It includes an Apache server and MySQL database, and is certified on a number of Linux distributions. “An end-user or MSP could download it and start monitoring the machines on their network,” said Tony Barbagallo, vice-president of product management and marketing with GroundWork Open Source of San Francisco.
The company also has a professional version, which is licensed (and includes bits of proprietary code). The pricing model is the same for enterprises and MSPs.
“In the case of an MSP, as many of their customers as they can fit on that single machine, it’s a US$16,000 annual fee, regardless of how they charge their customers,” he said.
The advantage, however, is that the code is open, so MSPs have the flexibility to provide monitoring for a custom device or segment their customers. And GroundWork doesn’t take a cut of the pie, said Barbagallo, as do other MSP offerings on the market.
The company has taken a number of best-of-breed open source monitoring technologies and built its own software called GroundWork Foundation, which is essentially a framework that unifies different open source projects.
It’s also created a user interface and portal on top of that, which presents to the MSP a single unified interface to the devices and environments to be monitored.
“It looks like they bought one of these high-end enterprise software packages,” said Barbagallo, “where in reality what we’ve done is certified and tested and enhanced a number of these open source projects under the covers and brought them together to provide all the data in an integrated fashion.”