I’m currently writing this from my hotel room in Portland, Oregon. I like this part of the country, and if I didn’t already live in God’s Own Earth I would consider moving here.
I like the climate, the geography and especially the people. I’m here to visit with New Edge Networks (across the river in Vancouver, Washington), who have been using OpenNMS for a long time now. They are collecting data on over 82,000 network interfaces, which amounts to about one million data points every 5 minutes.
And they are doing it on OpenNMS 1.2.
The biggest complaint I hear about OpenNMS is the learning curve. While OpenNMS works for some people right out of the box, we designed it to be an extremely flexible tool, so it is more like a table saw than a toaster. In this case it provides a lot of value that would be hard to duplicate even with expensive commercial products.
I’m here to work on the migration from OpenNMS 1.2 to OpenNMS 1.6 (to be released soon). This will add even more performance and better integration than the existing system, so it will scale as their business grows.
Since I work in support quite a bit, it is always nice to see the positive side of the work we do. And being able to get out and share a pint or three is fun, too. (grin)
Clockwise: Jason, Scott, Me, Robyne, Ruth, James and Tina
It would be interesting to have them share how they use OpenNMS within their environment alongside (or instead) of their Big4 software investments. Is it used within one domain or is it an enterprise platform for their future growth markets, etc.?
The dynamics are interesting within NEN, with a parent company (EarthLink) that’s financial state and future is unknown, investments in Big4 software and maintenance costs are sure to be under scrutiny by the bean counters. I imagine that OSS alternatives are always more favorable in times like this.
Doug
BSM/ITSM Blog: http://dougmcclure.net