Interesting comparison of WMI performance…

June 3, 2009

… between various flavours of Windows. Not sure what Microsoft have done on Vista and Server 2008 but it hasn’t half slowed down WMI performance. Thankfully the latest release candidate of Windows 7 has much improved performance. Oops!

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Introducing easy network simulation

May 28, 2009

Paessler have introduced a new product called Multi Server Simulator, currently available as a pre-release version, that creates a simulated network of devices and switches. The main use for network simulators is for testing network management software. However, network simulators do have plenty of uses outside of software development. If you are evaluating network monitoring [...]

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Open source network management activity comparison

May 27, 2009

The recent controversy over the ICINGA Nagios fork brought into focus the relative activity of the various network management projects. One of the main complaints aimed at Nagios was the slow speed of development. The following graphs, taken from the open source directory ohloh, show the number of commiters and the number of commits over [...]

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A real world example of the problems with open core software

May 21, 2009

A real world example of what Tarus Balog from OpenNMS has been banging on about recently with his critique of open core or fauxpen source. A product manager who has an open product and a closed product plainly has a decision to make over which features go into which product. Give too much away and [...]

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First ICINGA beta is released

May 20, 2009

The first ICINGA beta has been released with a new GUI written in PHP 5 utilising the Agavi MVC framework. A project roadmap is available so you can see where the project is headed.

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Naguino: an Arduino-based LCD monitor for Nagios

May 12, 2009

If you’ve ever wanted to know the status of your Nagios installation without having to open a browser, you may find Naguino a fun and useful addition to your monitoring toolkit. All you need is the Arduino board, an ethernet board, a LCD screen and some software.

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Ethan Galstad speaks out

May 12, 2009

Ethan Galstad, the Nagios founder, has responded to recent criticisms of Nagios and to the recent ICINGA fork. It does seem a little ironic that, although the ICINGA founders claim one of the drivers behind the fork was a lack of communication, Ethan Galstad claims they didn’t communicate their disatisfaction to him.

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Trademarks and open source software

May 11, 2009

Tarus Balog over at OpenNMS makes some very good points about trademarks and open source software. Whilst I do completely agree with him over trademark use in open source, having a trademark does introduce a legal duty to defend the mark which may not sit too well with the community. Keir Thomas wrote a Ubuntu [...]

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Nagios responds to the ICINGA fork

May 8, 2009

Matt Asay over at The Open Road commented recently that forks are a sign of strength in open source. I’m sure he’s right, but they are not necessarily a sign of strength for the project being forked. The one positive thing is that it makes the community sit up and review the root cause of [...]

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Nagios begets ICINGA

May 6, 2009

Nagios is probably the best known open source network management tool. Ethan Galstad created NetSaint, the tool that eventually became Nagios, many years ago at the very dawn of using open source tools in network management. Things are not going well. A number of people from the Nagios community, including a couple from the Nagios [...]

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