Category → dependencies
October 17th, 2012
Zero Configuration Discovery and Server Monitoring in the Assimilation Monitoring Project
Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could just drop a monitoring package onto your servers with no configuration at all, and it all started up, began monitoring your servers, discovered your services, dependencies and switch port connections all without you doing anything - with practically no load on your monitoring servers, and without setting off any network alarms? You can now do that with the Assimilation Monitoring Project. Really. For the skeptics and geeks out there (you know who you are!), this blog post tells you how it works in some detail.By Alan R. • Posted in #monitoringthatdoesntsuck, Assimilation, availability, CDP, client-server, commercial software, complexity, computer operations, dependencies, devops, discovery, FOSS, Free Software, graph database, graph schema, IT management, linux, Linux-HA, LLDP, monitoring, Neo4J, netstat, network management, network security, NOC, open source software, OSS, OSS / Free Software, reliability, scalability, security, TCP/IP, Technorati Tags: #monitoringsucks, usability UDP/IP • Comments Off
September 17th, 2012
Assimilation Monitoring LinuxCon Video
I mentioned a few weeks ago that my talk at LinuxCon in San Diego had been very well received. Thanks to some good friends, we also created a video of the event, and this week I want to point you to the final cut of that video. This talk is a great introduction to the Assimilation Monitoring Project.By Alan R. • Posted in #monitoringthatdoesntsuck, /proc, Assimilation, availability, CDP, client-server, complexity, computer operations, dependencies, devops, discovery, FOSS, Free Software, graph database, graph schema, IT management, linux, Linux-HA, LLDP, monitoring, monitoringsucks, Neo4J, netstat, network management, network security, NOC, open source software, OSS, OSS / Free Software, reliability, scalability, security, TCP/IP, usability • Comments Off
August 30th, 2012
Injecting Nanoprobes into Servers – What’s that about?
I've recently had some people who have asked about the how nanoprobes work – are they clients, or what exactly are they? They start out like clients, and behave in some ways like peers, and maybe a bit like servers. So what the heck are they? The simplest explanation is that they are autonomous delegates of the central management authority. Read on to find out more about how this unconventional model works and why this authority model is key to unprecedented scalability and stealth discovery™ in the discovery-driven Assimilation monitoring project.By Alan R. • Posted in #monitoringthatdoesntsuck, /proc, Assimilation, availability, CDP, client-server, complexity, computer operations, dependencies, devops, discovery, FOSS, Free Software, graph database, graph schema, IT management, linux, Linux-HA, LLDP, monitoring, monitoringsucks, Neo4J, netstat, network management, network security, NOC, open source software, OSS, OSS / Free Software, reliability, scalability, security, TCP/IP, usability • Comments Off
August 6th, 2012
Discovering Switches: It’s amazing what you can learn just by listening…
We recently added code to discover switches, switch ports and settings - all in the Steath DiscoveryTM way - without sending out any packets at all! So now you know which switches and which switch ports every monitored server is plugged into. As a bonus we pick up some interesting configuration information on your switch and your particular switch port - just by perking our ears up and listening... Now when you send someone to the closet to do something to your switch port, there is no doubt which port is yours - regardless of that little mistake in the cross-connects, or that tiny error in documentation. [Anyone want to write an iPad switch mapping app for this?]By Alan R. • Posted in #monitoringthatdoesntsuck, /proc, Assimilation, availability, CDP, client-server, complexity, computer operations, dependencies, devops, discovery, FOSS, Free Software, graph database, graph schema, IT management, linux, Linux-HA, LLDP, monitoring, monitoringsucks, Neo4J, netstat, network management, network security, NOC, open source software, OSS, OSS / Free Software, reliability, scalability, security, TCP/IP, usability • Comments Off
July 30th, 2012
Clients, Servers and Dependencies, Oh My!
One of the things that people have gotten most excited about in the Assimilation Monitoring Project in the area of discovery is the discovery of clients, servers and particularly dependencies. That code is now in the Assimilation code base. We discover client processes, server processes, and their interconnections. In this post, I'll explore how this works and what this looks like in the Neo4j graph database in this article. These dependencies are discovered without port scanning or packet sniffing - using Stealth DiscoveryTM methods.By Alan R. • Posted in #monitoringthatdoesntsuck, /proc, Assimilation, availability, client-server, complexity, computer operations, dependencies, devops, discovery, FOSS, Free Software, graph database, IT management, linux, Linux-HA, monitoring, monitoringsucks, netstat, network security, NOC, open source software, OSS, OSS / Free Software, reliability, scalability, security, TCP/IP, usability • Comments Off