Leading open source systems and network management vendors Qlusters and Emu Software today announced the industry’s first Open Management Consortium (OMC). The Consortium will promote the benefits offered by open source and open standard technologies and will provide a forum for product development collaboration among open source IT management projects. The founding members of the OMC include Nagios (sponsored by Ayamon), NetDirector (sponsored by Emu Software), openQRM (sponsored by Qlusters), openSIMS (sponsored by Symbiot), the Webmin project and the Zenoss project (sponsored by Zenoss, Inc.).
“The Consortium is an innovative approach that will allow multiple open source providers to collaborate on systems management initiatives for servers running open source software stacks,” said Jean Bozman, an IDC analyst based in San Mateo, CA. “Small companies do not have the reach or the resources to provide a broad-based systems management solution, or framework, without collaboration. This Consortium provides a mechanism to aggregate open source systems management solutions–and to fit these management solutions together to address customers’ operational costs.”
The Consortium is comprised of leading open source projects that are developing and shaping the technologies used to manage IT infrastructure, particularly open source infrastructure such as that hosted on Linux. The initial committee members represent community leaders and firms that are central to open management technologies. Specific objectives of the Open Management Consortium include:
* Create awareness of open source management tools in the market
* Provide education and resources to help end users make informed decisions regarding open source
* Establish conventions and standards that enable integration and interoperability
* Enable collaboration and coordination on common development projects
* Promote collaborative open source systems management solutions
The Consortium will work to drive open standards for systems management within the industry, assisting IT managers and system administrators to custom-create solutions to best serve their business needs. One of the first projects will involve developing protocols for managing common IT infrastructure components, including information about servers, storage devices, configurations, networks models, middleware, applications and other relevant data, to create a unified approach to systems management for open source vendors and projects. The Consortium’s agenda also includes designing several integration paths for exchanging data with proprietary systems.
“By uniting these projects, we are providing IT managers with an alternative choice to the monolithic approach traditionally found in systems management,” said William Hurley, chief technology officer at Qlusters. “The Open Management Consortium will spearhead the movement to open source open standards, leveling the playing field in systems management and providing equal opportunity for all to participate.”
Mark Hinkle, LinuxWorld editor in chief, vice president of strategy at Emu Software and co-founder of the Open Management Consortium, said, “Having the freedom to manage and monitor systems using the technologies you want and to have those systems interact is our long-term goal. The Open Management Consortium will start by providing a forum for collaboration among these vendors and projects.”
“Collaboration between different projects that occupy the same space is the next natural step in the evolution of open source and has the potential to radically alter the way we use open source tools,” added Ethan Galstad, founder of Nagios. “The commercial systems management space appears to be headed for a shakeup, with the open source projects participating in the Open Management Consortium leading the charge. I’m definitely excited that the Nagios project is part of this effort.”
Mike Erwin, founder and chief executive officer of Symbiot said, “I’m excited to see an organization like the Open Management Consortium through which security tools can be integrated with other systems monitoring, administrative and management systems to provide a cohesive vantage of an organization’s technology landscape.”
“The Open Management Consortium will provide a valuable service in bringing together the various open source systems management tools and ensuring compatibility among them,” commented Jamie Cameron, leader of the popular open source management project, Webmin.
Bill Karpovich, co-founder and chief executive officer of Zenoss, added, “There is growing movement towards open source management solutions because of the dramatic cost advantages and the flexibility that we offer. By working together, we’ll be able to bring these benefits to a larger audience much more quickly.”
Membership in the Open Management Consortium will be open to like-minded open source projects and companies looking to collaborate on complimentary open source and open standards-based solutions. Additional participants will be announced shortly.