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From: announce-admin@opennms.org
To: announce@opennms.org
Subject: [OpenNMS-Announce] OpenNMS Update v2.13
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 17:50:06 -0500 (EST)

====================
   OpenNMS Update
====================
  Vol 2., Issue 13
====================
   March 27, 2001
====================

   In this week's installment...
     * Project Status
          + A Flurry of Activity
          + Core Team Grows Again
          + SCM Changes Merged
          + Reporting: An Early Look
          + Coding Projects Underway
     * Upcoming Road Shows
     * Early Adopter Program Status
     * The Wish List


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

A Flurry of Activity:

     Many objects are in motion in preparation for our 0.7.2 release,
     slated to be dropped sometime late next week.

     This release will be a significant release from an underlying
     functionality perspective, as it will be the first to include the
     following milestone technologies:

     * Rudimentary Event Correlation

     * Event configuration (for more granular than today)

     * Administrative Reporting

     * New Ant 1.3 Build stuff

     Not to mention some significant iterations of existing technology:

     * Updated data storage in our RRDs

          + 31 days of 5-minute Intervals

          + 366 days of 1-hour Intervals

     * Thresholding on SNMP Data Collection

     * More tweaks to the Web UI, which now will include some handy
       integration between outages and Category data

     * And last but not least, the creme de la creme, the most widely
       anticipated update ever clamored for by a demanding mob: A
       simplified installation mechanism.

     As you can tell, there's a whole lot going on with the OpenNMS
     crew. We're moved. We're lean. We're mean. We're mad as hell and
     we're not going to take it anymore. We're not gonna take it. NO! We
     ain't gonna take it. And, we're off to see the Wizard.

     Watch for the upcoming 0.7.2 release late next week, and check out
     CVS in the interim, for those of you with high pain thresholds and
     a distinct lack of patience. But don't check it out right
     now--rumor has it Larry broke the build.


Core Team Grows Again:

     On behalf of the rest of the OpenNMS gang, we're pleased to
     announce the addition of two (yes, two!) more members to the team.

     * Mike Johnson - Former bodyguard to Teddy Kennedy and current
       co-chair of our local LUG (http://www.trilug.org/), Mike brings a
       wealth of experience to the team. Mike's focus will be in the
       integration of other technologies key to the success in deploying
       a cool open source network management tool, including primarily
       security, but he'll also be dabbling in network utilization,
       systems management, and other cool stuff.

       Mike also brings the team's first in-house pony tail.

     * Robert Berkowitz - Renowned as the "Son of Carl" and immortalized
       in the Spike Lee joint "Summer of Carl", Robert comes to the team
       in a sys admin role as well. "Son of Carl" is going to be taking
       on the OpenNMS web server administration as well as a lot of the
       other tasks that Ben has had on his plate, in an order to free Dr.
       Reed up to focus on the build and installation stuff. Robert likes
       to spend his free time working on his auto-biographical novel,
       "How to Succeed in Business with a Beard like Robert Bork".

       And Robert brings the team's first multi-pierced appendage.  That
       we know of.

       Welcome to the Asylum!


SCM Changes Merged:

     Weave has started considering the merger of his code with the main 
     development "trunk", which will bring with it a good number of SCM 
     fixes and feature enhancements. A number of these won't be real usable 
     until the control scripts are updated, but we're working on it.

     For those of you having problems with the current SCM, you might
     give the code in CVS a spin (the merge should be final tomorrow 
     afternoon).

     Good luck, and don't forget about Bugzilla...


Reporting: An Early Look:

     Jacinta has been heads down over the past couple weeks getting her
     arms around the reporting requirements we've handed her. And
     according to her, her labor has born some fruit.

     Available beginning in the 0.7.2 release, users will be able to
     generate a few canned reports, with customizability to follow soon
     thereafter. With 0.7.2, you will get, at least the following, if
     not more:

     * Availability over the Last Month (Total)

     * Availability over the Last Month (Service-level)

     * Last Month's Top Availability Offenders

     * Availability over the Last Month (Daily)

     Since there is not currently a UI for these reports, I'll opt to
     wait before trying to explain these in any greater detail. There
     will be a UI for them in 0.7.2.

     Won't there, Larry?


Coding Projects Underway:

     * CDP/L2/Mapping -- The Pete Siemsen show has begun and comments are
       directed to the [discovery] list.

     * Snort Integration -- Matthew Lehman has taken on gainful
       employment. Hopefully this won't impact the important stuff...

     * Solaris Port -- Rumors of a working Solaris installation abound.
       Hoping to see a FAQ entry on "How do I install OpenNMS on..."
       soon.

     * Testing on NT/2K -- Still hear lots of effort is going on here,
       but haven't heard much in terms of details this week.

     * SNMP Poller/Data Collection -- Thresholding is just about there...

     * Event DTD -- Testing.

     * User Interfaces -- Larry is chock full o' updates. Jeff is testing
       them as fast as Larry can code them.

     * New Pollers -- Lots of interest in how to write pollers, as well
       as CORBA management. Is this of wide-spread interest?

     * Maji Prelim Work -- Rick is building Perl code that is
       successfully parsing MIB files. Check him out, in all his glory,
       on the "events" list.

     * Configuration -- Trading emails with a faithful member of the
       mailing list interested in perhaps open sourcing some libraries to
       aid in our configuration management processes. No update this
       week.

     * Swing Interface -- Back-burnered right now.

     * Discovery/CAPSD/Database Review -- Mike's got a few more items
       before we move on to "coalescence".

     * Agent Technologies -- More progress to report here. Craig has got
       Jabber server stripped down for our needs and is working on
       building a test bed for his development needs. He's also passed
       along a recommendation that the new rollercoaster at King's
       Dominion is pretty cool. 0-80mph in 2 seconds. I had a Chevy S-10
       that did that once...no, wait...that was 80-0.


===================
Upcoming Road Shows
===================

   Despite the fact that the new office rocks, we're ready to spread our
   wings and leave our cushy little cubicled nest.

   So, on with the road shows...

     * May 5th - Twin Cities LUG, Minneapolis, MN

     * May 10th - Boulder LUG, Boulder, CO

     * June 1st - NOVALUG BBQ!! Fire-eaters Unite!!

     * June 2nd - Northern Virginia LUG (NOVALUG), Alexandria, VA

     * June 11-15 - OpenView Forum 2001, New Orleans, LA

     * July 23-27 - O'Reilly Open Source Convention, San Diego, CA

     * August 28-30 - Linux World Expo, San Francisco, CA

     * November 6-10 - Annual Linux Showcase, Oakland, CA
                       NOTE:  Good thing the Bay-area got a good Linux
                              show.  God knows Atlanta was practically
                              overrun with Linux events...

   For additional details on these appearances and others, check out the
   web site at http://www.opennms.org/sections/opennms/events


============================
Early Adopter Program Status
============================

   Jeff's out sick today, but he swears he's working from home.

   Still a mounting of interest in the EAP, and it is nearing (if not
   past) our original intended cap. The program is providing a great
   testbed for the code in a variety of infrastructure environments
   (e.g., Cisco, Bay, M$, etc.)

   But since Jeff is sick, I don't have a lot of details to provide...


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

   So I'm going to assume that since no one has expressed any interest in
   CORBA or CIM that these topics are done for a while.

   And now, on with the list...

     * In the 0.7.x release (and CVS), checkout the TODO file

     * More Data Collection configs wanted for the DataCollection.xml

     * Any interest in more TCP pollers? Let us know (or better yet,
       build one yourself...)

     * LDAP/POP3/nmap Pollers

     * Documentation and development your game? How about a white paper
       on how to extend OpenNMS with custom pollers, custom configs,
       and/or your own scripts/code.

     * Any additional help we can get proving our documentation either
       right or wrong is appreciated. Thanks.

     * Got any creative applications for OpenNMS that we haven't
       considered? Let us know!

     * A Security analysis of OpenNMS?


=============
Afterthoughts
=============

   We're in the new digs and everything is working, but the white boards
   still aren't up. I feel like a fish out of water.

   Somebody talk to me about CORBA management?

   We're about to push some asset management fields into the database.
   Does anybody have any recommendations for fields to include? A list
   would be nice...

   A lot of questions from the world at large lately about how open
   source licensing works and legal ramifications for everyone's specific
   situation. PUBLIC DISCLAIMER: Neither I nor no other member of the
   OpenNMS team is a lawyer, nor are we educated to consult as one.
   Please see your local legal professional, or at least buy a copy of
   Don Rosenberg's "Open Source: The Unauthorized White Papers",
   available at online booksellers everywhere. It's not that we don't
   want to help, but we're far short of qualified. I'd like to dabble in
   brain surgery sometime, but I'm refraining from that as well...

   And we need to get a PBX. Anybody got any recommendations? Budgetarily, a
   5ESS is probably out of the picture for the foreseeable future. Any
   experience with some of the PC-based ones?

Makin' like a tree and gettin' out of here,

Shane O.
========
Shane O'Donnell
OpenNMS.org
shaneo@opennms.org
==================
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