The document discusses the use of Icinga, an open-source monitoring system, at Costa Rica's National Biodiversity Institute (INBio) to monitor temperature and humidity levels for the conservation of biological specimens. A pilot study identified the need for a more efficient solution to track environmental changes in their arthropod collections, leading to the implementation of Icinga to facilitate real-time monitoring. The project aims to utilize low-cost hardware and software while integrating future capabilities such as SMS alerts and remote control of climate systems.

1. ICINGA
in Action
Keeping Arthropods Alive
at INBio, Costa Rica
The National Biodiversity Institute PAPER TRACKING In a pilot study, Herson teamed ICINGA up
(INBio) of Costa Rica seeks to ensure If Costa Rica contains 5% of the world's with a TEMPerHUM temperature and humidity
the conservation of biodiversity and biodiversity in just 51,100 km², then INBio sensor, and a Sheeva-Plug computer in a
make the world a better place. houses a large and very precious collection of standalone setup (see Figure 1).
Along the way, ICINGA has been biological specimens. Maintaining optimal
there to help out. By monitoring the temperature and humidity is essential to their The sensor collected environmental data and
environment of biological collec- conservation. connected to Ethernet LAN (IEEE 802.3) via
tions, ICINGA has been able to take the Sheeva-Plug computer to relay its
the load off busy lab technicians. For INBio, tracking the environmental changes readings to the ICINGA Core. Herson wrote a
of biological collections used to mean walking Sheeva plugin for this task, which he has
to the thermostat and recording what was made available at INBio's subversion server
read on a sheet of paper on the wall. This of (svn://pulsatrix.inbio.ac.cr/temper_hum/).
course could only be carried out intermit-
tently. Sometimes air conditioning equipment From there the environmental readings
failed and it was of critical importance that it configured at 5 minute intervals were saved in
The National Biodiversity Institute
be detected immediately to prevent irrevers- a MySQL database for ICINGA Web to collect
(INBio) of Costa Rica is a private
ible damage. So a new solution was needed. data as requested by the client, and display as
research and biodiversity manage-
returned check results in its user interface.
ment centre, established in 1989 to
BOXES TO TICK In so doing, ICINGA has helped to keep the
support efforts to gather knowledge
Herson Esquivel Vargas, Systems Administra- diptera (otherwise known as flies) at INBio in
on the country’s biological diversity
tor at INBio took on the task. There were good condition.
and promote its sustainable use. The
plenty of solutions on the market- appliances
institute works under the premise
with pluggable sensors, even with web HATCH TWO CHICKS WITH ONE EGG
that the best way to conserve
interfaces. These often cost >US$1000 for the The two collections of arthropods with
biodiversity is to study it, value it, and
main appliance and associated sensors cost varying environmental conditions, are
utilize the opportunities it offers to
US$200 or so. currently under ICINGA’s watch. At the same
improve the quality of life of human
time, a tool was required to monitor INBio’s
beings.
However, as a non-governmental, non-profit various applications and servers in their data
organisation, INBio required a solution that center. In a simple extension, two objectives
INBio is a non-governmental,
was low cost in both hardware and software. were met with one tool.
non-profit, public interest organiza-
It needed to be easy to use and allow data to
tion of civil society that works in close
be checked, away from the physical collec- LOOKING FORWARD
collaboration with different govern-
tions. In the future, Herson hopes to integrate SMS
ment institutions, universities, the
alerts, automated graphing and even a system
private sector and other public and
ICINGA TO THE RESCUE to remotely control air conditioners and
private organizations, both within and
Luckily INBio was no stranger to free and dehumidifiers all in a smooth continuous
outside Costa Rica.
open source software. INBio had even process.
developed its own specialized tools and
released it under free licences At the moment he’s growing his set up to over
(http://informatics.inbio.ac.cr/projects.html). 20 hosts and 60 services. If anything is certain,
WHAT IS ICINGA?
In tune with their software philosophy and the monitoring project will grow to ensure the
ICINGA is an enterprise grade open thanks to its great community support, happy livelihood of a few more arthropod
source monitoring system which ICINGA was picked out to be the most collections.
keeps watch over networks and any convincing monitoring system.
conceivable network resource,
notifies the user of errors and
recoveries and generates perfor- TEMPerHUM ICINGA MySQL ICINGA
mance data for reporting. Scalable
Sensor Core Database Web Internet
and extensible, ICINGA can monitor
complex, large environments across
dispersed locations.
ICINGA takes open source
monitoring to the next level.
Figure 1: INBio Biological Environmental Monitoring
Special thanks to: Herson Esquivel Vargas, Systems Administrator at INBio
ICINGA - Open Source Monitoring | www.icinga.org | info@icinga.org