From Slashdot:
“Google has announced the accepted projects list for its 2011 Google Summer of Code (GSOC) Program. Ryan Rix emailed the Fedora announce mailing list to let users know Fedora was one of the projects that had been selected, while Daniel Holbach informed Ubuntu users via his blog that Ubuntu had not been selected.”
I’m happy to say that OpenNMS was one of those projects selected. If you’d like to get involved with OpenNMS this summer and get paid for it, visit the GSoC page.
Ronny came up with a nifty little enhancement to the front page:
It adds a thresholds box under the outages box reflecting the status of unacknowledged threshold alarms. There is an icon reflecting whether the alarm is a high, low, relative or absolute threshold and a link via the node label to the alarm itself.
I added (with some help) a mouseover box that displays the log message when you mouse over the node label so you can see the details of the alarm.
We will be adding this to OpenNMS 1.10, but if you want it in 1.8 simply visit the enhancement page and patch the files. It doesn’t require a recompile or a restart.
I got an e-mail asking for information about OpenNMS. Since we really don’t have a great source of information for things like this, I thought I’d post my reply publicly so everyone can share.
Q: Which platforms do you have support for?
A: Anything with a 1.5 or later Java JDK. These include Windows, Solaris, Linux and Mac OS X. OpenNMS has been known to run on an IBM OS/390.
Q: Which platforms has native install packages?
A: All of the above, except for the OS/390.
Q: Is it possible to repackage your product?
A: Yes. It is 100% open source software so you can repackage it and redistribute it based on the GPL.
Q: Can we install the product on our hosts?
A: You don’t need to. OpenNMS doesn’t require software to be installed on all hosts, just the OpenNMS server.
Q: Can we run the product in a virtual host?
A: Yes, although for performance reasons it is not recommended.
Q: Which are the interfaces to your application? Web, java, flash client?
A: Web and iPhone.
Q: Are there any requirements on browsers or operating system to access your user interface?
A: No.
Q: List all the supported ways of collecting client side data? (Example: Install agents, use ssh, snmp, Json over http or other)
A: SNMP, WMI, XMP, HTTP, JDBC, JMX and NSClient.
Q: Is it possible to extend your product with our own scripts? If yes which languages are supported?
A: Yes, using any language that exists on the OpenNMS server.
Q: In which ways can we get access to the collected data?
A: Tell me how you want to access it, and I bet you can.
Q: How can we work with the data? Is the collected data stored in a open/accessible format, so that we can access it from other tools? If yes which tools can we use (scripts, tools…)?
A: Collected data is stored in round robin database files. You can access it by querying the application which will return it in XML, dump the data directly from a file into XML or use the JasperReports integration to extract the data as a PDF or CSV file.
Q: How is the graphing and configuration data stored?
A: In XML and properties files.
Q: Which levels of data granularity is supported?
A: For collected data? one second, although five minute polls are configured by default.
Q: For how long can we store the data? Will/can the granularity change over time?
A: For as long as you want. However, the more data you save, the more disk resources will be required. By default OpenNMS polls every five minutes and stores five minute samples for one week. Then the data is rolled up into an hourly average for 62 days. Daily minimum, maximum and average values are stored for one year.
Q: Is it possible to interface to your product via api or scripts so we can change configuration or retrieve data from other tools?
A: Yes. OpenNMS includes a ReST interface to accomplish most of these functions.
Q: Is it possible to integrate your product with Splunk?
A: Yes.
Q: Is it possible to integrate your product with user access control systems? If yes which (ldap, kerberos, active directory, other)
A: Yes – all of the above.
Q: Is it possible to add host/checks/graphs at runtime with out restart?
A: Sometimes. Some changes, however, still require a restart. This should be corrected by OpenNMS version 1.10.
Q: In which ways can we get notifications?
A: How would you like to get notifications? Out of the box you can get e-mails, SMS (via e-mail), XMPP instant messages, microblog (Twitter), IRC as well as an integration with Asterisk to have the system call you. Custom methods can be easily added.
Q: Can the system create tickets in a ticket system? If yes, which?
A: Yes. Out of the box support for Request Tracker, Jira, OTRS, Quickbase and Concursive (CentricCRM). An API exists for others.
Q: Is it possible to set up a escalation chain of who receive the alarms?
A: Yes.
Q: Is it possible set up user patterns for who should be notified? (Timing shifts, escalation)
A: Yes.
Q: Is it possible to set up dependencies to prevent flooding of alarms?
A: Yes.
Q: How do we set up redundancy across different data centers and in one data center?
Read the white paper or the wiki.
Q: Can we setup the redundancy in master-master mode?
A: Yes.
Q: How can we scale your product?
A: Get a big machine. OpenNMS currently has one customer monitoring 66K discreet devices from a single instance, another collecting 1.2M data points every five minutes, one handling 120K syslog messages each minute, another monitoring devices with over 30K virtual interfaces per device, and one with 3000 remote pollers measuring performance back to the central NOC.
Q: What is the number of checks/hosts we can query from one server?
A: We haven’t hit a limit if hardware is not an issue, although I am sure there is one.
Q: What are the options for us to measure SLAs?
A: OpenNMS generates availability reports based on outages. The data is customizable – so it would depend on what type of SLA you wanted to measure.
Q: Describe the license model.
A: OpenNMS is 100% free and open source software licensed under the GPL.
Q: Is there an extra cost to monitor test environments?
A: No.
Q: What types of support can you offer?
A: Standard Support, 24×7 Emergency Support, and Ultra Support (for those clients who have a need to present data from OpenNMS to their customers).
See: https://www.adventuresinoss.com/pricing
Q: Where are you located?
A: The east coast of the United States, with headquarters in North Carolina.
Q: In which time zone do you have office hours support?
A: Standard support is 7am to 7pm Eastern US time, business days. We do offer 24×7 support for emergencies that occur outside of that time.
Just a quick IPv6 update. The team (lead by Seth) has been working for the last few months on adding IPv6 support to OpenNMS. We hope to release it as part of OpenNMS 1.10 in time for “World IPv6 Day” on June 8th. Matt sent me a screenshot from a working system where he had provisioned an IPv6 node.
Here is the availability:
Note that SSH and SNMP were discovered and monitored, and here is the standard SNMP provisioning event, but with an IPv6 address:
Still a lot of stuff to finalize before June, especially auto-discovery, but we’re getting there.
I’ve spent the first half of this week teaching an OpenNMS course. It’s a lot of fun and we have a great class (the next one is in May if you are interested).
While I was talking to the students, one pointed out that he was able to get permission to attend the class because he was going to learn about “the number one systems management tool” available. While I didn’t disagree with him (grin) I did ask how he came by that information, and he pointed me to a Sys-con Media article published last month that compared 11 systems management offerings, both open and closed source.
I had missed this article, but it ends with:
OpenNMS 1.6.10 scores better than the competition, and is thus a better server monitoring software. Its basic features include a faster configuration process, web interface, compatibility and advanced features, such as “better automatic corrective actions”. OpenNMS is also free of cost.
OpenNMS rated a 7 out of 9. Of the other 10 products reviewed, there was one 3, three 4’s, four 5’s and two 6’s.
I, of course, think OpenNMS should have scored a 9 out of 9. The two areas that we missed were “Mobile Access” and “Integrated Maps”. Since the review was against 1.6.10 (versus 1.8.10 which is the latest stable version available) it didn’t have access to the iPhone app, and we have both greatly improved the built-in OpenNMS mapping feature as well as added an integration with Google Maps, Mapquest and Open Street Map for the remote pollers.
It was still nice to come out on top, however, and I hope this gets even more people interested in OpenNMS.
The talk I gave at the Atlanta Network and Systems Management Technical User Group is now available to view.
The third annual OpenNMS Users Conference – Europe will be held 26-27 May in Fulda, Germany.
Registration is now open:
http://www.opennms-conference.info
Hope to see you there.
There was an article on opensource.com today that talked about whether or not a user community can drive innovation.
We rely on feedback from our users to help make OpenNMS better, and we specifically listen to the suggestions from our commercial (i.e. paying) users. While we welcome all input, on the commercial side of the business we want to make money. The best way to do that is attract more commercial clients, so we tend to pay a lot of attention to what our current clients want.
I was in Chicago back in December visiting customers, and while talking to one of them he suggested that we should focus on providing more services, in addition to support, that were just available to paying clients. One idea he suggested was some sort of training seminar that could be held to introduce customers to new ways of using OpenNMS and/or new features.
I thought it was an awesome idea, so today we held the first event of our monthly seminar series. I did a presentation on “Stupid Net-SNMP Tricks” that I took mainly from some blog posts I’ve done on the topic. The webinar lasted about 80 minutes with questions and I think it was well received. We held one at 10am and one at 2pm to accommodate clients as far east as Dubai and as far west as Hawaii.
Next month we’ll talk about the JasperReports integration.
What I enjoyed about it was that I got to interact with clients that I usually only see when they have an issue or it is time to renew. I can’t wait for the next great suggestion from our amazing customers.
This year’s LinuxQuestions poll is over, and once again OpenNMS is a distant second to Nagios:
The same thing happened last year, except that this time there were a lot more votes and Nagios won by a larger margin.
The Nagios win doesn’t surprise me at all, most of the folks who read LinuxQuestions can meet their monitoring needs just fine with that application, but I do want to thank the people who took the time to vote for OpenNMS.
I just spent 16 nights away from home, so it was nice to sleep in my own bed this weekend. Plus, I was home in time to watch the Super Bowl, and although my Steelers didn’t win, it was a good game (the commercials were a little lame, however).
But even though I am back, the calendar is a little busy for the next few months.
Tomorrow (8 Feb) I will be speaking about OpenNMS at the Atlanta Network and Systems Management Technical User Group meeting. It should be a fun, it’s free and I’ll buy the pizza.
On 26 Feb, Jeff will be speaking at the Southern California Area Linux Expo. His presentation is on Large-Scale Systems Management with OpenNMS. SCaLE is one of my favorite events of the year, but unfortunately I have a prior obligation and won’t make it. For those of you who have avoided SCaLE in the past due to the chance of running into me – now you have no excuse not to attend.
One of the reasons I was gone on this last trip was due to the fact that we held our first full training week in Europe. We’ll be repeating that class in the US the week of 28 Feb – 4 Mar 2011. We limit the class size to 10 people and we still have a few seats available, so if you were looking for a great way to get up to speed on OpenNMS from the people who help make it – now is your chance.
Later that month, on 26 Mar, I will be giving a keynote at the inaugural Indiana LinuxFest. I met the organizers at last year’s Ohio LinuxFest and they hope to bring that caliber of show to the Mid-West.
Jump forward to May, and on the 26th and 27th we return to Europe for our annual OpenNMS Users Conference. This year will be a bit different, as we plan to offer a day-long training class on Thursday and more of a Barcamp “unconference” on Friday.
And finally, one of my favorite weeks of the year will be when we hold the sixth annual Dev-Jam, back in Minneapolis at UMN from 19-24 June 2011.
We have a few other things on deck, but I hope to see all of you at at least one of these events.