NimBUS

NimBUS, the vendor's core product offering, is a service level monitoring and reporting platform that is made available for multiple environments; including the monitoring of servers, databases, specific applications (such as Microsoft Exchange), and more.

At its core, NimBUS is an agent-based monitoring system built around a publish and subscribe architecture running over a software messaging bus. Applications publish information to a central hub, which in turn publishes the information to all subscribing elements in the platform.

Key components of the NimBUS platform include:

- The central Hub itself (also called a master robot), which is a software component that the vendor states provides connectivity for other components to the messaging bus. The Hub receives messages and distributes them to subscribers, as well as tracks information about distributed robots. Multiple hubs can be deployed in a NimBUS domain (with fail-over support).

- The Distribution Server, an engine for the centralized distribution of software and monitoring functions to managed devices.

- The NimBUS Manager, which provides the platform's central management/administration interface. The NimBUS manager enables packages to be configured, deployed, and installed on managed devices; as well as provides access to other NimBUS applications.

- Robots are the main agent components of the platform, residing on the actual managed device itself. Robots provide the interface layer between the managed device and the messaging bus; including a controller (the contact point for other NimBUS components, such as the Hub or other Robots, and the control point for the Robot's probes); and a Spooler, which queues up messages from the probes for delivery across the messaging bus (allowing messages to still be delivered after network connectivity is restored, for example).

- Probes are the main monitoring component for each device, under the control of and reporting their findings back to the device's Robot. Multiple probes are available depending on the device being managed and needs of the administrators, such as one that monitors CPU, disk, and memory utilization, and so on. The vendor offers SDKs for the creation of custom probes.

- The NimBUS Alarm Server (nas), a central component tied into the Hub that facilitates the receiving and managing of alarm messages.

- The Service Level Manager, an Admin console for the examination and management of the data collected from the probes.

Other features of the core platform not noted above include automatic component discovery, automatic elimination of redundant alarm messages (i.e., removal of alarm messages that are triggered as the result of an already noted alarm), and optional data compression.

Onto these core components the vendor builds and offers multiple platforms for the monitoring of service level agreements, Cisco VoIP, network gear, servers (Windows, UNIX, Linux, Netware, iSeries AS400, and agentless monitors), DBs (Oracle, SQL Server, DB2 UDB, Informix, Sybase), applications (Exchange, IIS, Lotus, more) and more. The latest offering from the vendor is NimBUS for VMware, providing for the collection and reporting of over 80 metrics for ESX hosts and virtual machines.

NimBUS is available now; the new NimBUS for VMware is priced at $750 per VMware Virtual Machine.

Visit the Nimsoft Web site for further information.