Zenoss

infobox software


caption = Zenoss running under Linux
developer = 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 based on the Zope application server. It's released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2. Zenoss Core provides a web interface that allows system administrators to monitor availability, inventory/configuration, performance, and events.

Erik Dahl began Zenoss development in 2002 and in August 2005 founded Zenoss Inc. with Bill Karpovich. Zenoss Inc. sponsors the development of Zenoss Core and sells an enterprise version based on the core version.

Project Milestones

Zenoss maintains an active developer community. Notable project milestones include:

; 2002: Erik Dahl began development on Zenoss.; August 2005: Erik Dahl and Bill Karpovich form Zenoss Inc.; March 2006: Zenoss made available on SourceForge.net.; November 2006: Zenoss Core Version 1.0 released.; June 2007: Zenoss Core 2.0 released.; July 2007: Zenoss Enterprise 2.0 released.; October 2007: Zenoss Core 2.1 released.; November 2007: Zenoss Enterprise 2.1 released.; May 2008: Zenoss Core 2.2 released.

Technology Overview

Zenoss Core combines original programming and several open source projects to integrate data storage and data collection processes with a web-based user interface.

According to the project's web site, Zenoss Core is built upon the following 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.

Zenoss Core provides the following 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

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, 7.10, 8.04)
* 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.

ZenPacks

ZenPacks provide a plug-in architecture that allows community members to extend Zenoss's functionality. Mark Hinkle writes in a Zenoss blog entry that anyone can write a Zenpack, and authors are free to choose how they license their individual ZenPacks. As an incentive to buy the enterprise version, Zenoss Inc. may develop ZenPacks that are only available to enterprise users. 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.

Enterprise

The enterprise version builds on the core version by providing commercial support and additional features, such as synthetic web transactions and global dashboards. "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."

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 [http://www.groundworkopensource.com/] , Hyperic and openQRM [http://openqrm.sourceforge.net] . 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, closed-source vendors include industry veterans BMC, HP, and CA.

Industry reviews

In a Network Computing review, Jeff Ballard singles out the 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.

References

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ee also

* Comparison of network monitoring systems

External links

* [http://zenoss.com Zenoss Inc. Home Page]
* [http://sourceforge.net/projects/zenoss Zenoss Project Downloads at SourceForge]