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.

EMC on Monday said it has acquired privately held Infra, a provider of IT service management software. Financial details were not disclosed. EMC, a maker of data storage technology, said the acquisition fits into its strategy of providing software to automate data center operations. Infra provides Web-based technology that can manage the lifecycle of IT services.

EMC said the acquisition is not expected to have a material impact on this year's revenues or earnings. The integration of Infra technology with EMC's infrastructure management software is expected to meet customer demand for better tools for managing virtualization and Web-based technologies in the data center. "The combination of Infra's service management and EMC's existing infrastructure management capabilities delivers practical and innovative solutions for today's IT service delivery challenges," Chris Gahagan, EMC senior VP of resource management software, said in a statement. Infra's software, called InfraEnterprise, includes a software service desk with incident, problem, change, configuration, release, service level and availability management processes. In addition, the software includes a workflow engine. The acquisition is expected to provide Infra with the financial and technology resources needed to expand its product line.

The company will become a part of EMC's resource management software business unit. Andy Wade, managing director of Infra, will continue to lead the InfraEnterprise team and report directly to Gahagan. The Infra acquisition is the second in less than a month for EMC. The company last month bought startup Pi, adding technology expected to boost EMC's effort to build an online data-hosting service that would likely compete with companies like IBM and Amazon. Pi, which had yet to release a product, was beta-testing software and services that would help people "find, access, share, and protect" their personal digital information. The company had about 100 engineers in the United States, Canada, and India.