Re:Old NetSaint and Nagios geek comments (Score 1)

Dave has it right. Use management software packages for what they were designed to do. Nagios is designed to collect data on the availability and performance of servers, apps, and network devices, and to bug you when they have a problem. So far, the IT management tool industry doesn't seem mature enough to wrap all the possible functions we as sysadmins (or our management) need and want into a coherent package, open source or proprietary. One approach to getting around this is that of GroundWork Open Source. It integrates the Nagios package, a config GUI for it that lessens the pain, graphing for the performance data that Nagios gathers, and the chance to add your own web pages to the UI pretty painlessly. The web service API to the database backend is also useful for crafting your own UIs, after the fact. So, use Nagios where it is appropriate, and if you need more, add on. It works for GroundWork.