gain Advance visibility And Control Of your IT infrastructure

WHITE PAPER ExTEndIng nAgIos To CREATE A ComPREHEnsIvE monIToRIng soluTIon ExTEndIng nAgIos To CREATE A ComPREHEnsIvE monIToRIng soluTIon nAgIos—vAluABlE BuIldIng BloCKs FoR AvAIl ABIlIT Y monIToRIng Nagios is a leading open-source IT monitoring application, designed to alert system administrators when server or network problems happen. With hundreds of thousands of downloads since its inception in 1999, Nagios has a track record of providing value for IT teams. At a time when many companies are seeking an open-source alternative to expensive, proprietary monitoring platforms such as IBM Tivoli and HP OpenView, the momentum behind Nagios continues to grow. While Nagios provides companies with the basic building blocks for monitoring their IT infrastructure, many IT teams have discovered they must invest considerable time and resources to achieve an effective solution. IT managers are looking for a way to utilize the capabilities of Nagios without the hassle and expense of a lengthy deployment process. Equally important, system administrators are looking to lower the risks involved in selecting and integrating the right set of components that are required to create a complete IT infrastructure monitoring solution. gRoundWoRK monIToR PRoFEssIonAl—ExTEndIng nAgIos GroundWork Monitor Professional is a comprehensive, fully supported solution for companies with complex IT operations and limited resources for configuration and tuning. It builds on Nagios to create a scalable IT monitoring solution. GroundWork Monitor Professional integrates best-of-breed open source projects including Nagios 2.0, MySQL 5.0, and RRDtool, along with GroundWork-developed components, to create a complete IT performance and availability monitoring and management solution that is easy to install, configure and use. As a fully integrated and supported offering, GroundWork Monitor Professional eliminates the need for companies to go through a lengthy learning curve with open source software or a costly installation and configuration process. More than 100 organizations across a range of industries now rely on Groundwork Monitor Professional. AddEd FunC TIonAlIT Y BEComEs sTAndARd WITH gRoundWoRK monIToR PRoFEssIonAl GroundWork Monitor Professional extends Nagios to make the following functionality a standard part of every customer’s IT monitoring and management solution: ■ ■ Easier and simpler install Web-based tools that speed the configuration process Automatic upgrade of configuration files to the new Nagios 2.0 version Integrated performance monitoring with intuitive displays Advanced reporting including alarm, outage and notification reports Simple user-enabled customization A library of over 40 GroundWorkdeveloped profiles for out-of-the-box monitoring of servers, applications, and a wide range of devices Persistent data storage to conduct trend analysis Documentation bookshelf with how-to information continually updated Ongoing maintenance and software updates Professional configuration services and support Operator and System Manager Training to further shorten the learning curve ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ComPARIng nAgIos WITH gRoundWoRK monIToR PRoFEssIonAl ■ ■ ■ ExTEndIng nAgIos To CREATE A ComPREHEnsIvE monIToRIng soluTIon EnTERPRIsE-Cl Ass FunC TIonAlIT Y And oPEn souRCE AFFoRdABIlIT Y In additional to Nagios, GroundWork Monitor Professional incorporates a number of open source components, including MySQL database and schema, performance trend graphing, web-based configuration that leverages configuration profiles, a centralized console, and extensive documentation and how-to instructions. GroundWork Monitor Professional incorporates a common Foundation platform that integrates all of these elements into a cohesive whole enabling companies to gain the cost and flexibility benefits of best-ofbreed open source tools, along with the usability, support and comprehensive functionality of an enterprise-class solution. GROUNDWORK MONITOR PROFESSIONAL DIFFERENTIATORS AND OPER ATIONAL BENEFITS differentiators 1. Quick and Easy Installation – Includes all prerequisites – Easy to follow steps – Expert Linux experience not required 2. simple and Easy Configuration – Web-based configuration and maintenance tool – Mass-assign Profile templates that encapsulate plug-ins, best practices, metrics and other configuration info for specific device types and environments – Comprehensive documentation – Easy and advanced configuration options – Additional Configuration Assistance provided 3. Immediate visibility and Control – Real-time Status Views, Filter Views, Trouble views, Summary Views – Integrated performance trends – More detailed, easy to navigate views of monitoring data with drilldowns – Persistent windows to keep an eye on hosts and host groups 4. Integrated Performance graphs – Easy-to-understand performance graphs – Create combinations of performance graphs for custom views – Profile Templates automatically configure Performance views 5. Enhanced Reporting, Integrated Console – Alarm, Outage and Notification reports – Integrated Console views with event histories – Integrate SNMP Traps and log events in addition to Nagios monitoring 6. dynamic user Interfaces and simple Customization – PHP Framework enables dynamic database-driven applications – New AJAX technologies allow pages to seamlessly refresh in the background – Scales to large networks without limits on viewable number of monitored hosts 7. Extensible integrated architecture – Integrate different types of monitoring data (logs, SNMP Traps) – Consolidate monitoring data from disparate systems into a single view – Build custom displays of real-time monitoring and historic information 8. Fully-supported, Enterprise-class IT monitoring and management solution – Comprehensive solution based on Nagios and other best-of-breed Open Source tools – Maintenance Updates to software with subscription – Expert support – Includes extensive product and monitoring best practices documentation – Available turnkey deployment services operational Benefits ■ Get up and running faster without having to pre-install multiple open source software prequisites. ■ Avoid tedious configuration with manual editing of configuration files. Get set up right the first time with expert assistance. Easy, on-going configuration maintenance. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ At-a-glance view of problems in the infrastructure. Faster access to monitoring data and troubleshooting. Spend less time navigating the monitoring system and more time resolving issues. Identify trends in availability and performance to proactively address outages and performance slowdowns. Identify where and when to replace equipment or expand capacity. Correlate between real-time status and event histories. Correlate across multiple monitoring data types: Logs, traps, polling. Detailed and flexible historical views help with ongoing IT management. Quicker access to real-time monitoring data. Role-based access to different product features / views. Companies with large networks now can use an affordable, open source-based monitoring solution. Extend IT monitoring to other best-of-breed open source tools. Get the customized, monitoring system you need, adapted for your organization. Single vendor-supported monitoring solution for the entire network. Access to experts who can help rapidly fix issues. On-going improvements and extensions to keep solution up-to-date. Maintain continuity with your monitoring system. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■  ExTEndIng nAgIos To CREATE A ComPREHEnsIvE monIToRIng soluTIon HoW gRoundWoRK monIToR PRoFEssIonAl ExTEnds nAgIos “We partnered with GroundWork to build an enterprise-class monitoring system and it has transformed IT’s reputation within the company.” — Cliff Bell, CIo Phoenix Technologies By combining a number of robust capabilities that extend the basic availability monitoring capabilities of Nagios, GroundWork Monitor Professional offers an open, centralized solution with all the capabilities essential for a fully functional monitoring system. sPECIFIC AREAs WHERE gRoundWoRK monIToR PRoFEssIonAl ExTEnds nAgIos QUIcK AND EASy INSTALL ATION All GroundWork Monitor Professional components are delivered in an easy-to-install package. GroundWork Monitor Professional is simple to install because GroundWork has already taken the necessary steps to get the disparate software components to work together. Users get all the capabilities of an extended Nagios-based monitoring solution without the hassle of integrating multiple open source components in-house. System managers do not need to go through extensive installs of numerous prerequisites to get them all to work before installing the core monitoring software. With a simple installation process and easy-to-follow steps, users do not have to be experienced System Administrators in Linux to get through the installation process rapidly. REDESIGNED DyNAMIc INTERFAcES GroundWork Monitor Professional includes an advanced user interface for Nagios status data and commands. This PHP-based alternative replacement for the Nagios interface, called Guava, is easier to use and presents information faster and in a more intuitive manner. Using Windows Explorer-type drill down navigation, multiple tree views (Summary View, NetView, TroubleView and Filter View) and a pop-up structure of monitoring status screens provide easier, faster troubleshooting so users can identify and address problems faster. This new UI resolves well-known problems in Nagios associated with displaying status data on large infrastructures where constant screen refreshes happen even before previous data is completely displayed. For those who do prefer to also have access to the Nagios interface, it is still available in its original form via Nagios Status Map, Reports and other screens and can be integrated into the interface through the admin controls. GroundWork Monitor Professional’s PHP-based presentation layer allows for dynamic database-driven applications via web pages. Using new Web 2.0 technologies such as AJAX, pages constantly refresh seamlessly in the background, without those user initiated screen actions. Open APIs let you further customize your own views as needed. Figure 2: GroundWork Monitor Professional Enhanced User Interface 4 ExTEndIng nAgIos To CREATE A ComPREHEnsIvE monIToRIng soluTIon INTEGR ATED cONSOLE VIEWS The Integrated Console views provide you with a time perspective on events with event history. Color-coded threshold breaches and related message details from devices let you correlate event histories with the real-time status screens to arrive at likely causes of issues. The Console view provides more detailed at-a-glance event and status data than the monitoring status screens. The Console is ideal for operators in Network Operating Centers (NOCs), because it provides highly detailed and configurable monitoring data in real time. With the Integrated Console, you not only get data from active or passive polling but also other monitoring types, for example SNMP Traps and Syslog files. Through the Foundation layer you can also integrate other application types specific to your infrastructure. The Integrated Console enables users to correlate across real time views, event histories and across multiple monitoring types to arrive at the likely causes of issues. SIMPLIFIED WEB-BASED cONFIGUR ATION GroundWork Monitor Professional enables system administrators to rapidly set up and maintain Nagios by easing and accelerating the configuration process through simple web-based interfaces. Post-installation, it also simplifies the maintenance of the monitoring system when additions, changes and deletions are made to the IT infrastructure. Nagios configuration and setup generally requires editing of multiple text files with the use of a command line text editor to hand configure the monitoring system for each monitored application, service, device, etc. With GroundWork Monitor Professional, users who are not Nagios experts can configure their monitoring system correctly the first time, using familiar tools and techniques through the web interface. Current Nagios users can write and read Nagios configuration files, enabling the latter to be easily integrated. Experienced Nagios users can edit the Nagios configuration files directly and use GroundWork’s configuration interchangeably. Additionally, configuration files from older versions of Nagios are automatically updated to Nagios version 2.0. Figure : Integrated Console Views give you event history with details “The most significant driver was GroundWork’s professional expertise including design, configuration and tuning. The ramp up time for these solutions can be significant. By bringing in GroundWork, our entire infrastructure was being monitored within weeks.” — sam lamonica, IT director, Rudolph and sletten 5 Figure 4: Simplified, Web-Based Configuration ExTEndIng nAgIos To CREATE A ComPREHEnsIvE monIToRIng soluTIon READy-TO-USE PROFILES Profiles include best practices for monitoring specific types of devices, applications and servers. These device-specific profiles contain both pre-defined and user-definable monitoring parameter settings. Service profiles encapsulate a set of standard services with plug-ins and best practices that can be applied to monitoring specific devices or protocols. The service profiles are pre-integrated—GroundWork has created Profiles based on operational experience with a wide range of customers. Each Profile has been tested and certified in production environments. Using Profiles, administrators quickly configure GroundWork Monitor Professional to monitor groups of devices the same way by mass assigning configuration files and benefiting from GroundWork’s deep expertise in monitoring design best practices. GroundWork’s ever-growing library of Profiles accelerates configuration of Nagios-based monitoring systems. INTEGR ATED PERFORMANcE MONITORING GroundWork Monitor Professional provides all the tools needed to graph and report valuable performance data over time, a capability not available in Nagios itself. Groundwork’s approach involves taking Nagios availability data and complementing it with GroundWork’s integrated open source architecture, so that users can store, analyze and display performance data in both graphical and table formats. Users can create groups of hosts or services that they want to see in performance reports. Any combination of performance graphs can be customized and saved as reports for repeated viewing with constantly updated data. ENhANcED REPORTING GroundWork Monitor Professional features Insight Reports that are flexible and configurable to provide users with historical analysis of trends for outages, alarms and notifications. These enhance the current set of Nagios reports. Insight Reports can be configured and reported for varying time periods and for specific performance metrics. AUTOMATIcALLy UPGR ADES yOU TO NAGIOS 2.0 With GroundWork Monitor Professional, users get their Nagios 1.2 configuration files automatically upgraded to Nagios 2.0 via an auto upgrade script. This lets users benefit from the various performance improvements and other features of the new Nagios 2.0 version. Figure 5: Ready-to-use Monitoring Profile Templates Figure 5: Ready-to-use Profile Templates Figure : Performance Trend Analysis  ExTEndIng nAgIos To CREATE A ComPREHEnsIvE monIToRIng soluTIon Ex TENSIVE DOcUMENTATION GroundWork Monitor Professional provides users with standardized product documentation by way of Operator, System Manager and Developer Guides, both for Nagios-based monitoring and for other integrated and related open source tools. In addition, users can leverage monitoring “how to’s” and best practices. These guides enable users to reduce the steep learning curve when working and maintaining a Nagios-based IT monitoring implementation. ExPERT SUPPORT AND DEPLOyMENT SERVIcES Finally, users can rely on GroundWork’s support—via telephone and email—for all issues, including configuration assistance. On-site deployment services are also available to help significantly reduce the time to value. gRoundWoRK monIToR PRoFEssIonAl ARCHITEC TuRE GroundWork Monitor Professional is built on a modern architecture that combines the best of open source with innovative software developed by GroundWork’s IT management experts. Starting with core open source components such as Nagios and MySQL, GroundWork has added performance monitoring, a PHP portalbased user interface, management level reporting, powerful configuration tools and the addition of other open source monitoring tools. The result is a complete, integrated system. GroundWork Monitor Professional’s foundation of open source software offers a solution that is affordable, highly flexible and configurable to accommodate customers’ varied and rapidly changing environments. Figure : New Outage, Alarms and Notifications Reporting ■ Extend Nagios 2.0 ■ Integrate Open Source Applications ■ GroundWork-Developed Software Figure 8: GroundWork Extensible Architecture  ExTEndIng nAgIos To CREATE A ComPREHEnsIvE monIToRIng soluTIon Organizations implement IT monitoring and management systems to get greater visibility and control over the availability and performance of their mission critical applications and distributed IT infrastructures. Evaluating monitoring systems from various vendors typically focus on three key criteria. These are: EFFEcTIVENESS ■ GroundWork’s integrated open source architecture includes three layers of functionality: 1) a tool/adapter layer, 2) a services layer, and, ) a presentation layer. This three-tiered architecture enables easy integration with other data sources, such as SNMP Traps, Log file data, and other open source tools that gather data in areas such as information on network activity, applications, etc. ■ Adapter layer: Extracts data from IT monitoring tools – Open source monitoring systems (e.g., Nagios, Ganglia) – Commercial monitoring systems, other data sources (e.g., log files, traps, etc.) Services layer (GroundWork Foundation): Normalizes and stores IT monitoring data – Data transformation, normalization – Data storage and GroundWork data model – APIs enable presentation layer applications, displays to access, and process data Presentation layer: Displays data needed by operators and managers to monitor and manage their IT infrastructure – Monitoring status displays – Monitoring console view (events) – Monitoring reports on alarms, notifications and outages ■ ■ ■ ■ Is the solution meeting my company’s complete monitoring needs? Does it contribute to proactive monitoring and alerting for both availability and performance, so I can reduce the number and duration of unscheduled outages? Does it provide monitoring coverage for my entire infrastructure? Does it allow for historic trending of data so that I can proactively identify trends before they become real issues? Does it streamline operational efficiency? ■ ■ FoCusIng on CusTomERs’ ToP THREE CRITERIA GroundWork’s solution enables IT teams to deploy an enterprise-class IT monitoring solution far more rapidly and cost-effectively than expensive proprietary platforms, which are notoriously difficult to use. At the same time, GroundWork provides more robust monitoring capabilities than low-cost point solutions, which offer limited functionality and require significant “heavy lifting” on the part of IT teams. In fact, GroundWork’s solution was expressly designed to earn high marks on the top three criteria that customers use to evaluate monitoring systems: effectiveness, efficiency, and time-to-value. Customers report that GroundWork increases effectiveness by giving their IT team access to higher quality information and insight. When it comes to efficiency, customers report they are able to run IT with fewer resources, freeing up IT staff to focus on forward-looking projects rather than fire fighting. Finally, customers report significant improvements in time to value because GroundWork streamlines the configuration and deployment process—enabling them to get up and running in a matter of days vs. the weeks or months that are often required using either a proprietary platform or a “do-it-yourself” open source approach. LOWER TcO ■ ■ Is the monitoring system providing maximum value at the lowest possible TCO? Does it lower overall operational costs and contribute to the business through improved employee productivity and reduction in lost revenues? TIME-TO-VALUE ■ ■ ■ Can I quickly get the solution configured and operational for rapid time to value? Can I avoid having to wait months before deriving any benefit? Do I know where to start? Can I avoid a steep learning curve? Contact us 1.8.899.442 info@groundworkopensource.com www.groundworkopensource.com groundWork open source, Inc. 19 Townsend Street, Suite 100 San Francisco, CA 9410 ABouT gRoundWoRK GroundWork Open Source, Inc. provides open source-based IT infrastructure management solutions. Groundwork’s solutions enable IT management to leverage the flexibility and low cost of open source tools to achieve enterprise-level availability, performance and operational efficiency for a fraction of the cost of commercial software. ©200 GroundWork Open Source. All rights reserved.