Hi all:
I'm looking for information anyone might have comparing Intermapper to
NetBrain for NMS. Stuff like devices up/down, interface utilization,
building maps for documentation, etc. IMO, Intermapper works great, when
it works. Tech support has been slow and often cannot fix the problems,
not to mention they release updates about once every other week.
Anyone familiar with any similar products? We are presently evaluating
NetBrain and it seems really nice. We really like the Visio-like aspect of
it.
Thanks!
-Ben
I like intermapper for monitoring: it's been very stable, and exports traps and notifications well. I also like netbrain for troubleshooting and mapmaking, because its visualization is engineer and manager-friendly.
David Barak
I'd also be very interested in what's out there. I have similar grievances with InterMapper, but at this point, it sucks far less than anything else I've tried.
I just poked around NetBrain's site and am immediately deterred by it's reliance on a Windows backend, so that's out for me. I did use OpenNMS for a while before switching to InterMapper, but ONMS's discovery/mapping was very broken at the time, it was a PITA to set up and manage and I don't know if it's gotten much getter in the last couple of years since.
I've tried things like ManageEngine, but it's far too bloated and complex for what I need.
I've always had a love/hate relationship with Cacti for this type of thing. If you have the Monitor, Threshold, and Weathermap plugins installed, it's very extensible and would probably meet your needs well. Weathermap has a decent in-app designer that has a Visio feel. The hate part comes when dealing with its poller and RRD processing, which are a bit of a pain to troubleshoot when they go on the fritz. Also, it has a bit of a learning curve, mainly due to the extensibility it allows, and initially getting it going takes some work (some Linux CLI skills). I'm not sure how it compares to NetBrain or Intermapper, but Cacti is open source and doesn't have a commercial support option. Not sure if that's something you're looking for, just FYI.
-- Jeff
I would second Cacti as a great extensible resource, (with Threshold,
Monitor, and Weathermap plugins) with the caveat that it almost
requires someone on the team to take it on as a hobby if you want to
get the most out of it.
You really need someone who loves to tinker, (and has the time) but
the payoff in the end can be worth it.
-Brett Lykins
Hey Jason 
I believe you and I interacted a few times on the OpenNMS
mailing lists.
As a quick update addressing only the areas you mention, we added in the
1.8 series a new, massively scalable, policy-driven provisioning
subsystem that can replace Capsd. So if by "discovery" you mean "node /
interface / service scanning behavior", then yes, great strides there.
Mapping is also much improved. The old SVG topo map, which at one point
worked only in Internet Explorer with the Adobe SVG plugin (blech), now
works in any modern WebKit or Gecko browser. There's also a whole slew
of entirely new map options (both topo and geo) in the upcoming 1.12
releases. Well worth a look.
Installation, setup, and administration have also seen continued
improvements, with better packaging and an ever-dwindling set of
configuration changes requiring a restart.
As always, the whole OpenNMS platform is still 100% free and open-source
software.
-jeff
I'm a big fan of Zenoss and have been using it in production for over 5
years in various environments and across different releases. Very mature
open source project with commercial support options and plugins. People I
know that came from OpenNMS prefer Zenoss once they get some time with it,
and as opposed to Cacti which is strong at MRTG style graphing and has
monitoring only as a plugin afterthought, Zenoss is built for both.
http://www.zenoss.com/
Good luck,
-Scott