Network World Reviews OpenNMS

Today Network World published the results of a comparison among open source network monitoring applications. OpenNMS did not win but I was pretty happy with the article.

The main criticism I have is that the winner, Pandora FMS, seems to be the only one of the four reviewed that is more “open core” than “open source”. They have a large number of versions, each with different features, and you have to pay for those features based on the number of monitored devices. It seems to be difficult to have open source software that is limited in this fashion, as anyone should be able to easily remove that limit. Thus I have to assume that their revenue model is firmly based on selling software licenses, which is antithetical to open source. That said, it looks like the review was based on the “community” version of Pandora which does appear to be free software, just don’t expect any of the “enterprise” features to be available in that version any time soon.

I don’t know why I have such a visceral dislike of the “per managed node” pricing model, outside of having to deal with it back in the 1990s and 2000s. It seems like an unnecessary tax on your growth, “hey, customer, for every new device you add you have to pay for another monitoring license.” Plus, in these days of virtualization and microservices it seems silly. Our customers might spin up between 10 and 100 virtual servers as needed and tear them down just as quickly, and I can’t imagine the complexity that would get added to have to manage a license of each one of them.

Network World Comparison

Of the other applications reviewed, I’m not familiar with NetXMS but I do know Zabbix. They, like OpenNMS, are 100% open source and they are great people. It was awesome to finally meet Alexei Vladishev in person at this year’s All Things Open conference.

Alexei Vladishev and Tarus Balog

The only other thing that immediately pushed a button was the sentence “All four products were surprisingly good.” At first I took it to express surprise that free software could also be good, but then I calmed down a bit and figured they meant it was surprising that all four applications were strong.

For the article they installed OpenNMS on Windows. When I read that my heart just sank, because while it does run on Windows our support of that operating system grew out of a bet. We were talking many years ago about Java’s “write once, run anywhere” slogan and I mentioned that if that were true, why don’t we run on Windows? The team took up the challenge and it took two weeks to port. The first week was spent getting the few bits of code written in C to compile on Windows, and the second week on soft-coding the file separator character so that it would use a back-slash instead of a forward-slash. Even on Windows, the comments in the article were really positive, which make me think this whole Java thing isn’t such a bad idea after all (grin).

They used Windows because apparently was an issue with getting OpenNMS installed on CentOS 7, which was a surprise to me, but then Ronny pointed out that there can be some weird conflicts with Java and packages like LibreOffice that I don’t experience since I always do a minimal install. There is a cool installer for CentOS 7 which may help with that. We also maintain Docker images that make installation easy if you are used to that environment.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, not much has been done for OpenNMS on Windows since we got it working. It is fortunate because not much is required to keep OpenNMS running on Windows due to Java, but it is unfortunate because we really don’t have the Windows expertise that would be required to get it to run as a service, create an MSI installer, etc. Susan Perschke, the author of the article, seems to be a Windows-guru so I plan to reach out to her about improving the OpenNMS experience for Windows users.

One thing that is both common and valid is criticism of the web user interface. At the moment we spend most of our time focused on making OpenNMS even more scalable, and thus we don’t have the resources to make the user interface easier to use. That is changing, and most of the current effort goes into Compass™, the OpenNMS mobile app. The article didn’t mention it which means they probably didn’t try it out, which is more a failure on our part to market it versus an oversight on theirs.

They also didn’t talk directly about scalability, although it was listed in the comparison chart (see above). OpenNMS is designed to monitor tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of devices with our goal to be virtually unlimited in order to address scale on the order of the Internet of Things. That is why we wrote Newts for storing performance data and are working on both the Minion and Underling to easily distribute OpenNMS functionality.

Another reason we haven’t spent much time on the user interface is that our larger customers tend not to use it much. They rely on the ReST interface to integrate their own systems with OpenNMS and on things like the Business Service Monitoring.

But still, it was nice to be included. We don’t do much direct marketing and even though typing “open source network monitoring” into Google returns OpenNMS as the first hit we are often overlooked. Let’s hope they revisit this in a year and we can impress them even more.

Android Open Source Frustrations

I used to be a huge fan of Apple products, but as they started to lock down their ecosystem the limitations they created started to bother me, so I switched to running as much open source as possible.

It wasn’t, and isn’t always now, easy. One of the gripes I still have against Apple is that their commercial success has spawned a ton of imitators who have decided to lock down their products, quite often without the Apple savvy to back it up. Unfortunately, Google seems to be joining these ranks.

I’m a fan of Google, they do a lot to support open source, and I use a Nexus 6 as my primary “hand terminal” (handy). However, I run alternative software on it, namely OmniROM, which gives me more control over my experience and security.

I pretty much run open source software on all my technology with few exceptions, one being my Android Wear watch. I noticed that there was a new update to Android Wear (version 2.0) so I went to play with it. When I launched the app I got this screen:

Android Wear App Error

(sigh)

So I went off to search for a solution to the error message “This phone has been flashed with an unsupported configuration for companion. you must re-flash it as either signed/user or unsigned/userdebug”. I found a couple of answers that suggested I edit the build.prop file and change

ro.build.type=userdebug

to

ro.build.type=user

In order to do this, you have to have root access to your phone.

(sigh)

I do root my phone, but I haven’t done it in awhile because Google has introduced this thing called “SafetyNet“. The stated purpose is to prevent malware but in practice what it does is torpedo people like me who actually want to control the software on the devices they own. If you install a custom ROM or have root access, certain applications will not run.

Now I have to choose between running the Android Wear app or, say, Pokémon Go. I chose Android Wear (I pretty much finished Pokémon Go).

The process: Boot into recovery, install SuperSU, boot into system, use a file editor to edit /system/build.prop and change ro.build.type from “userdebug” to “user”, reboot.

Android Wear Mute

So Android Wear will start now, but to add to the frustration the one feature I hoped they would fix is still broken for me. It used to be that if my watch was actively paired with the phone, it would mute ringing and other audio notifications. It doesn’t (and none of the fixes I’ve found work for me) so now I just remember to decrease the volume on the phone down to “vibrate”.

Pokemon Go Blocks root

And, I verified that Pokémon Go will not start now – it hangs on the login screen and then reports an error. This is whether or not SuperSU is enabled, and I think I would have to remove it entirely to get it to work.

Now I know that I can install other apps that will hide the fact that my phone is rooted, but if I do that the terrorists win. I would just rather use apps that don’t force me to give up my rights.

Which brings me to the last frustration. I purchased a bunch of content from Google, but now I can’t access it on this phone. I get “couldn’t fetch license”. This started recently so I believe it has something to do with SafetyNet, but repeated calls to Google Play support yielded no answers.

Google License Error - Deadpool

I have a Google 6P that is stock and doesn’t suffer from the download issue, so it stands to reason that there is some “protection” in place that is preventing me from accessing the content I purchased. I solved the problem by not buying content from Google Play anymore.

I’m pretty certain that it is only going to get worse. Google used to be much better about such things but I think they want to emulate Apple in more ways than one (see the new Pixel phone if you don’t believe me) and that is a shame for all of us.

UPDATE: I found a better way to do this that doesn’t require root. Assuming you have a custom recovery like TWRP, you can simply boot into recovery and then connect the handy to a computer. Using “adb shell” you can then access the system directory and edit the build.prop file directly.

2016 All Things Open

I made the decision to stop going to conferences for 2016, but I made an exception for All Things Open (ATO). Not only is it an amazing show, it’s also in my back yard, and the combination is not something I can pass up.

I love conferences. My favorite track is always the “hallway” track and I really enjoy spending time with people that I tend only to see these events. The problem is that I started to do the math.

In 2015, due to work travel, I was gone part or all of 26 weekends (I travel about 50% of the time, and often that means I head out on Sunday and back on Saturday). That leaves 26 weekends free. Of those, at least 10 are taken up with vacations, holidays, birthdays and other social engagements, leaving me just 16 or so weekends to myself. If I do 5 to 10 conferences, most of which are held over a weekend, I’m left with less than a weekend a month.

Plus, OpenNMS is going like gang-busters, so I really need to focus on that business. While I love open source conferences, we don’t get many customers out of them (one exception is the Ohio Linuxfest which seems to attract a large number of OpenNMS users) so it can be hard to justify the time (although they are a whole lot of fun).

Anyway, since ATO was the main show I was going to be involved with this year, we decided to host a party that first night. I also submitted some papers, and to my surprise two of them were accepted.

I headed out on Tuesday afternoon, as the wonderful team at opensource.com was hosting a gathering for contributors that night. That was a lot of fun and a number of us ended up at Foundation afterward. As a cocktail enthusiast I had always wanted to visit, but it is about an hour from my house I don’t want to drink and drive. Since I was staying downtown for the event, that issue went away and I had a great time.

The conference was held in the Raleigh Convention Center, and you could see the registration desk from my hotel room.

ATO - View from Marriott

Wednesday was start of the conference. ATO is organized by Todd Lewis, the nicest guy in open source, and he kicked off the keynotes.

ATO - Todd Lewis

Todd’s superpower is organization, and not only did the conference run smoothly, he got some great speakers. Jim Whitehurst, the CEO of Red Hat, did a talk on the social benefits of open source.

ATO - Jim Whitehurst

We also got a talk from Mark Hinkle, the VP of Marketing of the Linux Foundation. He was recruited at the last minute due to a cancellation, and I thought he did a good job especially considering his time to prepare (unlike normal, I actually had my presentations done at least a week before the conference).

ATO - Mark Hinkle

He started off with some “separated at birth” pictures between punk rockers and open source personalities, which reminded me of something that hit me when it was announced that the DB Cooper investigation was being closed.

ATO - DB Cooper and Jim Whitehurst

I think Jim was about four years old when DB Cooper hijacked that plane, but the similarity is striking.

Another keynote speaker was Jono Bacon.

ATO - Jono Bacon

Always (well, usually) interesting, I love how he has been working the relatively new field of behavioral economics into his talks of late. It is the study of how human psychology can impact economic decision-making and I think it has a lot of relevance in a field where businesses often tout the word “free”. By understanding how we behave we can better align our communities to meet the needs and desires of their participants.

After the keynotes were the individual sessions. I had two back-to back.

ATO - Tarus Balog

Thanks to Ben for the picture, which captures me in my full “Fred Flintstone” glory. Click on the pic below if you want to see the slides, and I did a interview for DZone on my talks. I did embed some video which won’t show up on the PDF, though.

My first talk was on the challenges facing us with the Internet of Things, especially when it comes to monitoring.

ATO - Silos Presentation

It was lightly attended but everyone who came seemed to get a lot out of it.

Right after that I did a new, updated version of my open source business talk.

ATO - Business Presentation

That one was standing room only, and I was really pleased with the feedback. One guy was telling me that he has seen a number of presentations about running an open source business but mine was the only one with concrete examples. I’m glad folks liked it.

Once my talks were done it was time for lunch and I was pretty much done with my obligations. The main one left was to help prepare for the OpenNMS Group sponsored concert at King’s Raleigh. We had hired MC Frontalot and his band to play a show in Portland, Oregon for OSCON, and the Doubleclicks opened. It was so much fun we decided it would be cool to bring it closer to home.

ATO - Doubleclicks

If you haven’t heard of the Doubleclicks you should check out their music. Even if you have, you might want to familiarize yourself with their catalog, especially if, like I did, you think it would be funny to shout out “Freebird!” in the middle of their show (ouch).

ATO - Mc Frontalot

The MC Frontalot set was really tight as well. I love working for professionals. We when got there and there was no keyboard and half the drum kit was missing, I was a mess. They calmly got it all sorted and then really kicked it during the show. They premiered “Freedom Feud” – a song we commissioned about free software. Front is still working on the final master and we have a video in production, so look for it to be posted soon, and thanks to Ben for the concert pics.

Even though I didn’t get to bed until about 04:30 (we eventually ended up in the hotel listening to some tracks Front is writing for the next album that’s all about the Internets) I was back up at 08:00 for Day Two of ATO. With my responsibilities out of the way it was nice to listen to the talks and visit with all the cool people in attendance.

Many thanks to everyone who came to my talks, to Todd and Company for a great show, and to OpenNMS for hosting a party for all my friends. See you next year.