On February 19th Zenoss will be conducting our first Zenoss Community Day of 2010 in Los Angeles as a precursor to the 8th annual Southern California Linux Expo (SCaLE 8x).

Here are the details:

Event: Zenoss Community Day
Date: February 19th, 2010
Time: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Where: Los Angeles Airport Westin
Room: Concourse Ballroom

5400 West Century Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90045
Phone: (310) 216-5858
Fax: (310) 417-4545

Cost? – It’s Free

There will be no cost to the attendees. Space is limited though so please sign-up so we can confirm your spot via email.

Why Attend?

Zenoss will be offering a free training session to help Zenoss community members install and use the award-winning open source network monitoring tool, Zenoss Core. The class will be led by our Community Manager, Matt Ray and Zenoss Support Engineer, Nathaniel McCallum. Comic relief will be provided by Zenoss VP of Community Mark Hinkle. We would like everyone that leaves the event to have a good understanding of how Zenoss works and to be able to successfully manage their network using Zenoss award-winning open source tools.

Zenoss will also supply lunch, snacks and drinks, plus plenty of free Zenoss stuff (t-shirts and other tchotzkes).

Schedule

This is the tentative schedule for the event, we will provide lunch and breaks as needed. Since the event is for your benefit we are happy to adapt to meet the needs of the attendees.

9:00 – 9:15 - Welcome – Mark Hinkle, Zenoss, VP of Community
9:15 – 12:00 – Introduction to Zenoss – Nathaniel McCallum

• Zenoss Core Overview
• Installing Zenoss Core
• Zenoss Architecture
• Adding Devices to Zenoss

12:00 -1:00 – Lunch (provided by Zenoss)
1:00 – 3:30 – Configuring and Using Zenoss
3:30 – 4:30 – Questions and Answers about all things Zenoss
4:30 – 5:30 – Happy Hour (Beverages provided by Zenoss)

Don’t forget to sign-up we will need to get an accurate headcount for the event. If you have questions or require additional information contact community@zenoss.com.

The Southern California Linux Expo

We would like to thank the Southern California Linux Expo for all their support and encourage you to consider attending this excellent open source event on the following days.

The folks at Greenlight CA highlighted the SSH monitoring capabilities of Zenoss Core on their blog this week. It's always nice to see how our community is using Zenoss in print (or technically in HTML):

"For years we have been using  Zenoss to monitor our managed systems with great success. One of its key features is the ability to use SSH to monitor remote servers. SSH by its very nature has been subject to far more scrutiny over it’s life then protocols like WMI and SNMP, it is by its very nature meant to be exposed to the internet. By tunneling our monitoring over SSH we are able to leverage that security for our customers and our own peace of mind."

The Zenoss Core project recently hit the 1 million downloads mark on SourceForge. That means on average someone downloads Zenoss every 90 seconds. These downloads have translated into over 1M  managed servers & network devices, and 75K active end users from over 23K  organizations across 175 countries . Needless to say we’re thrilled with the up-take over the past 27 months. This is a good sign that we are moving the ball forward in enterprise IT operations and there is clearly a lot of interest in better ways of managing infrastructure.

Thanks

In recognition of the milestone, I want to first give our heartfelt thanks to everyone in the Zenoss community who has taken the time to try the software and contribute in the various ways that you do. Thank you. You have had an enormous impact. Without you, Zenoss is just another IT management software company. Together we are changing the game in infrastructure ops.

I’d like to highlight and thank a few of our Predictive Threshold who have truly gone above and beyond.Your personal impact has have been enormous.

• Users Helping Users -We are grateful for all who given their time and insights to help other users on the Zenoss Forums. Much gratitude to James Pulver, the leading forum poster with a whopping 1600+ posts! He’s the Zenoss answer man as well as the maintainer of the Range Threshold.
• ZenPack Contributors – We are excited to have over 100 user-contributed ZenPacks now in the community library. Thanks to all who have made their mark. Special thanks to Eric J. Edgar, Egor Puzanov and Wouter D’Haeseleer – who are far and away our most prolific ZenPack contributors with several each.
• Spreading the Word – Many have been instrumental in spreading the word about Zenoss in your organizations and beyond. Thank you. We’d like to particularly thank David Nalley, an active Fedora community member, whose support of Zenoss helped us land on the cover of Linux Pro Magazine and those of you who have endorsed us and Kudos (especially Michael Loven who has written the what is clearly the Testimonials from our Users of Zenoss
• Train the Trainer – Jane Curry, a tireless writer, a long time IBM Tivoli trainer who has done thorough reviews of all the leading Open Source Monitoring products picking Zenoss as the clear standout. She has also started to teach courses on how to use Zenoss more effectively.
• Partner Projects – Finally I want to recognize our community partners who help provide critical infrastructure and integration with Zenoss, they include Tobias Oetiker of the RRDTool project, the Python community, the Twisted Project, and all developers of open source software that power Zenoss.

Vitality

So… what’s the meaning of having 1M downloads?

As users evaluate alternatives to manage their networks, servers and applications they vote with their mouse clicks.Having a lot of downloads means that the target audience is aware of you and is intrigued enough to at least try the product. The download is the precursor to adoption, participation and contribution (and of course commercialization). Since the lifeblood of any open source project is the community involvement (along with the health of the business who is enabling the community), downloads can function as a reasonable proxy for relevance, health and momentum. While there is no gold standard for downloads (and there is plenty that has to go right after the download), when sustained over time they are a useful indicator.

Since many download metrics are published through Sourceforge and other sources, it can be useful to compare other projects who are focused on the same or similar markets. In the enterprise IT management realm, Sourceforge reports that Zenoss Core has 3-4 times more downloads than Hyperic and Groundwork over the last 2 years. In analogous B2B markets, both Alfresco and SugarCRM took approximately same amount of time as we did to get to 1M downloads. Good company. Vital projects.  Strong growing businesses.

Right Track

The other key take away from hitting the 1M download mark is that says we are focused on something worthwhile that real people care about.  Since the interest has sustained over time, it also suggests that we doing at least a few things right.   Our goal at Zenoss is to make it much easier to monitor and management large, dynamic IT environments.  This is a big problem that many people talk about.  While we have miles to go to in realizing our complete mission, we are making solid progress one download at a time.

Bill Karpovich, Founder and CEO
And the entire Zenoss Team
Catch Me on Twitter: @wkarpovich

To help kick off the new Zenoss 2.4 is Now Available!, we’ve decided to jumpstart the creation of new ZenPacks with another Community ZenPack Contest.  2009 has already been off to a great start, there are new ZenPacks for HP ProLiant Monitor ZenPack, Printer Toner, an Event Views Portlet, and even several new reports.  In the Forums there are a wide variety of ZenPacks being discussed and tested, but we wanted to really kickstart the process. So we’re announcing a “Summer of Community ZenPacks Contest” with not 1, but 5 great prizes!

What is the Submit a ZenPack Contest?

Community contributed ZenPacks have typically consisted of new monitoring solutions, but did you know that ZenPacks can do even more than that? We’re looking for as many useful submissions as possible, monitoring something not yet covered, improvements to existing ZenPacks or extending Zenoss to provide new functionality. And to mark the extended SSH capabilities in Zenoss 2.4, we’re giving double credit to entries that monitor devices via SSH. It doesn’t have to be overly complex, but don’t let that stop you from going wild. There are a lot of ZenPacks that are being tested or have yet to been submitted to Zenoss for hosting, so this contest is your chance to show off your chops and possibly win a great prize.

Getting Started

ZenPacks
Community ZenPack Repository
Zenoss Developer’s Guide
Zenoss Extended Monitoring Guide
How to Create an SSH ZenPack
ZenPack Discussion Forum/Mailing list

The Prizes

The grand prize is a QNAP TS-409 Pro Turbo NAS (Network Attached Storage) device, geeky yet cool.  The QNAP TS-409 Pro is a 4-bay, hot-swappable, Linux embedded NAS Server specifically designed for users who need fast performance, mass storage, and useful server features with a variety of RAID options. It supports multiple file sharing protocols for sharing files across Linux, Unix, Mac, and Windows platforms as well as Windows Active Directory. With the dual support of MySQL and SQLite, users can easily set up their own web and database servers. Encrypted remote replication and backups to external devices are supported to enhance data protection. Various data storage and management mechanisms- FTP server with SSL/TLS encrypted technology, SSH login, and web page SSL login enable users to transfer, store, and share data securely.

The runner-ups will receive an open source Chumby interactive media player. The Chumby client is a Linux-based, open-source platform that is very hackable and very extensible. The Chumby can be used with a wide assortment of widgets and has an active hacker community.

The Rules

Contributed ZenPacks should be Zenoss 2.2-style .eggs. So that we would be able to potentially include the ZenPack in a future release of Zenoss, please consider filling out our contribution form. If you’ve previously filled it out, you do not need to do so again.  Send an email to community@zenoss.com with the title “Submit a ZenPack Contest” with your name, the attached ZenPack and any documentation you would like to include. Submissions for the Zenoss Submit a ZenPack Contest are open until August 15th at which time our judges will select a grand-prize winner, 2 runner-ups and and draw randomly from all entries for the other 2 prizes. Multiple entries are allowed and encouraged. You will get one entry for each ZenPack submitted, 2 entry credits for SSH-based entries.

Special Bonus

If you have a blog and you post your Zenoss ZenPack with a link back to the ZenPacks page we will enter your tip in the drawing twice (Please be sure to include the comment in your email submission and include the trackback link for this post in your blog entry).  Winners will be contacted via email and announced on the blog shortly after the August 15th deadline.

I was happy to check my newsreader this morning and saw some recent chatter about Zenoss in the blogosphere. Here’s a few nice articles about Zenoss and other issues related to Zenoss.

Savannah W-ITS: Zenoss – Open Source Monitoring Solution

Dale Reagan gives Zenoss the once over with a nice critique of Zenoss Core. As a self-described disruptive user Dale notes:

After a few days of running Zenoss I find it to be a reasonable approach for application, system or network monitoring.

Prior to installing Zenoss I did a simple review of a number of other Open Source monitoring solutions.  Zenoss was the only new one that made it to my explore-it-further list (some had been previously reviewed) – all of the others had features that I don’t care for (too tech heavy, with reliance on too many breakable components) or lacked features I am interested in (or simply lacked what I was require in basic documentation.)

Why the Enterprise will use Open Source in the Cloud

Atlanta cloud expert John M. Willis (what’s the m stand for? the “Man”) mentioned Zenoss in his blog:

They are also using open source monitoring tools like Collectd or Zenoss for making autonomic configuration and provisioning decisions. Even the PaaS on the IaaS vendors like RightScale and Elastra are using open source tools and not proprietary solutions to solve the elasticity problems.

Things to Consider When Planning Your Application System and Software Architecture for Scalability Over Time

Kent Langley also has been discussing how to build scalable systems giving Zenoss the nod for the right situations:

Monitoring process, resources, and uptime – I could probably write an entire article just about this subject. Monitoring done right is generally divided into three parts.

1. Process Monitoring – This makes sure things are running and stay running within certain tolerances. Examples are God, Monit, SMF.
2. Resource Monitoring – This is fine grained CPU, Memory, Disk Space, Disk IO, Networking, etc. Examples are Nagios, Ganglia, Munin, ZenOSS. Choosing correctly depends on your specific situation.
3. UpTime Monitoring – This is the only monitor people usually do if they do any at all. This should be a disinterested 3rd party to provide accountability and what I call a 3rd party eye in the sky should any dispute about uptime arise.  I like webmetrics and pingdom at the moment as reasonably priced services that add good value.

Thanks for the mentions fellas and keep blogging.

The Zenoss Submit a ZenPack, Win Fabulous Prizes! is in its last week and we have gotten a tremendous Community response. We have had a total of 18 entries so far, and time is running out to get your entries in to win an Asus Eee PC laptop. Here are the last 5 entries since the last The Submit a ZenPack Contest is rolling.

NetApp Volume ZenPack
NetApp Volume
Updated by Community member Eric Becker, this is a refresh to Nathaniel McCallum’s NetApp Volume ZenPack with improvements to scalability and large volumes.

Show Graph Portlet ZenPack
Show Graph Portlet
Submitted by Community member Anton Menshutin, this ZenPack adds a portlet called “Show Graph” which enables users to show any graph/multi graph reports on their dashboard. Several columns (as defined in report options) are supported.

Cisco Interfaces ZenPack

Community member Chris Krough has submitted this Cisco Interfaces ZenPack.
* Adds Products/CiscoInterfaces/modeler/plugins/CiscoInterfaceMap.py which recognizes the interface types for these templates
* On interfaces types which have a graph defined, most of the graph commands will be pulled from the Custom Graph Definition.

Cyclades Console Servers ZenPack
Cyclades Console Servers
Submitted by Community member Colin ‘chudler’ Hudler, this ZenPack is for Cyclades Console servers. It has been tested against Alterpath Cyclades (Avocent) ACS48 Devices, but should work against any Cyclades ACSxx device.

Powerware UPS Monitoring ZenPack
Powerware UPS
Provided by Community member Alexander Vorobiyov, this ZenPack provides voltages stats, load, ambient temperature, battery capacity and more for Powerware UPS products. UPS status is found through the the SNMP oids.

For this and other ZenPacks, check out the ZenPacks site:

ZenPacks

Thanks Eric, Anton, Chris, Colin and Alexander!

Just two weeks in and we’ve already got 4 great entries with more ZenPacks in the queue. Keep sending Zenoss your ZenPacks for a chance to win an Asus Eee PC laptop. Read up on the Submit a ZenPack Contest.

ASSP Anti-Spam monitor ZenPack
submitted by Community member Andrea ‘konsa79′ Consadori. With this ZenPack you can monitor your ASSP antispam information:

* SMTP Connection Accepted and Rejected
* Messages Passed and Rejected
* Message statistic (SPF Failure, RBL Failure)

MIB Browser ZenPack
submitted by Community member Kells ‘kpg123′ Kearney. This ZenPack is a graphical MIB navigator and OID browser with extended MIB functionality:

* Download and Install MIBs remotely
* MIB Navigator
* SNMP testing
* and much more

OpenLayers Map portlet ZenPack

submitted by Community member Nikolai Georgiev. The OpenLayers Map portlet adds a new portlet to Zenoss Dashboard, similar to Google Maps portlet. It’s useful for locations with poor Google Maps coverage. You must use latitude and longitude in the address fields to get it to map.

OpenLayers Map portlet ZenPack on SourceForge

Improved Linux monitoring ZenPack
submitted by Community member Randy Smith. The ImprovedLinux monitoring ZenPack provides more information for Linux hosts that take advantage of the mibs provided by net-snmpd.

For this and other ZenPacks, check out the ZenPacks site.

Thanks Andrea, Kells, Nikolai and Randy!