you some some esoteric piece of hardware, it is fairly easy to create one.

      A few things:

      1. I'm the IT manager in a company which develops embedded networked devices. We've got all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff.

      2. The same thing which stops me putting Net-SNMP onto a server on a non-firewalled connection. SNMPv1 offers very poor security, and ZenOSS doesn't support SNMPv3 security.

      3. I trust a network probe to confirm that a service is still working properly a lot further than I trust an SNMP agent which is essentially going to be doing little more than ensuring that the process is running and listening on the port - while the SNMP agent may be technically correct in its assesment, it hasn't actually tried to get any sense out of the process.

    6. Re:What's the benefit over ZenOSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try Zabbix

  24. Is it worth getting to? (rant warning) by Roadkills-R-Us · · Score: 1

    I got to their page. It was annoyingly slow, but not horrible. OK, so it's /.ed. I can live with that.

    BUT... they advertise an "enterprise grade" product. Too bad they don't have an "enterprise grade" web page.

    I cannot stand to go to a website's main page, and find nothing useful on it.

    At a bare minimum, there should be a paragraph or two telling me what the thing really is, with an obvious link for an overview, technical specs, etc. Instead, I'm left guessing. Maybe I can go to "documentation" and find this. (Then again, at least half the time I follow such a link from an open source project, I still have to hunt around.) And even that link, nebulous as it is, isn't on the main menu!

    Nope, nothing useful there. Maybe the community portal? Nope, nothing there at all!

    What about the comparison with other products? Oog. It may be useful if you speak OpenView (I don't).

    Please (and this applies to all project maintainers, not just these guys), don't waste one *&^$% minute apologizing for your web pages. Instead, spend just an hour or two putting up useful data with decent organization. If you haven't got a clue how to do that, find a college student in marketing who needs to design a web site for credit and get them to do it. Get your sister to do it. Anyone.

    We have some specific network management needs. We can't afford Tivoli or OpenView. Based on experience with Tivoli a decade ago, I've avoided it anyway (it could have improved, but since I've never worked anywhere willing to pay for it, I haven't checked). I've been looking for an open source solution, or even a reasonably priced commercial solution. I should be able to go to any product's web site and within a minute or two at least have an idea whether it might be a good fit. I can't tell anything useful from this one.

  25. Why the F*k would you want to run this on Windows? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    /nt

  26. What a sham by pkspks · · Score: 0
    Tivoli is not just a Network monitoring tool! OpenNMS is.
    Tivoli does not only Network management but also inventory management and security among others. Tivoli is a platform. It is a family of products that can talk to each other.

    OpenNMS does only one thing (monitoring). But it does the best.

    --
    667 - one step ahead of the beast.
    1. Re:What a sham by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I assume from this you never bothered to read up on the facts whatsoever?
      Yes, the asset portion in OpenNMS is not the greatest, but as for integrations
      with, Snort, Nessus, Syslogd, Nsclient, SNMP, JMX, Jboss, simple pollers etc.

      It does quite a bit, the majority of these being Monitoring.

      Do you consider Tivoli identity manager to be 'Tivoli' or is that
      perhaps yet one more of a ton of acquired products called 'Tivoli'?

  27. Why IBM, HP invest e$$ort in what others do free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why IBM, HP invest effort and money in what others will do for their hardware, free? By that I mean, if the neighbor kid washes you car for free without even asking, do you go out and wash it yourself? No, you let him do it. Maybe you go out and polish the glass, but spend effort, monye? Maybe if you are a dummy !!