RSP version 2.2 update
Thought I’d take a minute to talk about the latest version of RSP we just released today, version 2.2. If you’re not already familiar with RSP, it’s a cross-platform server monitoring and analysis program (and, as of 2.2, now has hardware tracking) with a web interface. Systems administrators, webmasters, and just about anyone else who has a server can (and should) use a monitoring system like RSP so they know if there’s anything affecting their users’ performance.
For version 2.2, we’ve been focusing on a new aspect to the software: hardware tracking. Using the RSP agents, we’ve been able to collect an extensive amount of hardware information (CPU models, SCSI controllers, hard disk types, network cards, etc). This info can then be sorted and compared against other data. So why would this be useful? Consider a shop that has only a set amount of money to spend on upgrades: the best use of this money is for the systems that are most crucial to users’ performance: you can quickly see what hardware is installed on each of your crucial systems and decide what to upgrade. There are many other uses too, of course.
Additionally, we’ve added several new interface enhancements, including a new page for each individual server: kind of like a dashboard on a per-server basis. It shows the current performance, the hardware installed, any ongoing problems with it (using the incident tracking features); you can even leave comments. One of the big pushes we’ve been making is for a real Web 2.0 interface: we use a lot of AJAX and slick interface effects to keep the interface as intuitive and simple as possible.
Be sure to check out RSP 2.2 – we’re very proud of it, and hope you find it useful.
