Zenoss

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Zenoss
Zenoss running under Linux
Developed by	Zenoss Inc.
Genre	Network management system
License	GNU General Public License
Website	http://zenoss.com/

Zenoss (Zenoss Core) is an open source application, server and network management platform released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2. Zenoss Core provides an AJAX-enabled web interface that allows system administrators to monitor availability, inventory/configuration, performance, and events.

1 History
- 1.1 Development Milestones
2 Technology Overview
- 2.1 Platform
3 Related Products
- 3.1 Industry Reviews
4 External links
5 References

[edit] History

Erik Dahl began Zenoss development in 2002 and in August 2005 founded Zenoss Inc. with Bill Karpovich. Zenoss Inc. provides corporate backing for the development of Zenoss Core, which is freely available to anyone to download and use without license fees. The company offers paid support subscriptions and training services to generate revenue.

Zenoss is a founding member of the Open Management Consortium. Other founding members include Ayamon, Emu Software, Qlusters, Symbiot, and Webmin. The Open Management Consortium promotes the development and adoption of open source monitoring software.

[edit] Development Milestones

May 2008: Zenoss Core 2.2 released.
November 2007: Zenoss Enterprise 2.1 released.
October 2007: Zenoss Core 2.1 released.
July 2007: Zenoss Enterprise 2.0 released.
June 2007: Zenoss Core 2.0 released.
November 2006: Zenoss Core Version 1.0 released.
March 2006: Zenoss made available on SourceForge.
2002: Erik Dahl began development on Zenoss.

[edit] Technology Overview

Zenoss Core is an all inclusive, open source monitoring technology, which includes a user interface, data storage, and collection processes in one application.

Zenoss Core implements a configuration management database (CMDB) to model IT assets. In a Computer Business Review Online article, Matthew Aslett says, "According to ITIL best-practice recommendations, the CMDB should provide accurate information on the configuration of IT assets and their documentation in a way that will support all the other service management processes of incident, problem, and change management."

Zenoss Core Capabilities:

Monitoring availability network devices using SNMP
Monitoring of network services (HTTP,POP3,NNTP,SNMP,FTP)
Monitoring of host resources (processor, disk usage) on most network operating systems.
Time-series performance monitoring of devices
Extended Microsoft Windows monitoring via Windows Management Instrumentation using SAMBA and Zenoss open source extensions
Event management tools to annotate system alerts
Automatically discover network resources and changes in network configuration
Alerting system provides notifications based on rule sets and on-call calendars
Supports Nagios plug-in format

The commercial version of Zenoss Core is Zenoss Enterprise. The enterprise edition builds on the core version by providing commercial support and additional features. "In the enterprise edition," writes Sean Michael Kerner, "Zenoss is adding something it calls end-user experience monitoring which is intended to more accurately simulate end-user application activity." Kerner continues, "Enterprise users also get certified application monitors specifically geared for Microsoft SQL and Exchange."

Zenoss Enterprise extends functionality via Zenpacks, its plugin framework. Mark Hinkle, Zenoss VP of Business and Community Development, writes in a Zenoss blog entry that anyone can write a Zenpack, and authors are free to choose how they license their individual Zenpacks. Zenoss Inc. chooses to release the Zenpacks included with Zenoss Enterprise as shared source, which means users can modify the code but not distribute the changes.

Zenoss Enterprise introduces the following features:

End-user experience monitoring at the application and end-user levels.
Certification application monitors (Zenpacks).
Global dashboard to aggregate individual Zenoss installations.
WSIWYG environment for creating synthetic web transactions.

Zenoss incorporates several open source technologies:

Zope Application server: An object-oriented web server written in Python.
Python: Extensible programming language.
NetSNMP: Monitoring protocol that collection systems status information.
RRDtool: Graph and log time series data.
MySQL: A popular open source database.
Twisted: An event-driven networking engine written in Python.

[edit] Platform

Zenoss Inc. provides install guides for Zenoss Core for the following operating systems:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux / CentOS (4, 5)
Fedora (Core 6, 7, 8)
Ubuntu (6.10, 7.04)
FreeBSD (6.1, 6.2)
Debian (Sarge)
SuSE (10, 10.2)
Solaris 10
Gentoo
Mac OS X
VMWare Appliance

A web-based portal provides operating system agnostic access to configuration and administration functions. Both Firefox and Internet Explorer are supported.

[edit] Related Products

Zenoss competes with other open source and proprietary enterprise systems management products. Open source systems management products are available from GroundWork Open Source, Hyperic and Qlusters. In an interview with Jack Loftus of SearchEnterpriseLinux.com, Bill Karpovich explains what makes Zenoss different:

"Companies like GroundWork are similar to the Red Hat approach, where a company gathers up the pieces and puts support behind it. Our approach is we have always had the code and we are in control of its roadmap and indemnification. The Hyperic model is where a company comes from a commercial background and makes some of the code open source."

The traditional proprietary source vendors include industry veterans BMC, HP, and CA. Proponents of proprietary software often cite superior support and features compared to open source alternatives.

In the SearchEnterpriseLinux.com interview, Karpovich rebutts the support claim by saying, "There can be perceptions that open source software is hurt by poor support, but we think of ourselves as a commercial open source company." Regarding features, Karpovich says, "We wrote Zenoss from the ground up much in the same way as those proprietary products from IBM and HP began. We wanted to develop an enterprise-class application."

[edit] Industry Reviews

In a Network Computing review, Jeff Ballard singles out the new Zenoss Core 2.0 user interface and event management system as highlights. Of the event management system, Ballard says, "By aggregating all events through a single rules-processing engine, Zenoss Core eliminates duplication, making for a manageable user interface."

In his review, Ballard finds the installation troubling. "Unfortunately, getting started was challenging as Zenoss provided no context-sensitive help to guide us through a truly staggering number of configuration options."

In the "Clear Choice Tests" Network World reviewer Barry Nance offers the following praise for Zenoss Core 2, "Even more impressive than its discovery of our network is its remediation features, which can automatically execute start or stop operations for a Windows service, for example." Nance's review finds that "Zenoss Core doesn’t support as many diverse devices as HP OpenView or Argent Extended Technologies, nor does it monitor Microsoft Exchange or SQL Server as closely as a commercial tool does."

SYS-CON Media awards Zenoss Core the 2007 Enterprise Open Source Reader's choice award for best Linux systems management software. Reader choice awards are nominated and voted on by the community of Enterprise Open Source Magazine readers.