The latest development in
IT Services Management tools may well be the
release of Zenoss Core 4 (see this
Press Release).
Zenoss is a component-level IT monitoring tool with two versions: Zenoss
Core, a free and Open Source product, and the commercial version, Zenoss
Enterprise, which is sold by Zenoss Inc., the corporate sponsor of Zenoss Core. Large distributed IT departments will probably consider Zenoss Enterprise as it extends the Core with multiple collectors. As always, all components of the Zenoss 4 architecture are built from Open Source tools.
Major improvements in the new release include:
- enhanced ZenPing suppression (essentially, the python code in ZenPing was rewritten to include better layer 3 link attributes)
- NMAP for ICMP packet generation
- a new auto-deploy script, making Zenoss Core 4 easier to install than past releases
The new release is initially available as the Core version.
Zenoss Service Dynamics version 4.2.2, which provides additional
analytics and resource management capabilities, is set to be released later this year.
Today's dynamic data center relies crucially on virtualization and cloud services,
and Zenoss continues to advance in that direction. For an overview of the
features of the Enterprise product, check out the
ZenossSolution Overview Brochure.
I have found Zenoss to be a near perfect tool to help IT departments meet their
monitoring needs in a more cost-effective manner. While my focus today is on Microsoft SCOM, Orchestrator and Service Manager, I encourage you to consider Zenoss as a long-term, thoroughly professional alternative.
