Data center administrators know all about information. And they especially know about the problems inherent with too much information. Typically every server and device in the shop will both consume and generate a dizzying amount of text information in the form of log files, configuration files, alert messages, etc.; and when something's going wrong it's the administrator's job to search for the proverbial needle in the haystack to determine the root cause of the issue.
The question is what does it all mean?
We are creating a helpdesk/project management/monitoring system using open source tools that will become proprietary environment. This is going to provide the tools to collect the information and enable reporting on the data so trends on stability, performance, use response times become visible.
While I have talked to make customers on the industry standard tools like heat and Remedy this open source tool set allows us to customize the reporting to our needs with standard skills (linux/apache/MySQL/PHP)
What are you doing in your environment?
