]po[ is an OSS Web-Based "Enterprise Project Management" software which integrates the project lifecycle from CRM to payments. Built on this functionality in 2008 the development for an ITSM solution has been started, of which Nagios plays an integral part. The talk will cover why Nagios was chosen, the interfaces where ]po[ is using Nagios for, the implementation details as well as the challenges faced during implementation. A brief look into the other components of the ITSM solution will be given as well as a demonstration of the successful integration on one of our demo servers.

1. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
]project-open[
Open Source
Enterprise Business Application
Project
Controlling
Project
Management
Collaboration
Human
Ressource
Management
Customer
Relationship
Management
Knowledge
Management
Financial
Controlling
Nagios
Integration

2. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
Intro

3. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
About cognovAbout cognovííss
• Started 2004 as IT consultancy
• Networked company with employees in 4 countries
– Join Venture in Hyderabad / India
– Close partnerships in Spain and Slovenia
• Expertise in:
– Business process (software) for project oriented companies
– Knowledge building and management (software)
– Member based organisation management (software)
• Customer base:
– SMEs
– Associations
– (Universities)
• Experience of collaboration in EU projects (E4)
• ]po[ Core Development Partner

4. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
]po[ is an OSS Web-based "Enterprise
Project Management" software for project-based
organizations.
It integrates areas such as CRM, sales, project
planning, project controlling, collaboration,
timesheet, invoicing and payments.
As one of the largest open-source based web applications in the world with
more then 1,000,000 lines of code, ]po[ is used by more then 1000
companies in 25 countries to run their business
a
]project-open[ in a Nutshell

5. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
Financial
Controlling
Project
Management
Collaboration
Human
Ressource
Management
Customer
Relationship
Management
Knowledge
Management
Financial
Controlling
]project-open[ covers the following areas
System
Monitoring
Ticket
Tracking
Reporting

6. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
The ]po[ ITSM Process Map
Service Level
Mgmt.
Provider
Mgmt.
Request
for Change
Financial Mgmt.
Strategy, Policies, Culture, ...
HR
Mgmt.
Customer
Service Desk
Project
Proposals
Priorization /
Portfolio
Mgmt.
Incident
Mgmt.
Problem
Mgmt.
Project
Mgmt.
Configuration
Mgmt.
Change
Mgmt.
Project
Ticket
RfC
Software
Development
Release
Mgmt.
License
Mgmt
Operational
Procedures

7. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
Current Status
Service Level
Mgmt.
Provider
Mgmt.
Request
for Change
Financial Mgmt.
Strategy, Policies, Culture, ...
HR
Mgmt.
Project
Proposals
Priorization /
Portfolio
Mgmt.
Incident
Mgmt.
Problem
Mgmt.
Project
Mgmt.
Configuration
Mgmt.
Change
Mgmt.
Project
Ticket
RfC
Software
Development
Release
Mgmt.
License
Mgmt
Operational
Procedures
August 2008
Idea
Feedback
Prototype
Product
Definition
2nd Cust
1st Cust
Maturity
Customer
Service Desk

8. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
Nagios Integration

9. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
]project-open[
LDAP
]po[ as an Integration Platform
SAP FI
OTRS
OCS-
Inventory
GanttProject
RT
H-
Inventory
openProj
MS-Project
Navision
Lexware
Datev
generic
UBL
Bug Zilla
ODBC
XML-RPC
SOAP/
WSDL
Users Protocol
Nagios
Events
Big
Brother
other
Accounting
Idea
Feedback
Prototype
Product
Definition
2nd Cust
1st Cust
Finance
Email
CRM
vTiger
Outlook Plugin
Gantt
Invent.
Outlook integration using
vTiger CRM plugin
Generic mail import using SMTP/Fetchmail
Working unidirectional import
Import of same data as GanttProject.
Complete bidirectional “round-trip” editing
GanttProject an import MS-Project
schedules
Generic ODBC interface to read data from ]po[ and to
create new object via PlPg/SQL database API
Generic and configurable XML-RPC interface. Allows to
map XML-RPC calls into ]po[ TCL calls
Generic SOAP/WSDL implementation from University
Vienna. However no customer installation yet.
Unidirectional import of SAP
project costs into ]po[
Export of ]po[ financial information to NAV using
UBL (see below)
]po[ CSV export readable by Lexware
Buchhalter
]po[ CSV export suitable for Datev-
based tax consultants
UBL (Unified Business Language) is a
simplified version of ebXML
Flexible CSV export allow to connect
other accounting packages
First conversations
about integration
Simple import of BB4 status
currently for display-only
Active Directory and OpenLDAP
Tickets
Maturity
PAMGeneric Linux PAM
Custom
User-DB
Import scripts for custom
SQL user databases

10. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
Nagios Integration Overview
1. ]po[ receives and
parses Nagios alert
emails.
2. ]po[ parses the
Nagios configuration
files and creates
“Configuration Items”
(=objects) for hosts
and services
]project-open[
Config.
Database
Systems
Monitoring
Ticket
Tracking
Configuration
File

11. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
The List of Tickets

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Services Status

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Automated ticket closure

14. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
]project-open[
Configuration
Database
Nagios Integration Details
Nagios
Import
Ticket
Tracking
/usr/local/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg
~/Maildir
/new
acs-mail-
lite
Postfix
1
2
3
5
4
6

15. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
Nagios Integration Details
1. A locally running Postfix instance receives emails (possibly
imported via fetchmail) and delivers them to ~/Maildir/new/
2. An OpenACS “acs-mail-lite” process scans ~/Maildir every few
minutes
3. ]po[‘s “intranet-nagios” package receives callbacks from acs-
mail-lite, parses the Nagios subject line and extracts extract all
important variables (host, service, status etc.):
4. ]po[ check decides whether to open a ticket or trigger a
workflow
5. ]po[ check is there is already an open ticket for the specified
host/service and add the current message to the existing ticket
6. If we are running a workflow ]po[ checks if there is the need to
move the workflow along based on the Nagios E-Mail.

16. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
Nagios Integration Details
7. Dependent on configuration, ]po[ checks for budget constraints
in the associated project and alerts financial controllers.
8. According to urgency and skills, the best available resource
(internal or external) is assigned to the ticket. This requires:
- resource planning and timesheet management
- supplier database
- legal frameworks, SLAs
9. If the incident is handled, the workflow could move on to incident
analysis and underlying problem solving.
10. If necessary, ]po[ generates a new host and/or service as
“Configuration Items” in the configuration database.
11. Alternatively, ]po[ can also parse the Nagios configuration files
and import all hosts and services into the ConfDB.

17. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
Conclusions
• Nagios is a great interface to server
infrastructure
• Parsing the Nagios config files & mails wasn’t
much fun, but it’s OK
• Feature Requests:
– API or other format to read the Nagios database.
– Nagios returning the host’s list of hardware &
software similar to OCS-Inventory
– Send out emails in XML format for easier parsing?

18. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
Future ideas
• Link XoWIKI with ConfItems
• Use Nagios API for access to all data
• Pray for NDO Utils perform better and do it with PostgreSQL
• Manage notifications based on contacts searches (expert find)
• Integrate notification periods with Resource Management and
absences
• Use Nagios for external incoming notifications:
– Production / Delivery status changes in ERP
– Analysis of financial data KPIs
• Track ITIL KPIs with ]po[ QCM (quality control management)
• Use nagios to fill in ]po[ QCM KPI values
• Convince more IT departments that controlling has benefits.

19. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
Screenshots
configuration database

20. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
Sample Nagios Configuration

21. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
This option lets you import
the network definition from
the Nagios configuration
files

22. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
]po[ shows the list of
Nagios items parsed from
the config files for sanity
checks as a collapsible list

23. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
Opened up collapsible list
with the details on the Host
“Berlin2” and its “PcDemo”
service (our main demo
server)

24. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
The “Configuration Items”
page by default show all
available main hardware
items
The “Configuration Items”
page by default show all
available “top” hardware
items

25. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
By selecting “All items” you
also get the sub-elements,
both hard- and software
Here you can see a number
of ASP customers hosted on
the server “Berlin2”

26. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
Nagios Configuration:
Determines where to find
the Nagios home directory
on the local computer

27. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
Screenshot from a
different server with
additional integration
with:
• OCS-Inventory
Question: Could you
include this in Nagios?

28. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
Continuation from OCS
Inventory integration

29. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
Continuation from OCS
Inventory integration

30. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
Continuation from OCS
Inventory integration

31. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
Continuation from OCS
Inventory integration

32. ©]project-opem[ 2008, V.0.5
]project-open[
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Project
Controlling
Project
Management
Collaboration
Human
Ressource
Management
Customer
Relationship
Management
Knowledge
Management
Financial
Controlling