[Catalyst] How to build a catalyst system based on plug in ?

[John Napiorkowski]

--- On Wed, 5/21/08, Solli Honorio <shonorio at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Solli Honorio <shonorio at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Catalyst] How to build a catalyst system based on plug in ?
> To: catalyst at lists.scsys.co.uk
> Date: Wednesday, May 21, 2008, 11:54 PM
> Hi,
> 
> I'm thinking about to build one system to manager
> services on distributed
> Linux machine on central console, something like webmin but
> to manager all
> services of many server on one single console.
> 
> I would like to know about the best strategic to build this
> system based on
> plug in on a MVC environment , things like:
> * how to build a interface that would be easy to plug in
> add new feature to
> user interface ?
> * how to build a model that plug in could increments tables
> without worry
> about the sql server used ?
> * what is the best way to load plug ins on a MVC
> environment ?
> * and any other that I can't think by now but you can
> advice me !
> 
> Thanks all,
> 
> Solli
> Honorio

You have a lot going on here.  I recommend you start by looking at some open source monitoring tools, rather than building everything up from scratch.  It sounds to me like you're going to need software running on each of the monitored boxes and some sort of message queue that the central system is monitoring.  If I had to build this custom I imagine I'd write scripts on each of the monitored boxes that would insert report data into shared database, or maybe use a job queue like TheSchwartz to help me manage that.  Then I'd have some sort of alerting system, probably via email or SMS for critical alerts.  Catalyst could be used for a web front end to give you a sort of global dashboard.

So I think 1) Catalyst can play a role here, but it's not going to be the center of your system, 2) you need to looking at some existing opensource monitoring tools, 3) come back to us with more detailed, "How do I" sort of questions. I don't think anyone here is going be able to write your technical specification for you!

John