SilverSpore Releases New Version of Spore Self-Configuring Monitoring Appliance

SilverSpore, a provider of intelligent IT management solutions, has released version 2 of its Spore self-configuring monitoring appliance.

The newest version adds full integration with Cloud Computing environments. Company officials said that the Spore appliance eliminates the need for an agent to be preinstalled on server images. Plus, it does not require predefined configurations, and creates detailed service availability configurations on the fly.

SilverSpore Version 2 features integration with Amazon EC2 compatible cloud infrastructures, as well as improved performance and scalability. In addition, it’s compatible with Amazon Web Services and the Eucalyptus and OpenStack open source cloud infrastructures; and also adds automated network dependency routing.

Noting that servers running in the Cloud present special problems for monitoring solutions, Rick Bross, chief technology officer at SilverSpore, said that the company’s patent pending solution creates a detailed monitoring template for each new server image it sees, and thereafter can initiate monitoring in seconds as new servers are created. 

“It integrates and coordinates with the Cloud controller, so when a cloud server is terminated it is gracefully removed from monitoring instead of sending a flurry of false alerts,” Bross.

According to industry reports, most Cloud server monitoring has either been restricted to basic CPU, storage, and bandwidth monitoring or has required painstaking configuration by IT specialists.

Bross said that service availability is just as critical for Cloud servers as it is for any other critical business service. He said that users don’t care if the CPU usage and storage of a web server look perfectly fine if that server fails to deliver web pages, and the same goes for email servers and other servers that provide critical business functions. 

“SilverSpore's solution provides instant notification if a critical service is faltering,” Bross said.

SilverSpore Version 2 is now available, and a Virtual Appliance Demo is available on the company’s website. Earlier in March, the company released its Spore Monitor compound metric extension to the Open Source (News - Alert) community.