Open source tools to manage IT infrastructure

Now that we know why we need to manage our IT infrastructure, so let’s see how open source can help us on that. There are plenty of open source available namely –

1. Nagios
2. Zenoss
3.  Shinken
4. Icinga

There are many more available but these 4 are the best you can bet on.

Before we start using it lets see how they work –

Generally they have 3 components i.e.

• Core – This handles the monitoring data and does the following to name a few

o   Event handling like sending email alerts for any threshold crossed.

o   Scheduling of the services checks.

o   Logic for checks.

• Plugins – They contains the logic to collect monitoring data from different sources/monitoring elements. We can also call them KMs. They collect the data and pass on the information to the core for further processing.

• Database – They are used to store data for the reporting or the historical purposes. Nagios as default don’t come with the DB support but using plugins it is very much possible.

Let’s see how to collect data from the monitoring elements, there are two modes available (I will be taking Nagios as example) –

• Active checks – These checks are initiated and performed by the monitoring server itself. Not good if you want to scale your monitoring infrastructure.

•  Passive checks – These checks are initiated and performed by the external application and submitted to monitoring server for further processing. They also help you in scaling your monitoring infrastructure. We will discuss these in more detail while covering distributed and redundant monitoring.

Now that we have learned the basics about this tool so let’s start using them. All these tools run on Linux and are available on source code form, so a good understanding of Linux is required. You can Google on how to install source code in Linux. Also you can visit there sites and get the knowhow.

Beware of the dependencies these tool needs to run.

Why we need to manage our IT infrastructure

I have started this blog keeping in mind that it may help people to manage their IT infrastructure using open source. I wont be long and would be covering more details in my coming writeup.

To start with... Why we need to manage our IT infrastructure -

1. We have spent millions of dollars in setting up them.
2. Our business relay on them.
3. To make our business process more secure.
4. Avoid list possible downtime, for smooth business running.

What steps we need to achieve them-

1. Understand your business requirements, and how IT is involve on that.
2. Monitor your infrastructure so that it remains up 24x7
• List down what you want to monitor.
• Choose right tools to support you.
3. Choose appropriate security devices to secure your environment.
4. Follow best practices to manage your infrastructure - for instance ITIL v3.

Things to avoid -

1. Too much of monitoring will kill your environment, so prepare your self with the list you want to monitor.
2. Wrong tool may land you  in trouble, so choose tool wisely.
3. Same thing applies on how much security you want and choose the devices accordingly. Involve your security team while you are making any decisions.
4. Any decision you take should not disrupt your business process.

I am stopping now, but stay tuned while I come up with new writings to share with ....