Nagios is an open source network monitoring tool. Nagios goes absolutely free, it is powerful and flexible open source software. It can be tricky to learn and implement, but can reduce enormously the amount of time required to keep track of how your organization's IT infrastructure is performing.

Nagios tools go by the generic name of network management software, and all share the capability to:

1. Keep track of all the services and machines running in the infrastructure;
2. Raise alerts before small problems become large ones;
3. Run from a central location to reduce the need to physically go to each machine; and,
4. Provide a visual representation of system-wide status, outstanding problems, etc.

Two main problems keep network management software from being more widely used:

• It tends to be extremely expensive; and,
• It requires significant work to configure for a given environment.

Nagios is an open source network management tool that solves the first problem. It too, requires a fair amount of configuration.

The Nagios application runs on Linux or Unix servers. Each piece of hardware that must be monitored runs a Nagios daemon that communicates with the central server. Depending on the instructions in the configuration files the central server reads, it will "reach out and touch" the remote daemon to instruct it to run a necessary check. While the application must run on Linux or Unix, the remote machines may be any piece of hardware that may be communicated with.

Depending upon the response from the remote machine, Nagios will then respond with an appropriate action, again, according to its configuration. Depending upon what remote test needs to be performed, Nagios will perform the test via a native machine capability (e.g., test to see if a file exists) or will run a custom test program (called a plugin) to test something more specific (e.g., check to see if a particular set of values has been placed into a database). If a check return value is not correct, Nagios will raise an alert via one or several methods -- again, according to how it has been configured.

Nagios frankly speaking is not very good but it's better than most of the alternatives. After all, you could spend tons of bucks on HP OpenView or Tivoli and still be faced with the same amount of work to customize it into a useful state. I can recommend free network monitoring by Dotcom Monitor. They offers free, 30-day trial and paid subscription. And you don't need special skills to configure your server. Support works 24 hours per day.

When it comes to your broadband connection Google wants you to know that it has your back. The Internet giant is developing a suite of tools to help broadband users identify traffic discrimination by their Internet service providers. "We're trying to develop tools, software tools...that allow people to detect what's happening with their broadband connections, so they can let (ISPs) know that they're not happy with what they're getting--that they think certain services are being tampered with," Google Senior Policy Director Richard Whitt said Friday morning during a panel discussion at the Innovation '08 conference in Santa Clara, Calif. "If the broadband providers aren't going to tell you exactly what's happening on their networks, we want to give users the power to find out for themselves."

Whitt argues that innovation among application developers will stagnate without neutral networks, and he wants to see consumers join an "arms race" for Net neutrality--the idea that network operators shouldn't be allowed to discriminate against content or applications or charge extra fees.

"The forces aligned against us are real. They've been there for decades. Their pockets are deep. Their connections are strong with those in Washington," he said. "Maybe we can turn this into an arms race on the application software side rather a political game."

Whitt would not say when the tools will be available or how they would work, but did indicate that Google engineers had been working on them for a while.

The issue came to a head last August when TorrentFreak reported that Comcast was surreptitiously interfering with file transfers by posing as one party and then, essentially, hanging up the phone. Comcast denied the allegation, but tests conducted by the Associated Press showed Comcast was actively interfering with peer-to-peer networks even if relatively small files were being transferred.

In response, the Federal Communications Commission announced it would investigate the charges, and in May, a bill was re-introduced into Congress that would rewrite U.S. antitrust law to prohibit network operators like AT&T and Comcast from blocking, impairing, or discriminating against "lawful" Internet content, applications, and services or from charging extra fees for "prioritization or enhanced quality of service."

Google has long argued that it's necessary to enact new regulations barring such activity, while broadband operators like AT&T and Comcast counter that the market will solve any perceived problems.

 

GÉANT2, the high bandwidth, pan-European research and education network, has announced the release of the latest software bundle that is used to deliver the perfSONAR multi-domain monitoring (MDM) service across a number of key European National Research and Education Network (NREN) sites.
  This release is the result of collaborative efforts from 11 different organisations around the world and forms the first stage of the full deployment of the perfSONAR MDM service across the whole GÉANT2 pan-European backbone.

The perfSONAR MDM service enables fast troubleshooting by providing secure, user-friendly access to standardised network performance metrics from multiple domains. Using its out-of-the-box or customised web-interfaces, network problems and performance bottlenecks can be tracked and resolved, and potential performance issues can be identified. Specifically, information that network administrators access through perfSONAR MDM has the same meaning across the board enabling operators to discuss problems which span multiple domain boundaries on a communal basis and to collaborate more successfully.

International research collaboration is now reliant on high speed connections across multiple local, national and international networks. This growing complexity makes being able to pinpoint and eliminate problems much more difficult, due to the number of dissimilar networks involved. The new state-of-the art perfSONAR tools and infrastructure have therefore been created to enable network administrators to quickly find and deal with issues, irrespective of domain and location, to ensure fast, reliable and uninterrupted connections at all times for researchers across Europe.

Dai Davies, General Manager, DANTE said: “Today’s researchers need to be able to collaborate with their peers around the world, at high speed and in real-time. Consequently, the complexity of working across multiple networks spanning thousands of miles and disparate protocols must not interfere with research work. The perfSONAR MDM tool avoids downtime by allowing fast diagnosis and correction of network problems, wherever they occur. As a result, this will help increase the level of high speed research networking and collaboration across the globe.”

The perfSONAR MDM bundle comprises a full package of open-source based software, usage support and deployment/configuration support. It is currently aimed at network administrators in the global research community with the future option of deployment in the commercial sector.

perfSONAR MDM is made up of an advanced user interface layer, a modular set of web services to access performance metrics and a layer of domain-specific measurement tools. These can all be accessed through a range of visualisation tools which allow users to query and view network end-to-end performance data in an intuitive, user-friendly way.

About GÉANT2:
GÉANT2 is an advanced pan-European backbone network that interconnects National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) across Europe. With an estimated 30 million research and education users in 34 countries across the continent connected via the NRENs, GÉANT2 offers unrivalled geographical coverage, high bandwidth, innovative hybrid networking technology and a range of user-focused services, making it the most advanced international network in the world. Together with the NRENs it connects, GÉANT2 has links totalling more than 50,000km in length and its extensive geographical reach interconnects networks in other world regions to enable global research collaboration. Europe’s academics and researchers can exploit dedicated GÉANT2 point-to-point links, creating optical private networks that connect specific research centres.

GÉANT2 is co-funded by the European Commission under the EU’s Sixth Research and Development Framework Programme. The project partners are 30 European National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), TERENA and DANTE. GÉANT2 is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’s NRENs.

About DANTE:
DANTE is a non-profit organisation, co-funded by the European Commission and working in partnership with European National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) to plan, build and operate advanced networks for research and education. Established in 1993, DANTE has been fundamental to the success of pan-European research and education networking. DANTE has built and operates GÉANT2, which provides the data communications infrastructure essential to the success of many research projects in Europe. DANTE is involved in worldwide initiatives to interconnect countries in the other regions to one another and to GÉANT2. DANTE currently manages projects focussed on the Mediterranean, Latin American and Asia-Pacific regions through the EUMEDCONNECT, ALICE and TEIN2 projects, respectively.

About PerfSONAR:
perfSONAR is a joint collaboration between GÉANT2, Internet2, ESnet and RNP and the wider consortium consists of more than twenty partners, that seek to build network performance middleware that is interoperable across multiple networks and useful for intra-network and inter-network analysis. One of the main goals is to make it easier to solve end-to-end performance problems on paths crossing several networks. For more information and full technical specifications please visit www.perfsonar.net. To download the latest perfSONAR MDM software see PerfSONAR.

My guesses for what would constitute the bulk of the show news this week at IBM's 2008 Rational Software Developer Conference seem to have been mostly accurate. It’s teams, it’s collaboration and it’s integration – all within a ‘transparent’ process of course.

Rational Software general manager Danny Sabbah is going for broke on the soundbite front and we’ve already had, “We’ve moved from a time when the network is the computer – to a time when the network is the team,” and the even snappier, “You’ve got two ears and one mouth and it’s that way round for a reason.”

t’s bigger this year though: 3500 developers, 300 sessions across 14 tracks and more Jazz-related product announcements than you can easily digest in a single serving. Note: it may just be a US-UK language thing, but when IBM says that most of its Rational portfolio will incorporate Jazz technology over the “next several years” – is that because they didn’t like to say “next few years”, or because they wanted to leave the door open for some ambiguity?

Open-source nirvana

Either way, we’re being urged to read Eric Raymond's book The Cathedral and the Bazaar this week as it details the move from the “confines and restrictions” of the cathedral to the “openness” of the bazaar. This tome will no doubt already be well known to those who seek enlightenment on the path towards open-source methodology nirvana.

The latest musings on the subject of software development as a whole made for pretty interesting listening at this morning’s keynote – and in between various dancers, comedians and speakers we got an insight into what IBM sees as the “state of the application environment” in 2008.

According to Dr Sabbah, we’re currently we’re looking at a situation with high maintenance costs, too many versions from too many vendors - and all this leads to poor visibility into our portfolios and unchecked proliferation of software that is often updated and replaced, but should really be retired.

Not making the big splash keynote headlines of some of this week’s announcements but definitely interesting was a quick chat I had with IBM’s Laura Bennett who is the senior software engineering manager of alphaWorks.

Over the last year, alphaWorks focus on early prototypes (some of which migrate to IBM developerWorks) has been extended to be more available to the student community. Although Bennett describes these with IBM terminologies such as ‘a new delivery model’ and ‘service’, essentially what it means is that a new communication channel is open for students of software engineering (in all its forms) to pose questions to the alphaWorks lab researchers.

It sounds like pretty cool stuff, as to how much IBM steers, owns or directs the creation of prototypes at this level I can’t say – but I will find out.

Big numbers

Back to the core news of the conference and there’s a rich scent of scepticism in the press room this afternoon as to whether all this talk of collaborative team development is coming from a company that itself may be argued to suffer from disconnected silo structures by virtue of its own sheer size.

But Danny Sabbah used the point of IBM’s size this morning during his speech to make a positively spun comment. He highlighted the fact that Steve Mills, senior vice president for IBM Software Group, runs what the company labels as the world's largest software development organisation. IBM makes this claim as it states that, on a global level, it has more than 25,000 developers in 77 locations focused on developing software. So, says Sabbah, the company can act as an extremely large-scale user of its own products and this helps testing and development.

Sabbah also specified that the development of any one particular product may involve a mix of technologies from agile to iterative to waterfall and that the perfect blend will depend on the task in hand.

You need proof? It’s survey time!

Colleen Arnold also made an appearance this morning at the keynote session. Arnold is general manager for IBM’s global application services division and she presented the results of what IBM calls its Global CEO Study – a survey it undertakes every couple of years. If you had any scepticism over whether there really is a burning need to extend our capabilities in ‘collaborative’ software application development, Arnold’s carefully selected results should allay your fears.

The latest findings state that: “Management of global applications, processes and systems with consistency, quality and security … all depending on collaboration and teamwork…”, is at the forefront of those CEOs surveyed. Happy now? Hmm, I thought not – well, let’s keep looking, reading and thinking.

Finally today, I had a session with Scott Ambler who is global lead (or practice leader if you prefer official designations) for IBM’s Agile development unit. We spoke about the ‘belief’ or ‘leap of faith’ element behind Agile and the fact that some disagree with it while others are firm converts.

Ambler insisted that Agile will always be with us despite the fact that many developers don’t buy it. “Many developers who criticise Agile have probably never tried it,” said Ambler. “If it is like a religion, then if you continue to discuss it you will never reach a real agreement and consensus and find belief,” he added.

Part of the problem is that Agile depends on highly collaborative environments where there is a high degree of team trust (now you know why Ambler is here this week) – and so it does suffer from a lack of adoption in areas where those factors do not exist such as, according to Ambler, government and what used to be Russia.

We’re only 24 hours in and many of us already have news overload syndrome, but that is expected and it’s probably better to get a heads up on the big announcements early rather than in staggered form. In the words of IBM’s vice president for marketing and strategy Scott Hebner, “We’ve seen the biggest product announcements ever under the Rational brand this week.”

The times they are a changin’

Tonight though it’s a case of The times they are a changin’ – as our evening “do” is a performance from the Wallflowers whose lead singer Jakob Dylan is in fact the son of Bob. Will tonight’s bash provide us all with a clear head for tomorrow’s Grady Booch keynote? The answer my friend is blowing in the wind.

Sorry – couldn’t help that, long day.

Ad-Aware SE Personal scans memory, files on a hard disk and defines adware, malware and started nocuous processes. Also the register is scanned. If in the register the record established by the nocuous program it lwill be deleted. The opportunity to update anti-spy base through the Internet is stipulated. Ad-Aware SE Personal warks enough quickly, adjustments are simple and intuitively clear.

If espionage modules are found the program suggests to remove all of them or selectively. For prevention of casual removal of the necessary file or record in the register function of restoration (for this purpose backup-copies of deleted data are automatically created) is stipulated.

The given program (or analogue) should be at each user who works on a computer on the Internet. It is necessary to check spyware on your computer. In this version you can change skins easily, process of check of archives is improved, processing of cookies is improved also. 

You can download free version of Ad-Aware SE Professional here.

Eltima Advanced Keylogger - advanced Keylogger, absolutely invisible software for supervision over activity of your computer. It works in an invisible mode: can not be found out by Dispatcher Zadach Windows and there are no visual traces of work Advanced Keylogger. With the convenient interface Advanced Keylogger has all necessary for the control of activity of your child over the Internet and monitoring of work of the personnel. Advanced Keylogger has proved the rank ideal keylogger with set of functions and simplicity of use.

Anything printed on your computer cannot be hidden from Advanced Keylogger! It writes down all pressing of keys, including passwords of loading Windows. All actions are kept in the ciphered and simple records for understanding which also can be sent on your electronic address.

Advanced Keylogger monitors activity of the user in the Internet, fixing all the sites visited by it. One more important function Advanced Keylogger consists that it writes down visual statistic all events on the screen, periodically doing pictures of the screen.

Advanced Keylogger also monitors copied and cut out in the buffer of an exchange the text that is especially important as the most part of passwords is not printed manually, and is inserted from the buffer of an exchange.

 

You can download Eltima Advanced Keylogger HERE. 

As more and more enterprises and ISVs seek additional ways to leverage virtualization technology, virtual lab automation (VLA) has emerged as an innovative solution for streamlining software development and automating the entire development and test environment setup while utilizing existing server virtualization infrastructure. Additionally, VLA improves resource utilization and efficiency while pushing products to market faster. This presentation will review the virtual test and development infrastructure and provide best practice recommendations for how VLA can add significant value to developers, testers and IT operations staff and help drive business growth and employee productivity.

3rd International "Virtualization Conference & Expo" Call for Papers
Virtualization, the hottest subject of in all IT right now, will be center stage in 2008. Key opinion-formers in the field of infrastructure and pioneers of virtualization technologies of all types have already begun submitting speaking proposals to Virtualization Conference & Expo 2008 East, being held in New York City, June 23-24, 2008. Topics covered will range from Application Virtualization, Desktop Virtualization, Network Virtualization, Server Virtualization, and Storage Virtualization, to Virtual Machine Automation, Physical to Virtual (P2V) Migration, Management Applications, Tools and Utilities, and Virtualization Scripts and Procedures.

Topics will include:

• Server Virtualization
• Desktop Virtualization
• File Virtualization
• The Future of the Virtual Enterprise
• Hosted Virtualization
• Para-virtualization
• Virtualization Hardware Support
• Hardware-level Virtualization
• Storage Virtualization
• Virtualization for Server Consolidation and Containment
• Windows Virtualization
• Utility Computing
• State of the Virtualization Services Market

 

It's hardly news when India's Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) opens a new outsourcing facility, unless it happens to be in Ohio.

TCS, one of the world's top hired guns for corporate IT and back-office services, opened its first U.S. software development center in a suburb of Cincinnati on Mar. 16. And it's hardly alone. Rivals including Accenture and India's Wipro are pursuing similar ventures in unexpected places around the U.S., from Oregon to Arizona to Georgia.

Make no mistake. There's still plenty of money to be saved by shipping work to far-away places with cheaper labor. Yet the economics of outsourcing are changing: With wages rising sharply in India and the dollar's value sliding against the Indian rupee, "there's been a 30% change in cost over the last year," says Andy Singleton, chief executive of Assembla, a company that organizes distributed software development teams. Three years ago, it didn't make sense for Assembla to hire anyone in the U.S. because labor costs were so low in India. But now, "as costs change, we end up with a lot more Americans," Singleton says.

Niche Opportunities for the U.S.

While India is still a great deal for many companies that want to cut costs on high-tech workers, some experts predict the labor savings there could evaporate in 5 to 10 years. That has spurred some interest in lower-cost labor markets in the U.S. "We've seen quite a few small, rural sourcing projects," says Doug Brown, partner of Brown-Wilson Group, an outsourcing consultancy.

If nothing else, these new IT facilities in unexpected places provide an intriguing alternative to Silicon Valley and other pricey high-tech hotbeds. A July, 2007, report from the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) estimated that midsize metropolitan areas and rural communities could provide a 30% cost savings over top-tier IT hubs in the U.S. The report acknowledged that overseas outsourcing is here to stay, but stressed there might be a niche opportunities in low-cost domestic outsourcing.

Tata says it opened the new software center in Milford, about 16 miles northeast of Cincinnati, because it is trying to be more global and it also wanted to show its commitment to the U.S. The facility is expected to employ up to 1,000 people. "People have criticized the Indian outsourcing industry as exporting people and not investing in the U.S.," says Gabriel Rozman, executive vice-president of emerging markets at TCS. Cheaper Cost of Living

Rozman says TCS chose Milford in part because of its proximity to customers in the Midwest and on East Coast, as well as its strong talent pool. It also helps that the cost of living in the greater Cincinnati area is nearly 10% below the national average, according to the American Chamber of Commerce Researchers Assn. (ACCRA). And compared to Silicon Valley, the cost of living is 42% lower.

The notion that lower-cost U.S. markets might be ripe for outsourcing businesses began percolating a few years back. Accenture (ACN), which already had considerable outsourcing operations in major U.S. markets, announced a five-year deal in late 2006 to manage Cayuse Technologies, an outsourcing business started by the Umatilla tribes on a reservation in Northeast Oregon (BusinessWeek, 11/6/06).

Kathy Brittain White latched onto the idea even earlier, starting Rural Sourcing in Durham, N.C., and Jonesboro, Ark., back in 2004. "Why do we have to go offshore when there are many areas in the U.S. where there are good universities and 50% less cost of living?" asks Brittain White. The cost of living in Jonesboro is 45% lower than in Silicon Valley and 13% below the national average, according to the ACCRA.

Shortage of Talent

It wasn't until more recently, though, that foreign outsourcing firms began setting up shop in the U.S. Aside from TCS, India's Wipro announced in August, 2007, that it would open a global software development center in Atlanta with plans to hire 500 workers. Brown says his firm has done some site evaluations in the rural Southwest around Phoenix and Albuquerque for foreign companies interested in starting outsourcing operations in the U.S.

But one big obstacle to this trend is the limited availability of highly skilled IT professionals, according to the ITAA report. AT&T (T), for example, had trouble finding talent when it agreed to move 5,000 jobs back to the U.S. from India, forcing the company to set up a training program (BusinessWeek.com, 10/11/07).

At least one outsourcing firm in the Cincinnati area is concerned that Tata will boost competition for talent. "I will certainly now have competition that I'll run up against [in recruiting]," says John Bostick, chief executive of dbaDirect, a database outsourcing firm. DbaDirect is located in Florence, Ky., about 30 miles from the Tata's new center. Still, Bostick says he's happy to welcome TCS to the neighborhood. "Inevitably it will help the economy by bringing capital to the area."

King is a writer for BusinessWeek.com in San Francisco .

The new office in Rome will enable the company to build its European client base following a number of recent successes across the continent.

This expansion puts LINK Development in the privileged position of being one of very few Egyptian IT companies serving the European market - a trend that is steadily growing as Egypt's IT potential gains more exposure on a global level.

The company is a world-class provider of e-solutions with a focus on portals & intranets, e-commerce, Enterprise Integration, Microsoft CRM implementations, Helpdesk Solutions, Unified communications and IPTV.

Furthermore, it has built substantial experience in the telecom sector, developing value-added services such as messaging and collaboration services, IPTV and digital rights management.

As one of the largest software development houses in the Middle East and North Africa region, LINK Development has built an unrivalled portfolio of award-winning work and a substantial client base in countries as diverse as Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Algeria and in Africa Mauritius, Kenya and Malawi.

Having achieved this position at the forefront of the industry in the region, the company set its sights to entering the European market and has consequently studied its requirements over the past few years.

In order to build its profile in the continent, active participation in leading European trade shows has been on the company's agenda, with Cebit being a major platform for exposure for the company in the last three years. It has already begun building a European customer base, having recently delivered large offshore development projects to Greece and Italy.

The company has also worked in partnership with Microsoft over the last ten years, and has been a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in five competency areas for more than eight years.

Its continuous focus on training and certification has enabled it to achieve ISO 9001:2000 and CMMI Level 3 certifications, and to have more than half of Microsoft's Most Valued Professionals (MVPs) in Egypt.

The skills of its 270-strong team of software professionals cover areas from software development and design to project management and quality engineering.

In addition, the team's skills combine the strengths of software development with creative design - two areas in which the company continues to build its talent and capabilities - thus enabling the company to deliver complete e-business solutions.

According to Abdel Meguid, the growing interest from European companies stems from Egypt being in closer geographical proximity, and therefore has smaller time differences, than its Asian counterpart India.

In addition, English and French are commonly used languages in the country's IT circle, which removes the hurdle of multilingual communication and enables a better understanding of cultures.

'More importantly, with IT becoming a booming industry in the country, Egypt is able to offer a broad base of professionals skilled in software development with international certifications,' says Abdel Meguid.

'With the company's large resources, breadth of scope and strength of expertise and skills, I believe LINK Development is very well placed to succeed in this market,' she concludes.

Microsoft Corp. has licensed Adobe's software for viewing online videos and other files on cell phones, the companies said Monday.

Microsoft will distribute Flash Lite and Reader programs from Adobe Systems Inc. to cell phone makers who use its Windows Mobile software.

Flash also allows users to interact with more Web sites. It's the software behind most shopping sites where you can view an item in different colors or try out house paint colors on a virtual home.

"Flash content is the most prolific content on the web today; it is the way people express themselves on the Internet," Adobe spokesman Gary Kovacs said.

Julie Ask, an analyst at Juniper Research, said cell customers are more likely to browse the Web when they have more capable phones, and that's good news for advertisers.

"The more likely they are to use it, the more that folks are willing to invest in the platform, and the more likely there are to be page views. It's good for advertisers, it's good for carriers," Ask said.

Scott Rockfeld, group product manager at Microsoft's mobile communications business, said the decision was about providing more choice to its customers, even though Windows Mobile already offers 18,000 applications for everything from picking a wine to go with dinner to watching videos.

"Obviously it's one of the things that customers are asking for. Flash is something that is very prevalent on the Web," Rockfeld said.

In 2007, 11 million phones carried Windows Mobile. Microsoft expects to double that in the next year.

Over half a billion mobile devices have shipped worldwide with Flash preinstalled, amounting to a 150 year-over-year percent growth, Adobe said.

Microsoft wouldn't say what it is paying Adobe to license the software, but the programs will remain free for end-users.

Microsoft has its own video viewing software, Silverlight, considered a competitor that could slowly chip away at market share for Adobe's Flash. Microsoft said last month it would give 1 billion students free access to Silverlight and other software that competes with Adobe, such as Expression Studio.