[ale] Monitoring (Was "Todays trends")

Wed Oct 9 17:34:31 EDT 2013

I see them as different / complimentary tools

OpenNMS is a better fit for the network side, where you're dealing with 
SNMP anyway, and where you care almost as much about stats and trending 
and capacity measurement with less of a focus on just up / down. Use it 
to replace that Netcool / OpenView setup you're way overpaying for :-)

A systems monitor is more about up / down, and then whatever arbitrary 
craziness that matters in your environment but isn't really a built-in 
trap generator. Stats also matter but they're of secondary concern. 
(Which is why I like the Xymon / Nagios model for systems monitors of 
"we can collect whatever crazy plugin you whip up" with our agent)

There is some overlap but they primarily target different audiences with 
different needs. You can collapse them into one tool, but I've tended to 
find keeping the NMS and the SMS separate works cleaner (and aligns with 
typical department divisions anyway). But with devops and sdn and cloud 
those lines will blur more and more...

On 10/9/13 2:37 PM, Chuck Payne wrote:
> I am surprise no one like openNMS you know we have a guy local here
> that works on it.
>
> On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 2:33 PM, Chris Ricker <chris.ricker at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Xymon (previously hobbit) is the open source replacement / successor to Big
>> Brother. http://xymon.sourceforge.net/
>>
>> It started out as a patch addon to speed up BB, back in the days when BB was
>> not quite free software but did provide source code. After Quest closed the
>> BB source (even for paid licensees such as yours truly who were running it
>> on hardware they refused to provide binaries for --way to honor that
>> license, Quest!) hobbit evolved into its own thing and most of the developer
>> community around BB went with it. Then the Tolkien family came after it, so
>> now it's Xymon....
>>
>>
>> On 10/9/13 1:42 PM, Jim Kinney wrote:
>>
>> http://communities.quest.com/community/big-brother?view=overview#/?tagSet=1217
>>
>> Looks like BB is $0. It is certainly NOT open source. compiled binaries for
>> many platforms.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 1:15 PM, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Big Brother's background color was a simple and brilliant way to show
>>> overall health. Big Sister, the FLOSS BB rewrite, never managed to hit
>>> critical mass but made it to a 1.0+ release in 2006. BB is still around
>>> after being acquired by Quest (and now Dell has Quest it appears?) but is no
>>> longer "free". It never was FLOSS.
>>>
>>>
>>> Nagios configuration is convoluted. Don't like it. _REALLY_ want some
>>> solid logic to add besides time and pester-me counts. If this AND this but
>>> NOT this then flag once and don't page until this followed by this however
>>> if this AND this AND this page NOW (yeah - good luck with that).
>>>
>>> I been a consumer of Zabbix and found it a better layout that nagios. An
>>> install of zabbix is soon in my future.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 8:33 AM, Jerald Sheets <questy at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Oct 9, 2013, at 7:45 AM, "Lightner, Jeff" <JLightner at water.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> So the issue wasn't Nagios - it was the folks managing it.
>>>>>
>>>>> Nagios is a great tool and we use it in Production.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I'll bite.  Nobody better to discuss with than the ALE family…
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> So, I hate Nagios.  Can't express how much I dislike the product, the
>>>> layout of the alerting, the lack of a comprehensive, easy to see and
>>>> understand dashboard with easily managed/administered acknowledgements,
>>>> mobile accessibility, automation, escalation paging… you name it.
>>>>
>>>> Now, before you freak out, I know it's all in there, but I personally
>>>> find it markedly difficult to find all this stuff in the way Nagios has
>>>> decided to lay everything out.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Is this just a "me" thing?  Is it because my earliest and most often used
>>>> monitoring stuff is from a "Big Brother" background?  (BB, Hobbit, Xymon,
>>>> Foglight, Spotlight)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What's the general landscape of monitoring tools and utilities in use out
>>>> there?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --Jerald
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> --
>>> James P. Kinney III
>>>
>>> Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain
>>> at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail.
>>> It won't fatten the dog.
>>> - Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain
>>>
>>> http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> --
>> James P. Kinney III
>>
>> Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain
>> at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail.
>> It won't fatten the dog.
>> - Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain
>>
>> http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Ale at ale.org
>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Ale at ale.org
>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
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>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>>
>
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