One of our clients asks for the “entry fee” for getting into the IT management platforms I’ve been talking about in the blog over the past year. The list is by no means exhaustive, just off the top of my head. In fact, if you’d like to see other folks listed, I’d love to update the table: add a comment below with the info or just who it is and I’ll look into them and update the table.
That disclaimer and invitation to help update the list out of the way: below is the price breakout for platforms that have public pricing. Instead of listing it per month, I extended it out to a year. There are several other notes and clarifications, esp. around what each vendor or group considers a “unit”; I’ll add notes for that below the table.
The above is the minimum price to start a year long subscription to for support and/or use (in the case of hosted platforms and/or closed source components) for one of the platforms above. The open source platforms can, obviously, be used at no charge if you don’t want support. Each vendor (apologies to the OpenNMS Group as they’re not a “vendor”) has many other service levels and services you can buy, like help with the initial setup. Also, of course, as you buy support and/or use for more “units,” you’ll may get price-breaks. See the linked to pages for more detail.
Typically, the support/use you buy at the above prices is for business hours. 24/7 support requires one of the higher level plans for most vendors. See the linked to pages for more detail.
Most of the vendors are providing support for open source software. What you’re buying is support per server, device, interface, or “unit” monitored and managed.
How each vendor classifies the “unit” being monitored and managed varies. Some charge per server (IP addressable device) like Versiera, while others charge per socket (Hyperic), and others charge per interface (like OpenNMS). Check he linked to pages for more details on each.
Most of the vendors require a minimum number of “units.” This is either phrased as, for example, a “minimum of 50″ (Zenoss) or “up to 2,000″ (OpenNMS Group). Either way, aside from Hyperic and Versiera, you can’t but just one.
Previous Topic
