5 Open source Network Management

5 open source network management projects to watch

Mix of community and commercial support available.

Open source software has a long history in lower-level network software so it’s not surprising there is a healthy range of free tools available for network and systems management.

Often with commercial support available, open source network management tools offer an easy way to gain more visibility into the workings of disparate systems and software.

In this edition of 5 open source things to watch, we take a look at network management projects that will allow IT managers to take control of the shop without selling the farm.

1. OpenNMS

OpenNMS is a network management application written in Java. It claims to be the world’s first enterprise network management developed under an open source model. The project was registered on SourceForge on July 2000.

Designed to scale to thousands of notes from one installation, OpenNMS can automatically discover network services and has an API for integration with bug tracking systems.

While commercial development and support services are available through opennms.com, the project makes a point about not having a proprietary “enterprise” version.

OpenNMS is cross platform and a mobile client for Apple’s iOS is available.

URL: http://www.opennms.org/
Licence: GPL

2. Zenoss

Zenoss Core is the open source network management product backed by Zenoss Inc. It manages the configuration, health, performance of networks, servers and applications in one system.

Zenoss has an integrated CMDB and it is controlled by a Web-based GUI. Custom devices like temperature sensors can also be monitored.

In addition to the standard uptime and performance monitoring features, Zenoss supports monitoring templates dubbed “ZenPacks”.

URL: http://zenoss.org
Licence: GPL

3. NetXMS

NetXMS is more of an independent open source network management project that has client and server apps for Linux, Unix and Windows. Its main developer is Raden Solutions, a Latvian IT company.

In addition to the standard network monitoring features, NetXMS has business impact analysis tools.

The NetXMS interface is a “fat” client and there is also a Web interface.

Both free and paid support is available for NetXMS.

URL: http://www.netxms.org/
Licence: GPL

4. Nagios

Nagios is one of the most popular open source network management tools and is widely deployed among Linux users. It began life as “NetSaint” before being renamed Nagios.

The central application is called Nagios Core, with additional functionality available through Nagios Plugins, Frontends and Config Tools.

Regarding the third-party applications and plug-ins for Nagios, there is the Nagios Exchange portal that categorises extensions across various genres.

Both community and commercial support is available for Nagios.

URL: http://www.nagios.org/
Licence: GPL

5. Hyperic

Hyperic is an open source network management suite that targets itself as being suitable for Web application and virtual machine management.

The commercial Hyperic was acquired by SpringSource, which was then acquired by VMWare.

Hyperic features automatic discovery and records some 50,000 metrics across 75 application stacks.

An Enterprise edition is available for Hyperic which includes more features than the open source edition and commercial support.

URL: http://www.hyperic.com/
Licence: GPL

5 Aplikasi Helpdesk Open Source

5 open source help desk apps to watch

Keep track of support calls while keeping help desk apps within your budget

If your help desk software is giving you trouble, there are some open source options available to help ease your pain – without the high cost.

In this instalment of CIO's five open source applications to watch we take a look at help desk software, which is the basis of incident response and IT service delivery.

RT: Request Tracker

RT is a ticketing system which enables a group of people to manage tasks, issues and requests submitted by a community of users. The RT platform has been under development since 1996, and is claimed to be used at thousands of sites around the world. Written in object-oriented Perl, RT manages tasks like the identification, prioritisation, assignment, resolution and notification for applications including project management, help desk, NOC ticketing, CRM and software development.

URL: http://bestpractical.com/rt/ Licence: GPL

Help Desk Software

Help Desk Software (also Freehelpdesk) is feature-rich help desk system designed from the ground up to meet the demands of help desk staff and their users. It is a Web-based system that can accept new calls from your users directly into the system. Calls can be tracked and searched to enable faster response times. Help Desk Software has been updated to support PHP 5, but development pace has slowed since mid-2008.

URL: http://freehelpdesk.org/ Licence: GPL

OTRS

OTRS (Open source Ticket Request System) has features to manage customer telephone calls and e-mails. The system is built to allow support, sales, pre-sales, billing, internal IT and help desk functions to react quickly to inbound inquiries. OTRS is a Web-based help desk and ticket system that provides a set of features to help service organisations to manage requests more efficiently. As a framework, it is the basis of OTRS::ITSM, an ITIL-compliant IT service management solution. It supports MySQL, MS SQL, PosgreSQL, Oracle and DB2.

URL: http://otrs.org Licence: AGPL

Triage

A Web-based help desk application written in Java using the Hibernate and ZK libraries. Triage provides interfaces for handling tickets with notes and solutions, full-text search indexing, and allowing for plug-ins which can generate tickets from external sources (for example Asterisk, OpenNMS, Nagios, and e-mail). The initial development is being done on Linux, using the Eclipse development environment. The idea is that as a technician enters a new ticket, the application will present them with previous tickets/solutions which may be related and be able to present a quick answer. This way, knowledge is not lost and can be easily leveraged even with new personnel in the IT work force.

URL: http://code.google.com/p/triage/ Licence: GPL

PHP Help Desk

PHD Help Desk is an application designed for the registry and follow-up of help desk incidents. A registry of incidents allows classification in two levels (type and subtype), the state of the incident, a description, ticket assignment and priority, historical registry, and an audit. Information can be reported in consultation format, to give reports or export the information for later processing in a database or spreadsheet.

URL: http://www.p-hd.com.ar/eng/index.php Licence: GPL