Zenoss Overview

As you probably know, dear readers, I occasionally write a piece over on SearchDataCenter.com. Recently, I wrote-up a general introduction and overview to Zenoss as the first in a series on open source IT Management tools. Here’s the first few paragraphs:

Open source software and widespread instrumentation have lowered the costs of producing IT management software. Open source systems management companies are using the free nature of an open source product, coupled with the cheap distribution the Web enables, to boot-strap their businesses.

Once that software is written and distributed, the open source-led communities around these startups help fuel the growing breadth of functionality for each product’s ecosystem. Rather than relying on one vendor and, at best, a handful of partners to develop proprietary extensions to these platforms, open source-based communities tend to contribute code for these extensions. Once such company is Zenoss. Based in Annapolis, Md., with offices in Austin, Texas, Zenoss has worked since 2005 to develop an open source IT management stack that excels in monitoring a data center’s infrastructure layer.

Check out the rest of it, if you’re interested ;>

Disclosure: Zenoss is a client.