Inside OpenNMS

I spend a good portion of my life working on a free software project and so, perhaps it’s because I grew up during the 60′s, that the word “free” in free software helps connote to me the freedom aspect of free vs. gimme that for free.

Free software is free to use, distribute, and even sell.  If you purchase software from Red Hat, you’re essentially buying a brand and what that brand means to you: confidence, continuity, quality, support, trust… in other words value.

v = b-c

In software sales ease, the value (v) is the benefit (b) something brings you minus what it costs (c).

So, by simply using free software, at no cost, that immediately increases value if you get the benefits you’re seeking. Such a case can be made for CentOS vs. Red Hat.  However, if you’re looking for qualified services and support and the backing of a company like Red Hat can provide, and it’s provided well, then supporting a revenue model like subscriptions or packaging/distribution fee(s) can, for many, increase the benefit enough to more than offset the cost and still provide value.

Tarus discussed in his blog this week, in a way that only he can, his zeal for free software and his dislike of what he calls “open source shareware”.  He calls it open source shareware because not all the software is open, and, in an opinion we both share, decreases its benefit as a free software project and, obviously, increases its cost.  However, I do believe, and many attempts are being made in the market today, that a case can be made for value under this model.

The trick for the companies selling software, shareware or not, is to be able to articulate and provide benefits in different ways than what free software provides.  Certainly, Oracle and Microsoft do this well so, I suspect, this model can be made successful, too.

In Tarus’ blog this week, he also mentions getting some concerned feedback from our friends at Hyperic about his comments this week.  When I say friends, it means that we have met personally, spent a good deal of time together, and realized, right away, that we have a lot in common and truly enjoyed each others company.  We also discovered that while our business models are different, they have a lot more in common.

One statement that Javier made, when we first met, that struck me at first as funny then quite enlightening was that we couldn’t have picked a tougher software market to compete in… the network and systems management market.  After having spent 12 years as a consultant and software engineer in this space, I couldn’t agree more!

So, today, I want to close out the week and blog about some network and systems management “love”.  Back to my 60′s reference, perhaps I can redefine free love .  Working with one of our enterprise support customers, we put together a project for end-to-end monitoring using OpenNMS and its distributed transaction monitors as well as an agent based technology to monitor the internals of Java based applications.  Hence, end-to-end, monitoring combining the use of agent-less and agent-based monitoring technologies.

As friends do, I first turned to Hyperic and really got to know their software.  As a consultant, I found the software to be just what we needed and recommended it to the customer.  The next step, integration.  Matt and I have been been burning the candle at both ends to make delivery early so that we an show some love to our friends at Hyperic… and, get paid by our customer, hehe.

So, today, I’m proud to announce that OpenNMS now supports an integration with Hyperic HQ that could have only been done with open source software and, no less important, enterprise quality software.  How nice.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

 Hyperic Integration

Hey OpenNMS fans, I just checked in a cool new service monitor for the new year, the Mail Transport Monitor (MTM).

This monitor implements the OpenNMS ServiceMonitor API but goes a bit further up the stack.  Its behavior is to monitor the availability and performance of an email service as an end-to-end transaction.

Typically, OpenNMS Service Monitors test the availability of a service by exercising it with basic protocol interaction and/or by watching for response banners. In this end-to-end transaction, an email can be sent to a recipient via an SMTP server at one location and tested for receipt the message at the same or another server.

The first monitor with this end-to-end capability in OpenNMS was the Page Sequence Monitor. It has the ability to execute a Web transaction by navigating with the HTTP/HTTPS protocol to multiple site(s), completing forms (such as logins), following redirects, and matching the content of pages. The MTM is similar in that it can monitor the round-trip of an email transmission.

Here is a sample graph I created today by running this monitor on my laptop to test a transaction that represents sending myself a message through the OpenNMS SMTP server and reading it from my Gmail POP3 mail store:

I’ve often stated that documentation is the bane of all software development.  Well, that statement certainly rings true for OpenNMS developers and this year I intend to help fix that.

A couple of years ago, The OpenNMS Group created a Wiki for the OpenNMS project so that the community could contribute documentation in the form of HowTos, FAQs, and examples of cool configuration found using the software.  While this provides a good resource for users that are looking for answers to questions they have about a specific feature for function of the software, the Wiki really isn’t as comprehensive or as digestible as something like a well organized users guide.

A few contributors have undertook the huge effort of reorganizing the the wiki into a format that is easier to navigate.  This is a difficult project, yet, one that can be successful provided there is continued leadership and the Wiki is well maintained.  These attempts are helping, however, they still not only have a significant amount of work ahead, I personally don’t think of a wiki as a substitute for a software’s user’s guide.

The Wiki will always be more up to date with the latest and greatest and contain more details and examples than a guide.  However, when I’m introduced to something new, I really want to be able to brew some coffee, snuggle up to a comprehensive and well organized text, and start gettin some learnin!

So, what fueled my fire to get moving, again, on this project?  Did I wake up on the Jan 1, 2008 with nothing to do and say, “Hey Dave, let’s write some documentation?”  Well, for reasons other than being busier than ever, those that know me also know this couldn’t be farther from the truth… I love to hate writing.

And yet, here I am, blogging this year and planning for a year in hell writing documentation. The fuel for this effort was provided a couple of days prior to the new year when an inquiry came to our sales mailbox.

“Please provide information about the features of OpenNMS.“

Now, we get inquires like these everyday to this mailbox asking about the services The OpenNMS Group provides as well as requests for demos of the software.  We also get the random requests, “Please be telling me how I do this?”, or “I have this problem with configuring thresholds, please help.”

Well the biggest problem with those inquiries is that someone would actually write to “SALES” for technical support!… but, I digress.  What we usually do is kindly respond by pointing them to the public forums and sometimes even a link relative content on wiki.  We also explain the aspects of our commercial support agreements.

This inquiry seemed to be one of those, “give them a quick link and some info about commercial support and send them on their way”, kind of replies.  What stopped me? There isn’t a quick link.  So, I immediately started two projects, an article titled “Project OpenNMS” for just such inquiries and the beginnings a new user’s guide.

Here is an Abstract to the article and I’ll keep you posted on its completion and when drafts are available for the user’s guide.