Icinga 1.6 Is Released

Online, December 2, 2011 (Newswire.com) - In a first step towards greater utilization of SLA information stored in the database, Icinga responds to a longstanding request in the Icinga/Nagios community with an SLA extension. This IDOUtils module breaks down critical events to account for downtime and acknowledgement periods. In so doing it enables greater precision in SLA reporting and can be conveniently accessed from the Icinga Web interface.

Furthermore, the consequent expansion of the underlying database model and IDO2DB logic has unlocked future reporting potential. "As a preliminary version, we see this SLA extension to be our first step towards comprehensive SLA reporting, direct from the database," illuminated Michael Friedrich, Core and IDOUtils developer.

The new development is matched only by the array of improvements to the two user interfaces. Alongside a user admin interface redesigned for greater intuitiveness, the new Icinga Web interface features a 'Tackle' cronk that offers an overview of all information related to any monitoring object. Marius Hein, Icinga Web developer, explained:

"If a user specifies a certain host, the Tackle cronk will display all its related services, host groups, custom variables, contacts, comments, SLA details and more. With this cronk, users will no longer need to flip between tabs - everything is there in one view."

Usability has also been enhanced in the Classic UI and Core. Improvements include extended logging capabilities for easier troubleshooting, notifications for stalked hosts and services, and overall greater performance, especially in notification logic.

Of note, is a new feature to set acknowledgments with expiry time. "We're proud to say that this idea came straight out of the community - off our running, feedback poll online," said Ricardo Bartels, Core developer as he emphasized the importance of being responsive to users as an open source project.

Version 1.6 also heralded development on a new component, IcingaMQ. Based on the ZeroMQ messaging library, the central message queue will offer a replacement for NSCA and act as a transport layer for a future Core API.

"This is a mammoth project, that will take away a whole heap of complexity in monitoring large environments, while improving performance significantly. It will add load balancing and distributed monitoring efficiencies - kind of like mod_gearman - but out of the box," affirmed Gunnar Beutner, Core developer, as the IcingaMQ prototype was unveiled at the Open Source Monitoring Conference in Nuremberg.

For more information, the Icinga project is found at: www.icinga.org
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- NOTES TO THE EDITOR -

Icinga 1.6 Change Log

Core
• Acknowledgements can now expire by providing an end_time through commands #770
• Log error on non-existing host/service/contact/*group when sending a command to the core #1737
• Reduce notification load by moving notification viability check into notification list creation (Opsview Team) #1744
• Add notifications to stalking hosts/services, not only logging/event handlers #1367
• Fix $NOTIFICATIONRECIPIENTS$ macro contains all contacts assigned to host|service, not only notified contacts #2023
• Make first_notification_delay depend on the first !OK hard state change and don't reset timer for new hard states which would replace it (Rogerio F Cunha) #1918

Classic UI
• Add expiry option and end_time to acknowledgements on cmd.cgi #770
• Acknowledge child hosts from on blocking outages #1858
• Add opt-in extinfo_show_child_hosts to show child hosts in extinfo.cgi #1820
• Add complete command line to config.cgi (cgi.cfg:authorized_for_full_command_resolution) #1329
• Fixed search not returning all results, only first match (without * at the end) (search hosts AND services) #844

IDOUtils
• Add SLA monitoring via opt-in enable_sla cfg option #2037
• Add indices for notification queries for Icinga Web #1964
• Add max_notifications_age, max_contactnotifications_age, max_contactnotificationmethods_age as housekeeping for notification tables #2051

Web
• Show host group membership #999
• Link to show selected host in status map #1256
• Function 'Delete comments' in Icinga Web #1438
• New notification frame #1546
• Add SLA support #1942
• Move information buttons to info view #1944
• Move search to menu bar #1951

Docs
• IDOUtils configuration #707
• Add acknowledgement with expire time #1973
• Add new extinfo_show_child_hosts option to cgi.cfg #1982
• Documentation for the SLA feature #2038
• Add stalking notifications (icinga.cfg) #2046