From OpenNMS

OpenNMS vs. the Industry's other Network and systems management tools...

Erck - March 2007 UPDATE

two years ...please. Kids.

Researching which NMS tools to use? Then go see Gartner, industry analysts and use the other ITSM, ITIL and ESM methologies to research tools. Not Byron on OpenNMS.

You get what you pay for. You were correct to replace Nimbus, Orion or a Sitescope with an equivlent port & polling tool like OpenNMS. They all get the same UDP or SNMP data from the same source. The two OpenView tools however are not SNMP based, yes they do polling, yes they browse MIB's but this is something built into many BMC, HP & CA tools for diagnostics and troubleshooting. OpenNMS ONLY does these UDP/IP and SNMP port checks. Other tools you say? Hum how do they integrate? Do you have a SDK? How do you patch, upgrade and support that custom code on the forums...everyone do it the same way as you did? No.

OpenNMS relies on the network infrastructure to be up and available to collect data. If it is down, no polling or checks will complete. NNM is used to determine the cause of events and downstream effects and topology views of layer 2 & 3 IP stacks to eliminate the guess work and finger pointing with providers and LAN/WAN guys. NNM also manages HSRP, BGP and non-IP protocols unavailable with other tools. Topology is important if you don't understand how things are connected... how can you assume Service impact or routed IP to systems? With a ping and trace?ugh.

Operations Center from HP is a agent based propritary tool...not even close to a Nagios, BigBrother or a OpenNMS solution. Apples and oranges. These are "Enterprise Tools" that large corporations require to follow IT methodoligies like ITIL. OpenNMS have a CMDB? How do you address audit requirements for SarBox? See...?

Come back and see me a 10 years when you and your company "grow up" and you have to support or pass and FFEIC or a ISO 9000 audit...hehe.

E

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It's obvious that "E" has spent little time with OpenNMS since he seems to insist on belittling it as a "port and polling" tool. While its true that the huge and bloated OpenView suite does have a number of functions that OpenNMS doesn't, many users have found that they are either not necessary or are too expensive for what they provide. That's why users, not Gartner et. al. choose OpenNMS as their management platform.

He also seems to think we're all a bunch of kids with no real experience. I'd say the average age of the core members of this community is in the high 30s/low 40s. I personally started working with OpenView back in 1994, and it was because of my years working with such tools that I was drawn to OpenNMS.

OpenNMS is used in government, hospitals, stock exhanges and numerous large institutions with no problems. Is it the right tool for everyone? No. But is it competitive to a lot of what OpenView, Tivoli and Unicenter bring to the table? You betcha.

-Tarus

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If you're really looking at Gartner, you're specifically looking at Hype Cycles (http://www.gartner.com/pages/story.php.id.8795.s.8.jsp) and the Magic Quandrants (http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=131166).

For most of the Vendors you see in Gartner reports are actually CLIENTS of Gartner. You know... The kind that pay for these "studies".

For the most part, I think Gartner is more about Marketing than anything else. Do I think that anyone who does a Gartner report has ever had to add new entries to oid_2_type or modify registration files? Nope.

The testament to OpenNMS as a product is not defined by folks like Gartner. It is defined by each and every person that has a mission to monitor and manage their environment, needs a way to make that happen, and is willing to stick his or her neck out to gain some level of organization in a reactive world of administrating an infrastructure without tools or tools that are ineffective.

All too often, frameworks like HP Openview, CA, BMC and the like are sold to C Level execs as thats where the money is. However, the problems to be solved are at the bottom of the organization. EXACTLY where OpenNMS enters! So what happens is that Open Source products like OpenNMS tend to deliver significant value up front without a significant amount of cash layout. Only after things are working does additional support, training, and potential consulting show up. Again, a totally different Sales model.

If you want to cite ITIL, check out Automations in OpenNMS - Then go back and reference Incident Management in ITIL v2. (Should be an epiphany!)

CMDB ... Why not leave the true modelling of objects and relationships to a true CMDB and leave OpenNMS open to integrate with any one CMDB variation you have? Makes sense to me. I've seen the OpenNMS DB structures and I think that whats there absolutely empowers a TRUE CMDB.

SarBox compliance? You would do the audits just like you'd do on any other product. Only you get to fix it if it doesn't quite "fit" (SarBox is a moving target!)

Openview Operations is much more than a proprietary agent based system. It is, in effect, 2 different products dependent upon platform. And it includes ECS in the OVOU but not in OVOW. It is an event framework using a common data store (Oracle) and a variety of Agents and Smart plugins used to gather events and forward them to a console.

I do appreciate the complement! A Kid! (Tarus - I know you do too!!!) Yup - I've been doing SNMP since it was a Draft. And OVO since V3... And NNM since V2 ... and a whole host of other platforms and tools, like SunNet Manager, MAXM, NetExpert, Nynex Allink, ...

Dougie!!!!