SF2012:Open Source IT Management
From Penguin Day
Contents
Intro
Solidify this session is about smaller sizes, but scalable services for IT infrastructure.
Palante is a small cooperative tech organization.
- Most of the organizations they work with is 4-10 staff.
- Big Q: How does an organization running on donated computers, that are consumer-grade, and their entire operation runs off of that--how do you help them use them with open source tools?
- How do you get big value out of $300 commodity PCs, especially remote access.
- They work with many offices that
- NTC (Non-profit Technology Conference) - major non-profit tech industry conference.
- Found that this conference was not applicable to the community he works with.
- What he'd really love out of this session, is to find IT collaborators to improve tech support deliver to small organizations.
- Palante wants to collaborate! Happy to share!
- Six-stages of IT (one great NTC talk)
- When orgs go from "Reacting to Chaos" to "Getting on Top of Things."
- The furthest stage is full integration of IT into orgs.
MSP industry (Managed Services Providers)
- Flooded with proprietary services.
- Among them: Kaseya, N-able, etc.
- Sometimes, open source purists don't know enough about the proprietary alternatives, don't know what folks are using in the wild.
- Platforms for providing tech--a suite of software designed to interoperate with one another.
- E.g. RMM (Remote Management and Monitoring), remote access software
- Freeware (Related to Freeatures, Fremium)
- There are free tools, which are sometimes proprietary, but in some cases make sense.
- Open Source Solutions
- Integration can be an issue for open solutions, but are tending toward integration.
- RMMs (Remote Management and Monitoring)
- Ultra VNC
- Is a great tool with a terrible website (don't be put off, check it out!)
- It's pretty fast, you can download it and run it on your computer, or you can run it as a service across a network.
- The reason we use it over other flavors is because there is more secure integration with Active Directory, which many office networks have.
- Apple Remote Desktop is actually a VNC derivative, so they are compatible!
- Video performance can be vastly improved, takes the "hook video driver"
- Microsoft remote desktop
- But the problem is running it on a client will kick the user out of their computer when you log in remotely.
- Ultra VNC
- Network Monitoring / Management Solutions
- Isinga
- Derivative from another package called nagios. One of the dominant tools in the open source space, but difficult to install and configure.
- You can set reminders for things like domain name registration.
- This saved the day for one organization, when they first launched a feature at Palante.
- You can see if a computer is down, or a server is down.
- Bottom Line: Isinga is easy to install and configure -- and it just works.
- There are also Software-As-A-Service, and cloud-based solutions.
- So light-weight, that they run it on a Virtual Machine that runs other software. (wow)
- There are also heart-beat free services to make sure one of your computers is up (e.g. the one running isinga for monitoring the whole network).
- Sub-software for Isinga
- NSClient++ (Windows Software) - speaks nagios/isinga language
- can configure to update statuses of devices like hard drives (warning when getting full)
- One other such notification script Palante uses is with Microsoft Security Essentials
- Security Essentials is free for orgs with less than 10 workstations.
- Isinga
- Support Desk / Help Desk System?
- Lots of good tools:
- GLPI - it's French (don't know / care what the acronym stands for ;)
- "But we don't use it as a helpdesk software" = Palante
- Meant to run a helpdesk, web software on *AMP. It can inventory and entire network, find computers you possibly forgot.
- Great for auditing hardware, software, usage data.
- There are plugins with VNC, but there are some issues outside of the network (remote, over internet access).
- People can open tickets, get updates on their tickets.
- Best used for a single organization, not multiple (used for French universities).
- Redmine for HelpDesk (client-facing)
- Palante loves redmine. It's based on Trac, an open source tool.
- Originally written for software, as a bug tracker, but now can be used for support requests.
- Email submission tickets@palantetech.com or specifically for one ticket tickets-DWsome-Unique-numbers-5898033@palantetech.com
- User management / account features (people can log in, have permissions at various levels, see status of tickets, etc)
- Can use it through the web alternatively.
- Integrates nicely with Active Directory (password consolidation).
- NOT RECOMMEND (Mantis)
- But it can work as a job-order and issue-tracking system. It is open source.
- GLPI - it's French (don't know / care what the acronym stands for ;)
- Lots of good tools:
- Patch Management / Update Management
- If you're still running Windows XP, you should upgrade, it makes security easier to manage.
- "Windows of opportunity" are much smaller on Vista and 7.
- WPKG
- Super minimal script that helps manage updates and patches to windows, applications, etc.
- Wiki on their website is extensive, helps figure out how to install all sorts of software.
- But not really great unless you already have a secure infrastructure
- If someone who knows what they're doing they could act as your package manager.
- Actually, there is no server component, just files on a server.
- OCSNG (Inventory?)
- Integrates very well with GLPI.
- Two Modes:
- Scan the Network from a server
- Install it on each client (preferred for Palante), which can do all sorts of things.
- Can use it for license management
- Some folks use it for package management, Palante does not.
- If you're still running Windows XP, you should upgrade, it makes security easier to manage.
Quick shout-out
- Pop-It
- lots of changes to linux servers.
- used by google, is gaining windows support.
- Pop-It
ChromeBook
An option to keep a lot of applications and services in the cloud and on the web.
- Question came up about monthly fee, but there is a non-monthly fee option.