From OpenNMS

OpenNMS Terms and Definitions

inspired by http://www.adventuresinoss.com/?p=1874

• Node - a physical or virtual entity performing interesting functions

• Service - a process that performs a useful function within a node. see http://www.opennms.org/wiki/Category:Service_Pollers

• Polling - checking the status of a service, see http://www.opennms.org/wiki/Pollerd

• Monitoring - periodically evaluating polling or collection data to determine status or health of a node or groups of nodes

• Collecting - retrieving information from a node, see http://www.opennms.org/wiki/Collectd

• Remote Polling - polling from a non-centralized location. example: polling all nodes within the remote end of a vpn or behind a firewall using a light-weight distributed polling engine that reports status to a centralized NMS, see http://www.opennms.org/wiki/Remote_Poller

• Remote Monitoring - polling a centralized system from a remote location (or locations). example: multiple remote sites monitoring the status of a centralized NMS system, or "checking your stuff from the interwebs"