Zenoss Releases New Version of Open Source IT Management Product

Zenoss Inc., the company behind the most popular open source IT monitoring and management solution on Sourceforge.net, today released the next major version of Zenoss Core, version 2.0. The new version of Zenoss Core, an integrated IT management software solution, allows IT administrators to track the configuration and health of their entire IT environment. Zenoss Core is the first commercial open source IT management solution to include a configuration management database (CMDB), and adds several other features that deliver on the company's mission of simplifying enterprise IT management.

"Zenoss continues to evolve its product in a worthy direction for organizations that need enterprise IT management," said Michael Cote, analyst with Redmonk. "By tying a formalized CMDB to its platform while maintaining a model-driven approach, Zenoss continues to add value to its core open source offering. Coupled with additional features such as its Linux-native WMI stack, this release represents a highly compelling IT management product."

Zenoss aims to ease the complexity and economic pain associated with enterprise IT management through a tightly-integrated software solution and innovative approach that leverages the power of open source software development and distribution. Zenoss Core is the most complete IT monitoring and management solution available as a free, downloadable, open source product. From a single web-based console, an organization can use Zenoss Core to maintain a complete inventory of their IT environment, perform availability and performance monitoring, and centrally manage all IT events and alarms.

A key differentiator of Zenoss Core from other open source monitoring products is that the application rests upon a tightly integrated inventory and configuration database (CMDB) that houses a real-time model of an organization's entire IT environment. This model is built and maintained through auto-discovery, manual population and integration with other data sources through a web services API. The model includes the relationships among elements and their relationships to business processes. Zenoss Core 2.0 expands the CMDB capability by making it easy to establish configuration policies for a given resource and mix manually-populated and automatically-discovered configuration information.

By having a CMDB at the core of its architecture, Zenoss addresses a key interest among enterprises today who are widely deploying ITIL practices in an effort to improve IT effectiveness. Zenoss' CMDB also enables a "model-driven" approach which results in advanced capabilities such as automatically applied monitoring templates, dependency analysis and a "360 degree" view of an organization's IT environment.

In addition to its expanded CMDB, Zenoss Core 2.0 delivers the following new features:

User Interface Enhancements

Updated AJAX GUI streamlines information access
100% web based administration makes it easy to use and configure without knowledge of Linux
Framework for easy customization and extension of web GUI
Platform Enhancements to Address the Needs of Large Enterprises

Secure deployment of distributed collectors
Performance and scalability enhancements of collection tier
Native Windows Collection (WMI) from a Linux Host

Enables cross-platform collection from a single linux server
Simplifies deployment of an organization-wide monitoring platform
Packaging System for Rules & Extensions ("ZenPacks")

Framework for encapsulating and distributing rules & extensions for Zenoss Core
Enables sharing and re-use of best practices & instrumentation
"Our goal is to simplify IT management for enterprises of all sizes with an easy to use, yet powerful monitoring and management tool," said Erik Dahl, CTO of Zenoss, Inc. "With each release we are making great progress towards realizing this vision."

Zenoss Core is available for download at http://www.zenoss.com/download