From: "Shane O'Donnell" <shaneo@opennms.org>
To: <general@opennms.org>
Subject: OpenNMS: OpenNMS Update v1.25
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 16:54:25 -0400

=================
 OpenNMS Update
=================
Vol 1., Issue 25
=================

In this week's installment...

 - Project Status
    - Tales from the Road
    - Are you just not geeky enough?
    - Coding Projects Underway
 - Baby Steps
 - The Wish List
 - Quote of the Week


=================
Project Status
=================

Tales from the Road:

If you haven't seen from the web page , things are getting pretty busy from
a "road show" perspective.

Last week, we had the opportunity to meet with a company with a very large
local presence and correspondingly huge network management deployment to
discuss the Bluebird Project, where we were going and what we were thinking.
Their response was generally favorable, but included a fair amount of the
skepticism as to how and where "open source" fits in the large organization.
Is this going to be the next big "wave" for big companies to miss and little
companies to use to catch up? I'm beginning to wonder.

All in all, they were quite excited to see an alternative in this
marketspace, since for them (and everyone), ours is a win-win proposition.
When we come to market, they've got the opportunity to work with a new
scalable, customizable enterprise management platform, and even if they
decide not to, they've got new leverage with their existing provider.
Fortunately, it doesn't appear that their existing provider really "gets it"
either, thus the incredible opportunity.

Anyway, we also had a chance to meet the folks at the Pike's Peak LUG last
Friday, so a big Colorado-style "Howdy" to Fred, Bdale, Joe, and the rest of
the gang. A great group, but not a fire-eater in the lot (or anyone that
would admit it, anyway...)

And as we speak, I'm in Manhattan with a charming view of the Javitz center,
preparing for a presentation to the New York Linux Society. I'm trying to
re-vamp our standards slide to reflect some of the newer developments, so
provided I don't trash my box in the process, all should go well. Plus,
there's an Irish pub right next door. I hate it when that happens.

So I get back tomorrow, get a half-day to catch up and then it's off to a
hybrid meeting of a couple different groups in Seattle. The plane time
should at least give me a chance to get a little coding done. And I do mean
a "little"...

Friendly Reminder: Unless otherwise mentioned, all of these events are open
to the public, so if you are in the NYC or Seattle area, drop on by. And
ya'll come back now, y'hear!



Are you just not geeky enough?:

We've gotten outstanding responses from you on many of our cries for help,
but nobody seems willing to tackle the topic of the database.

Come on now, people. I've had one database class in my life, so I'm far from
qualified to do the design-level stuff I'm messing with here. If you are
afraid that you aren't qualified, note the disappointing qualifications of
yours truly, feel a little better about yourself, suck it up, and take a
look at our DB design.

For those of you that have offered but don't want to work with the SQL
itself, we've built an ERD, which (I think) is on the web. If it's not,
we'll get it there pronto.

And for those of you just coming up to s peed on the whole topic, both
Server/Workstation Expert (http://swexpert.com) and SmartPartner
(http://www.smartpartner.com) have significant articles on RDBMSs this
month, plus S/W Expert has a running "Java Class" column, teaching new
features of the language monthly. Pretty nifty.


Coding Projects Underway:

 * create.sql -- Steve and I have been playing hot potato with the database
lately, and as such, this script has seen multiple iterations recently.
Check out the most recent from CVS, under the "sql" module.

 * Events -- Sowmya's all but done for a little while, and Jacinta is
knocking out an extractor that will provide the basis for the servlet code
which will provide real-time updates to the user consoles. Rock on, ladies.

 * Migration/Testing Tools -- Written for one reason and usable for another,
Steve has provided a Perl script that will take a database dump from
OpenView and import the nodes into the Bluebird database. And if anybody out
there has a BIG database that we could use for testing, we'd appreciate it!
Please let me know (shaneo@opennms.org). Big thanks to our anonymous
contributor of the one we're working with!

 * icmpd/Perl -- Chuck says he's got a new rev of code ready to go, and that
he's actually been spending more time with the developer of the Net::RawIP
Perl module than intended, fixing tons of bugs, memory leaks, and the like.
See, when you're open source, everybody wins. Or at least that's what some
guy said on the news the other night...

 * Service Control Manager -- Development underway. Last week I mentioned an
anticipated delay while ownership changed on this one. I underestimated
V-dog, the new coder on this one. He's already reading the config file,
spinning out processes, and is knee-deep in building the API. Never again
will I underestimate...unless you ask how much beer I intend to drink
tonight.

 * jReporter -- Development underway. Sowmya's flexing her muscles on this
one, so it shouldn't be too long. A lot of this original body of code is
being replaced with code direct from the Apache FOP effort.

 * Extractors -- First production release of Jacinta's code for the object
extractor is in CVS. Her event extractor should be knocked out and in CVS
very soon. It's nice to have able-minded coders around.

 * Filters -- I've not even seen the code, but Weave says it rocks, and
since he's bigger than me, I'm going with it. Jason is the man on this one,
and is facilitating the use of a lot of cool tools on this one, including a
Java regex library which supports Perl regexs. I think if they put me on
that "Survivor" island, the only thing I'd ask for is a good regex engine.
And this ashtray. And this chair, and that's all I need...

 * Java MIB Compiler -- Old code provided courtesy David. Looking for a new
owner. Care to dance with the devil (or javacc)?


=================
Baby Steps
=================

Sometimes it gets frustrating for everyone to work so hard and still not
have a lot of real TANGIBLE things to look back on and see the incredible
progress we're making, so this is both my general announcement and
cheerleading moment.

We are seeing a LOT of great code from folks, including members of the core
team, and every bit of it is appreciated. The massively parallel nature of
the project, combined with me doing weekly updates, sometimes makes it seem
like progress is not what it should be. This is simply not the case. With
the kind of headway we're making at this point, we are well along the path
of getting this thing out on time, as well as with additional features that
we hadn't expected to have by release one.

So to everyone who has contributed, plans to contribute, or is watching
passively, progress is excellent. Could we use more help? Absolutely, but to
do what we are with what we've got is little short of amazing. Keep up the
great work!


=================
The Wish List
=================

I'm beginning to think something is not right in the world. Almost a
complete week has passed and Weave hasn't broken anything. Then again, I'm
in New York right now, so I might just be out of the loop.

For those of you capable of pitching in without hurting yourselves, consider
the following very viable ways that you can help. And thanks in advance!

 - Add SNMPv3 functionality to jSNMP
- Download the discovery code and give it the once over. Hell, you can even
run it.
- Implement the event correlation spec.
- Review the database design
- Consider the integration points for CIM/WBEM support

As a related sidebar, I've got IBM's Java 1.3 JDK loaded on my laptop now
and it appears to fix most of the drag-n-drop issues that I was having with
Sun's 1.2.2. Any other experiences with this one? Anything to watch out for?
I like to be prepared.  I learned something from my years as a Cub Scout.


=================
Quote of the Week
=================

Indirectly, and probably not verbatim, several of us around the office
overhead one nameless individual (with a broken arm) say something very
closely approximated to:

"So is that operator supposed to be binary or urinary?"

Someone has either been programming way too long, or drinking WAY too much
coffee...

Unarily yours,

Shane O.
========
Shane O'Donnell
OpenNMS
shaneo@opennms.org
http://www.opennms.org

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