Many of the top remote monitoring and management (RMM) tool providers rely on traditional closed source development models. But GroundWork Open Source is trying to disrupt the RMM market with a new online hub for open source monitoring developers and IT administrators.
Before I share details about GroundWork’s move, I want to point out that there are pros and cons to both open source and closed source. I don’t believe one size fits all. But I do believe aggressive collaboration — beyond traditional in-house development teams — is the norm going forward.
Now, the actual news: GroundWork has launched MonitoringForge, which the company calls “the epicenter of all open source projects that relate to IT monitoring.”
GroundWork adds:
“MonitoringForge is designed to appeal to IT administrators who want to compare and understand the differences between various open source monitoring tools and plugins available today, facilitating the selection of open source monitoring software over proprietary offerings. Additionally, MonitoringForge provides a unified, professional project and plugin listing for all open source solutions involving monitoring. This web platform is designed to give the project developer control of how their material is presented and managed.”
I understand why GroundWork is messaging mainly to IT administrators: That’s a massive audience. But I think the company should have expanded its messaging to include VARs and MSPs, many of whom are still trying to decide how to monitor and manage customer systems.
I’m also hopeful that we’ll see MonitoringForge and other sites become launching pads for open source plugins that work with closed source RMM and PSA (professional services automation) software. Remember: Some of the most successful software stacks in the world — Oracle on Linux, MySQL on Windows Server — blend open source and closed source. I expect the same trend to play out in the managed services space.
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Posted In: RMM
Tags: GroundWork MonitoringForge | GroundWork Open Source | Open source managed services
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MonitoringForge does have a special value add for SI’s and VARs. check out more here: http://monitoringforge.org/plugins/mwiki/index.php/Www
SIs and VARs benefit by participating in MonitoringForge by getting a better understanding of the open source system and network management landscape by familiarizing themselves with the active developers and IT admin advocates. Also VARs and SIs can gain notoriety by participating in discussions about cross-platform development or what’s needed next – to broaden their awareness within the community.
Services companies are an important aspect of this community that feeds both sides of users and developers – so they get a double treatment. Thanks for bringing this up and pointing it out.
~ Tara Spalding
Tara: Thanks for the perspectives
Readers: Tara Spalding is VP of marketing for GroundWork. Also, she’s a SugarCRM veteran. So if you’re looking for perspective on how VARs and MSPs potentially can work with open source, she’s a great resource.
[...] Joe Panettieri at MSPmentor: GroundWork Launched Hub for Open Source Monitoring Developers [...]
[...] Joe Panettieri at MSPmentor: GroundWork Launched Hub for Open Source Monitoring Developers [...]
Good luck with this new project!
At first glance, it seems like a great source of information for all IT monitoring specialists.
Sylvain: Please let me know if you decide to contribute to the project or leverage it for your business.
-jp