Observer (Software)

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Observer

Design by	Adam Armstrong
Initial release	October, 2006
Latest release	0.3.2.1 / March 27, 2008
OS	Unix-like
Genre	Network monitoring
License	BSD License
Website	www.project-observer.org

Observer is a PHP/MySQL-based Network Monitoring System (NMS) which collects data from devices using SNMP and presents it via a web interface. Observer has a number of simple core design goals driving its development: minimum interaction, maximum automation and maximum accessibility of information.

Observer integrates specific support for a number of vendor and platform specific features such as Dell OMSA on Linux platforms, Net-SNMP statistics as well as a number of Cisco-specific features such as Cisco Discovery Protocol, inventory tracking and VLAN tracking. The FreeBSD-based firewall, m0n0wall, was modified to allow Observer to identify and monitor it.

Observer has preliminary support for IPv6.

[edit] Origin

Observer was inspired by an internally-written monitoring system used by the author at Onyx Internet in the UK. The author subsequently wrote a 'clone' of the Onyx system whilst at Entanet International which replicated most of the basic features of the original but without the code quality. Observer was started as a Free Software project after the author left Entanet to produce a better designed implementation.