OpenNMS
| Company type | Open source software project / Company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Network management software |
| Predecessor | PlatformWorks |
| Founded | July 1999 |
| Founder | Steve Giles, Brian Weaver, Luke Rindfuss |
| Successor | The OpenNMS Group (commercial services) |
| Headquarters | Kansas City , United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Tarus Balog, Matt Brozowski, David Hustace |
| Products | OpenNMS (network monitoring and management platform) |
| Owner | The OpenNMS Group (commercial), The Order of the Green Polo (project stewardship) |
| Website | www |
OpenNMS is a free and open-source enterprise-level platform designed for network monitoring and network management. It is developed and maintained by a community alongside the OpenNMS Group, which also provides commercial offerings including training, support, and services.
Built as a distributed and scalable management system aligned with the FCAPS network management framework, OpenNMS currently prioritizes Fault Management and Performance Management. The entire codebase is distributed under the Affero General Public License.
The stewardship of the OpenNMS Project is undertaken by The Order of the Green Polo.
History
The inception of the OpenNMS Project dates back to July 1999, initiated by Steve Giles, Brian Weaver, and Luke Rindfuss at their firm, PlatformWorks. The project was officially listed as project number 4141 on SourceForge in March 2000.
On September 28, 2000, PlatformWorks was acquired by Atipa, a Kansas City-based rival to VA Linux Systems. In July 2001, Atipa underwent rebranding to become Oculan.
By September 2002, Oculan discontinued its support for OpenNMS. Following this, Tarus Balog, who was employed at Oculan at the time, left to continue development independently.
In September 2004, Balog joined forces with Matt Brozowski and David Hustace to establish The OpenNMS Group, aimed at delivering commercial services and support. Shortly thereafter, The Order of the Green Polo (OGP) was formed to govern the OpenNMS Project. Although many OGP members are affiliated with The OpenNMS Group, it remains an independent organization.
Platform support and requirements
OpenNMS is written in Java and can operate on any system that supports Java SDK version 11 or newer. Prebuilt binaries are accessible for most Linux distributions.
The platform depends on the PostgreSQL database system. Efforts are ongoing to enable database flexibility through the use of the Hibernate framework.
Features
OpenNMS functions as a configurable "network management application platform" suitable for a wide range of network architectures.
Its capabilities are organized into four primary functional domains:
Event Management and Notifications
OpenNMS utilizes a "publish-subscribe" messaging bus architecture that allows components to publish events and subscribe to them. It receives events through various means including SNMP Traps, syslog messages, TL/1 events, or custom XML formats.
These events can initiate alarms that support correlation processes—such as clearing "down" alarms when corresponding "up" alarms occur—and event consolidation by merging multiple identical events into a single alarm with an incremented counter. Unlike persistent events, alarms can escalate in severity, spawn new events, or automatically clear over time.
The alarm system integrates seamlessly with trouble ticketing solutions like Request Tracker, OTRS, Jira, and Remedy.
An Event Translator component enriches incoming events with supplementary information (for example, assessing customer impact) and has the capability to produce new events.
Notification delivery options include e-mail, SMS, XMPP, and customizable channels.
OpenNMS has demonstrated the ability to continuously process up to 125,000 syslog messages per minute.
Discovery and Provisioning
OpenNMS incorporates a sophisticated provisioning mechanism that enables automatic device addition through specified IP address ranges, supporting both IPv4 and IPv6, as well as manual input. The configuration relies on XML, which can be managed via the web interface or automated using XML scripts.
This provisioning framework seamlessly connects with internal workflows and external tools such as Dynamic DNS servers and RANCID. Designed for scalability, it functions asynchronously and can efficiently handle networks exceeding 50,000 devices or individual devices hosting upwards of 200,000 virtual interfaces, like the Juniper E320.
Service Monitoring
OpenNMS delivers robust service assurance by overseeing the availability of network services. Its monitoring capabilities span from basic ICMP ping and TCP port verification to advanced techniques including Page Sequence Monitoring and Mail Transport Monitoring. Collected outage information is archived to facilitate availability reporting.
To enhance monitoring reach, remote pollers are employed to cover geographically dispersed sites. For instance, Papa John's Pizza utilizes OpenNMS remote pollers in nearly 3,000 retail locations to monitor centralized network resource status.
Data Collection
Performance metrics are gathered by OpenNMS through various protocols such as SNMP, HTTP, JMX, WMI, XMP, XML, NSClient, and JDBC. The collected data is stored, visualized via graphs, and assessed against defined thresholds.
The platform demonstrates exceptional scalability; a single OpenNMS server can gather approximately 1.2 million SNMP data points every five minutes.
Additional Features
Access to OpenNMS is provided through a web-based interface powered by Jetty. Integration with JasperReports allows users to generate comprehensive reports derived from the database and performance metrics collected.
Awards
- 2015 InfoWorld Best of Open Source (BOSSIE)
- 2010 InfoWorld Best of Open Source (BOSSIE)
- June 2010 SourceForge Project of the Month
- 2009 InfoWorld Best of Open Source (BOSSIE)
- 2008 TechTarget Product Excellence Bronze Award, Applications and network management
- 2007 TechTarget Product Excellence Gold Award, Network and IT management platforms, outperforming HP OpenView and IBM Tivoli
- 2006 LinuxWorld Expo Product Excellence Award, Systems Management Tools
See also
References
- Enterprise-Wide Network Management with OpenNMS by Tarus Balog, oreillynet.com, September 8, 2005.
- OpenNMS Helps Keep Tabs On Networks by Rob Reilly, LinuxPlanet.com, April 7, 2005.
- Huge Savings with OpenNMS for Managed Hosting Comp by Maria Winslow, linux.sys-con.com, August 31, 2004.
- FLOSS Weekly 15: Tarus Balog of OpenNMS, FLOSS Weekly podcast, November 10, 2006.
- "OpenNMS DevJam Interviews", People Over Process podcast, August 1, 2008.
- Best of Open Source Software Awards 2009, InfoWorld staff, August 31, 2009.
External links
- Articles with short description
- System administration
- Computer network analysis
- Network performance
- Free network management software
- Free software developed in Java (programming language)
- Java platform software
- Software licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License
- Free software programmed in Java (programming language)