[c-nsp] ISP Network Monitoring/Helpdesk/Workflow Automation

[Seth Mattinen]

Paul Stewart wrote:
> Solarwinds - ran trial of it, didn't impress me much...
> 
> Netsaint, Nagios, Big Brother - no thanks....
> 
> RT - prefer Cerberus over RT which isn't saying too much....:)
> 
> I have huge lists of possible software but looking for input on what people
> are using in production and why more than anything else.  Perhaps I should
> have made this clearer in my original posting.... Also, integration between
> the applications is important...
> 

RT for ticketing - it suits my needs just fine. Nagios for monitoring - 
insanely easy to modify. I use it to receive SNMP traps in addition to 
its out-of-the-tarball capabilities. Works on my Treo browser so I can 
make it shut up when I'm out and about. Cacti for rough circuit 
monitoring and other things like UPS voltage, load, environmental 
parameters. Graph are pretty. I use netflow/nfsen for the details.

If you want to be fancy, you can use Asterisk to let people open tickets 
through a phone tree, assuming they have some kind of numeric reporting 
ID. Nagios can also tell Asterisk to call me and speak the alarm using 
festival since SMS is limited. Then you can do stuff like "press 1 to 
take this ticket, press 2 to silence" or whatever. It can also leave 
voicemail and doesn't restrict you to using cell phones and the internet 
for automated trouble reporting. (i.e. have it escalate to your land 
line if needed.)

Based on your requirements in your initial email, and you reaction to 
suggestions like Nagios, looks like it's time to roll your own solution. 
Back in my ISP days I wrote a customer history log program with PHP and 
MySQL for the same reason. I highly doubt you'll find something 
preexisting that will do everything you want.

~Seth