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RiverMuse PRO includes a Reusable Business Logic (RBL) engine to streamline the creation of all configuration components in a single reusable package.
The configuration is loaded through a text file; it is then parsed and converted by a back-end engine that updates the configuration of multiple components within the RiverMuse product. This is a vast change from traditional Manager of Managers (MoM) solutions as configurations from multiple components are incorporated in a single configuration.
The RBL engine serves to:
- Map organizational processes into the product through one configuration channel
– Fuel the creation of a community driven repository (aka App Store). Configuration packages can be shared or bought. (i.e. a configuration package for grouping events by event type, and performing isolated problem correlation; a configuration package for interpreting Cisco alarms and integrating with Cisco inventory tools to populate RiverMuse dynamic variables).
RiverMuse PRO also incorporates a presence management engine that can discover entities on demand.
This is most useful when new alarms are reported for devices/entities not yet present in a CMDB or inventory management system. A RiverMuse Business Logic Package can first lookup Configuration Item information from the CMDB, and if nothing is found, attempt to perform a discovery using the RiverMuse Presence Management System. This will provide many additional variables that can be leveraged through correlations, automations, and escalations.
RiverMuse PRO includes a centralized rules management wizard.
Whether there are 1 or 50 remotely deployed collectors, rules are configured in a central location through a GUI. Within a traditional Manager of Managers (MoM) solution, the process of obtaining events, performing correlation, and providing business context are usually separate and distinct. Legacy MoM architectures typically require business logic rules to be updated at various levels and multiple components within their system and frequently using different, proprietary scripting languages. This creates a management challenge – and makes it hard for operations teams to keep up with infrastructure shifts.
RiverMuse PRO provides the facility to consolidate your Data Center Operations in a single pane of glass, and achieve Operational Excellence by automating tasks and streamlining processes.
RiverMuse Core, the first enterprise-class open source Real-time Consolidated Operations Console system ideally collects information via SNMP traps and Syslog messages out-of-the-box. Additionally it supports 8 standards-based APIs to obtain data from virtually any source (gSOAP, Perl, Java, C++, XML, PHP, Python, and Ruby on Rails). RiverMuse PRO builds on top of RiverMuse Core and provides a presence management discovery engine, a powerful enterprise desktop console, dynamic alert enrichment from external systems, enhanced scalability, and additional functionalities to streamline organizational processes and dramatically simplify system maintenance.
Perhaps the most compelling reason for pursuing a Consolidated Operations Console solution is being buried in a myriad of tools. And more importantly having little or no business context mapped to the results. The need for a so-called Manager-of-Managers MOM solution becomes more evident the more complex and dynamic an infrastructure becomes – thus requiring various tools to manage and monitor the environment. While multiple monitoring tools are great for specific tasks such as application monitoring, transaction monitoring, or communication device monitoring, problems that affect more than one silo take longer to identify and isolate.
RiverMuse PRO solves this problem by centralizing data across all the different tools, and retrieving events directly from devices when needed. To perform this, RiverMuse PRO includes passive as well as active collectors such as the RiverMuse VMWare agent. This active collector natively interprets CIM (Common Information Model) formatted data streams. Events from different environments are consolidated in one repository, where cross-domain correlation can occur. This allows operations personnel to quickly identify the problem and associated symptoms.
RiverMuse PRO incorporates the event processing scalability of leading commercial Manager-of-Manager solutions without sacrificing granularily.
In other words, all events related to a specific alert are kept in our system and made available on demand including through a launch in context tool. Additionally, correlation can occur against events and alerts. Other leading Manager of Managers tools are also resource intensive and require several install instances to provide value. In contrast, RiverMuse PRO was incorporates a small footprint to curb the overhead and maintenance requirements of legacy MOM solutions without sacrificing elegance and functionality.
Over the past five years we have witnessed an acceleration of open source software (OSS) adoption by both service provider and enterprises alike. As Gartner stated in a November 2008 report, the primary advantages for customers adopting OSS tools were lower cost of ownership, ease of implementation, investment protection against a single vendor and faster time to market.
These key advantages have held true for the open source industry time and again, enabling it to gain significant market share across the entire IT stack, from operating system to middleware to tools to business applications and across enterprises and service providers (see the discussion on this subject on the microSperience blog). In fact, in the Network and System Management (NSM) space, there is already a wide selection of open source monitoring tools that have gained a broad following.
This is our January RiverMuse poll. The poll results archive will be stored within the RiverMuse Community pages.
Network World have posted a slide-show of their Top 10 IT Management Start Up’s to Watch. You can see it here.
We are delighted that NetworkWorld have named RiverMuse as one of their top 10 IT management start up’s to watch in their annual review announced today.
You can read the full article here.
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18th November 2009: Today, RiverMuse welcomes Rich Green to its Board of Directors as well as Con Blackett and Matt Asay to the company’s Advisory Board. In their respective roles they will provide counsel to the RiverMuse leadership team, advise on strategic initiatives according to their relative expertise, as well as assist in forging new industry relations. This elite group adds deep industry knowledge and leadership to RiverMuse and complements its premier line up.
JL Valente, CEO and President at RiverMuse, said: “For a company aiming as high as we are it was imperative to attract a crack team of world class business and technology leaders. I have no doubt that these three industry heavyweights, with their collective experience, will enrich RiverMuse and help propel us to the next level.”
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Rich Green joins the RiverMuse Board of Directors. Green brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in the open source and proprietary software sectors. A veteran of the Silicon Valley software industry, Green joined Sun Microsystems in 1989 where he held a variety of roles, including Vice President and General Manager of Solaris and Java during which he led the creation of JavaEE and JavaME. He went on to become Sun’s Executive Vice President of Software responsible for its entire software product, service and support business. Currently Executive Vice President of the Mobile and Enterprise business at Nuance Communications, Green is also a member of the Foundation Board of the University at Albany (N.Y.) and a co-founder and board member of Freshbrain.org.
Matt Asay joins the RiverMuse Advisory Board. Asay’s journey on the open source road began in 1998 and he has since achieved guru status as one of the industry’s leading open source business strategists. In 2003 he founded the Open Source Business Conference – a premier open source strategy event – and served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Thomas Weisel Venture Partners where he focused on open source investment opportunities. In addition to his RiverMuse advisory post, Asay regularly writes on CNET’s open source blog: http://cnet.com/openroad and manages global business development for Alfresco, an open source Content Application Server vendor. Prior to Alfresco, Asay was part of Novell’s Linux Business Office.
Con Blackett joins the RiverMuse Advisory Board. Principle of IT service management operations at BT until recently, Blackett possesses top business acumen and weighty technical skills in network and systems management, collected over 25 years across Europe and North America. A true industry veteran of the telecom industry, Blackett is regarded by many as a prime influencer and his Midas touch has aided the futures of dominating products such as HP OpenView and IBM Tivoli. Interestingly, Blackett was also responsible for the first ever implementation of Netcool (from Micromuse) at BT- worldwide.
A recent ComputerWorld article entitled “Big IT is Back, Say HP, IBM, Oracle, EMC, Cisco” discusses the recent formation of the Acadia joint venture between Cisco Systems, EMC and VMware to provide a complete virtual computing environment for enterprises. This alliance pits itself against similar initiatives from HP, IBM and Oracle aiming to offer a complete virtualized infrastructure stack to enterprises. The central argument is that a single-source integrated stack increases productivity in IT operations, strips cost down and offers a higher level of agility. We at RiverMuse agree that a dynamic IT infrastructure based on a strong virtualization fabric is the path forward for IT. Clearly the mega vendors listed above along with Microsoft are best positioned to sway enterprises over for adoption and that’s a good thing.
However when it comes to managing such abstracted and complex fabric their management platforms fall short and the additional vendors in the space including CA, BMC and Compuware seem severely challenged as well due to a lack of genuine innovation. The systematic recourse of all the large vendors for years, even decades has been an acquisition strategy whereby they absorb products, knowledge and engineering talent and swiftly shift their focus from innovation to integration, touting “synergies” as the new panacea.
As the world of IT embraces more advanced computing and networking environments there is a parallel requirement put onto the management platform to harness them effectively and efficiently. Event and fault management, which is at the very core of any infrastructure and service delivery management offering has fallen prey to this rash of acquisition/integration and witnessed little innovation for a decade. Legacy fault management tools from IBM, CA, HP and EMC are no longer adequate as they were built for a more static world, with a low rate of change, no virtuaiization and a single focus on networks and network elements rather than on a broader computing infrastructure and the IT service delivery chain. Fault management is out, event management is in as it captures, processes and renders all signals coming from the infrastructure whether be network, compute, middleware, service or security-related.
Hence RiverMuse was born out of necessity to address the event and fault management challenges of a dynamic IT infrastructure that mega vendors have so long ignored. Genuine innovation is back and it’s not just technical. See for yourself.
JL Valente