Nagios alarm reporting via SMS

Hi all.
One of the recent projects was the configuration of a NAGIOS alarm system.
Each and everyone I.T.Manager (like any normal human) love to have good nights of relaxed sleep.
There is only one thing worse that a half cut night because a server decided to crash someone wakes you up in agony to "go-fix-it-pleeeeeaase"; and that is walking into your company in a relaxed monday morning, and enter the "chaos zone" of having every user finding out the servers have crashed.

This of course is something I've never experienced in my life. There are several reasons for that:
 1 - I use Linux and Unix... so this alone get's the blue-screens, exploits, memory leakages and random reboots out of the equation.
 2 - I virtualize everything, from servers to vital workstations, to storage and networking. And this is not just eliminating the real layer of the thing... it's also configuration resources watchdog routines and procedures to motion the resources on demand.
 3 - I create multi routes and multi paths.
 4 - I've always used SNMP and solutions like HP OpenView and the beautiful NAGIOS

Now OpenView is common between most I.T.Managers, but at a cost... a HUGE cost.
Most people are so microsoftized that see nothing else other than that poor SMS server... and abandon towards OpenView or IBM'S Tivoli, paying the price.
Don't get me wrong... the huge cost of HP's OpenView on IBM's Tivoli solution is not expensive. In time, it's all returnable... but still I'd rather have that money spent in more vital areas.

This is were the NAGIOS comes in. Nagios e opensource and very flexible. It's so flexible that people usually say it's a bitch to configure.
This statement is not entirely truth. There is a trick to being able to configure Nagios fast and without slashing your wrists - Make a Lab using an already installed and configured appliance... and then use that knowledge to configure one from scratch.

But back to the original title:
In the company I'm working today, the I.T.Manager is using Nagios to monitor the servers and it's services. The problem is finding out what went wrong when he is not looking at the console and it's warnings.
So he installed an old NOKIA phone and plugged it VIA USB.
We installed gsmsendsms and configured as 2 Nagios commands (user and service commands).
There is no black magic to this, and if you Google, you'll discover hundreds of articles explaining how to do this. This one HERE is a good example.

The problem most posts don't explain is that nagios will execute gsmsendsms as 'nagios' user. And gsmsendsms need to send data directly to the usb device port, needing sudo rights to do so.
It that's the case, a look at nagios log will make it ease to understand that Nagios is not being able to open the device to send data to.

The solution? Simple.
1st configure Nagios command files and make sure you type "sudo " prior the gsmsendsms command.
Then:
sudo nano /etc/sudoers
Then add the following line:
nagios ALL=(root)NOPASSWD: /etc/bin/gsmsendsms
Write out and exit.

That's it! Nagios will start sending SMS when the configures alarms fired. All you have to do now is configure those alarms and recharge that mobile phone's sim card with some money every once in a while.
;)

Project Doesn't do Montecarlo! Is that so?

Hi,
I've been teaching Project Management for over 10 years now. I've always tried to improve and  give my students more than they would get in a normal course.
Evidently I had to push Microsoft Project to new bounderies.
A lot of people asked-me "why don't you put project aside and use something better?". The answer is simple. Most Portuguese company's use Microsoft... most of them are starting to aply project management. Not only they don't need to push project to it's absolute limits yet, they also got it already licensed into their select and tech-net packages... so it's the most commonly used software.
And you know what? Price for features... the Project is actually an excellent product and very hard to beat.
To when it comes to Risk management... how do I take the theory of MacroRisk Management, MicroRisk Management and MonteCarlo Analisys into practice?

The same problem popped out years ago when I was the Risk Management Speaker at a International conference on project Management.
Back then I crawled the web and discovered a MonteCarlo (very simple routine) implementation using VBA and project from Jack Dahlgren called the Black Jack. I copied the code into project's VBA and immediately stared to make bug corrections, and improvements (several improvements).

As a result I now have a MonteCarlo Simulator working on project and use it in every RiskManagement module. It's a blast. Students love it and understand the brilliance of project risk management. It makes-me very proud because they can now implement these teaching into real life... maybe in a few years time we'll start seeing True Project Management Techniques in practice at Portuguese companies.

There is also something interesting. I'm porting this code to .NET into a closed source solution (a lot beefier and with better features). If I had used another tool, most of my work would not be portable with ease, making the development effort pointless.

The Demo Videos:
Macro Risk Management using Montecarlo
Micro Risk Management using Montecarlo

The Windows7 MultiTouch

Hi,
About 2 years ago , I was asked to build a prototype that could use Multitouch and Gestures aplied to a 3D renderization model showing an object.

The prototype should be used in a museum, enabling visitors to use conventional multitouch devices (hp for instance) and browse the museum's objects freely and without compromising the "object" it's self.
The first prototype (one of the first coins) was digitized in very high resolution and then mapped to a 3D object in 3DStudioMAX by Illusive. They are not programmers, so the first solution the found was to use the QUEST3D engine and make a demo that was mouse scrollable.

I was then called into action. I was working at PSIEngine at the time, so I pulled the project in.
Either I created something from scratch, and implemented some kind of 3D engine on top of windows 7 multitouch layer and windows 7 beta... or I would have to use the Quest 3D and make something out of it.

Risk Management:
Windows 7 is still beta!
Windows 7 Touch and gestures are even worse... the examples in the down-loadable alpha versions are not written (just the object structure) and the videos from the Microsoft Evangelists are very shallow.
Quest 3D uses a Channel object structure... you drop the DLL into quest, you drag the object to the set and use the connectors... but the SDK is built for Visual Studio 6 and C++ (Quest needs speed so the running away from .NOT makes perfect sense.)
The Windows / touch objects are built for the .NOT framework.

Solution:
Use Visual Studio 2005, and ignore all the errors it fires in Windows 7 Beta, create a compatiblity project using Quest's c++ dll example.... and then ignore the windows gestures, grab the 2 points and then create your own gesture manipulation routine...  compile, debug, wrap-it-up and make a bang.

Special Thanks:
Revelino Mateus. A colleage from PSIEngine that just talks C++ better than Camões (famous Portuguese poet) talked Portuguese. Thanks Revs, you are the best.

These are the 2 Demonstration Videos:
The Quest Channel Properties
The Gestures working