Version 5.0 of GroundWork Monitor, an open-source-based server and network monitoring system, was released last week.

GroundWork, an IT management vendor based in the US, said its support services with the package were likely to attract corporate clients. It added that some firms are reluctant to move to open-source systems because they believe support will be weak compared with that for more commercial technologies.

“We will respond to critical issues in two to four hours, and typically resolve them within 24 hours,” said a company spokesman.

A free download covers basic IT monitoring and would be useful for firms with 50 or fewer servers and networked devices. Firms can pay to use GroundWork Monitor Professional, which integrates with the Eclipse Birt engine, and provides advanced reporting as well as dashboard capabilities.

The Professional package may also suit managed service providers, giving them and their customers a consolidated view of IT assets and business metrics. Dashboards let users drill down to focus on systems, business performance, and service-level agreements.

The Pro version supports operating systems including Suse Linux Enterprise Server version 9 plus 32bit and 64bit versions of release 10; and 32bit and 64bit versions of Red Hat Linux Enterprise Workstation 4. Users also need to run MySQL 5.x, which is included with the package, and the Java development Kit (JDK) with J2SE 5.0 Update 6 or later. For networks with more than 150 devices, GroundWork recommends 4GB of system memory and a dual-core processor of over 3GHz.

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