I'll again respond inline: mlist wrote, On 3/27/2009 10:16 AM: > Before all thanks for your kind and quick reply! > > Ok all your answers are quite clear. > Just some other question: > > A) Scheduled downtime: > In nagios the main advantage of "scheduled downtime" (or maintenance windows > as you prefer to define it...the concept is the same) is NON ONLY the ability > to turnoff emails but, above all, the ability to have detailed statistics. I > mean: > if you have a customer that needs to know the uptime, you can create a report > and, supposing it shows 98% of uptime and 2% of downtime, the customer could > say to you (as alread happened to me!): hey guy could you explain to me > because uptime is not 100%?! > And I kindly replied: > the 2% of dowtime really is distinguished between 1,90% of "schedule dowtime" > (patches applied to servers, hardware maintenance etcc...). and 0,10 of real > problems. So...your uptime is quite perfect! > This is the nagios's default and I think it is an excellent way! :) > That is a good idea, but to my knowledge, Zenoss doesn't currently work that way. Maybe a dev can stop by and clarify.
> C) Samba and encryption protocol > So..Zenoss use samba! This is a great way to work my best compliment to > Zenoss team! > I have only a question about this topic: > In a windows 2003 Active Directory, isn't kerberos the default protocol? I > always thought that when you login to your domain or when you configure a > windows service with a specific domain user (in my case nrpe_nt), you use > KERBEROS and not ntlm. I know this is not a Zenoss questions so...I only ask > you a shor reply about this. > Well, I'm stuck on an NT4 domain still (ugh), so I'm not that versed in AD. I do recall there were 2 methods used, and in 2.3 Zenoss moved from the older method to the newer MS method. As it uses modified Samba code, I think that yes, if you're using AD, then kerberos key exchange might be used. Again, this is beyond my knowledge, so maybe a dev can comment. > D) Webinject,Nagvis and network whatermap > - Webinject > Webinject is a web application test tool. To sum up you can simulate an > entiere transaction. One example: to simulate the login to your webmail and > check for new mail. > It is a nagios plugins already integrated in groudnwork that autocamically > creates rrd files. > Anyway I just founded that Zenoss provide ZenWebTX: > http://www.zenoss.com/community/docs/howtos/monitoring-websites-with-httpmonitor. > It explain at the end of the page: > In addition to the HttpMonitor Core ZenPack, there is another ZenPack related > to web monitoring available for Enterprise customers: ZenWebTX. ZenWebTx > extends Zenoss' web monitoring capabilities beyond the simple uptime, load > time, and size checks available in the Core version. > With ZenWebTx you can have Zenoss navigate through your entire web > application checking for compliance at each step. Multiple timers can be set > along the way to measure response time for each operation of the synthetic > transaction as well as the total time for the entire transaction to complete. > So..I replied by myself Note, there was also a thread recently in the forums about using Twill, another OSS tool with the CORE product to do a scripted website check. http://forums.zenoss.com/viewtopic.php?p=32639#32639 Sadly, it wasn't really expanded on, the poster decided to try Enterprise instead. I plan on eventually playing with Twill, but that might not be for a while. > b) Nagvis is a tool that enable you to import visio (but not only) files and > to have red or gree on this "map". Very useful to identy where the problem is > physically on. > I think Zenoss doesn't incluede it Not as such, no. Zenoss does generate it's own network map based on layer 3 topologies, but you have to let Zenoss discover it, or insert the routes by hand. This might work for you. > d) Network whatermap is a great tool that enable to have a graphical and > realtime rappresentation of your bandwith usage and workflow. Have a look to > him it is very impressive. > I think Zenoss doesn't include it. I agree, Zenoss doesn't currently have anything much like this. However, if you're talking about this: http://www.network-weathermap.com/manual/latest/ couldn't you just point it's config towards the Zenoss generated RRDs? They're pretty much the same as cacti would make I think. > > > So..at the end I'll expose my personal considerations about "groundwork vs > zenoss". Please tell me what you think about it: > Before all I think that in order to give a final sentence you need to know > both products. Anyway my opinion is: > Zenoss commercial version is much more expensive than Groundwork commercial > version but it is definitively superior because provides more and more "out > of the box plugins" (example: websphere doesn't exist for groundwork and I > need it) and the user's interface is much more nice and user friendly. > Zenoss core is much more castrated than groundwork (above all speaking about > wmi that I tested with Zenoss and groundwork both) so..if your businnes > doesn't require commercial version Groundowrk is better otherwise Zenoss > could be a better choise. > Anyway both ot them are great products! > > > Please tell me your opinion! Well, I'll disagree here as I have picked Zenoss Core over the other products in the past, though I don't have your experience with groundwork. So far Zenoss has seemed to be about the most customizable open source product I've seen, though it has its own warts of course. I'm not really sure what you mean with regard to WMI being castrated in Zenoss as it is full WMI access? That is, you can create your own custom queries - for examples, look at the dastrup WMI Zenpack, or the WMIZenpack on the Zenoss site. They pull memory etc off of WMI. Core isn't castrated, just less is done for you. There's a lot of complexity hiding beneath the surface of Zenoss, and you can probably get any data you want from just about any format. Now, you're right in terms of Zenoss not doing the scheduled downtime calculation, and that's a enhancement request (feel free to submit a ticket). That said, Groundwork is a lot cheaper for support. OTOH, we get quite a bit of free community support, and anyone can open a bug report etc. But official support tickets are not cheap. _______________________________________________ zenoss-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.zenoss.org/mailman/listinfo/zenoss-users
