SilverSpore Contributes Core Monitoring Technology to the Open Source Community

SOURCE:  SilverSpore

SilverSpore LLC, an innovator in intelligent IT management solutions, has announced the release of their Spore Monitor compound metric extension to the Open Source community.   Spore Monitor extends the Icinga and Nagios open source monitoring systems, combining multiple measurements into a single check as defined by a simple configuration file.  Demonstration “Monitor Packs” are included in the release, including packs for basic Linux, Windows, and APC Smart-UPS health monitoring.

“We have benefited from the fabulous work done by the Open Source community,” says Rick Bross, CTO of SilverSpore. “As circumstances permit, we are going to give back as much as we can in the coming months and years.”

Spore Monitor is a daemon that is able to create a single measurement and response from multiple SNMP or Windows Management Information metrics.  As such, it provides a way for Systems Administrators to create definitions that can be reused over many different systems.

“Our entire focus is on simplifying the job of IT Administrators,” says Bross. “Spore Monitor allows monitor packs to be written in a simple XML format and shared publicly.  It is surprising how much can be accomplished without requiring the installation of an agent on a server if you have a simple way to combine values on the monitoring machine.  Spore Monitor also has the capability of associating credentials with individual devices. For instance, when a check is executed for a Windows server using WMI, Spore Monitor looks up the system’s credentials automatically.  Icinga and Nagios typically tie credentials to check definitions, which can grow complex pretty quickly.  We hope to create a community for the sharing of these monitoring definitions to everyone’s benefit.”

The Spore Monitor source package is available immediately on SourceForge.net.

Spore Monitor key features

• Integrates seamlessly and simply with Icinga and Nagios
• Can use SNMP and WMI to monitor metrics over the network without the need for installed server agents
• Can mathematically combine measurements into a single check measurement
• Can search for a table entry and use the index in further computations
• Can use a “count” of table entries as a variable in calculations
• Handles credentials on either a global (default) or individual host basis
• Allows custom output formatting and thresholds
• Has optional plug-in capability to encrypt credential storage
• Supports pnp4nagios custom graph definitions

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