Top 10 Open Source Tools for System and IT Administrators

All reputed online services have committed system and IT administrators working behind the scenes. Here are ten open source tools they should be aware of, as these can help them monitor, automate, as well as manage complex infrastructure with relative ease.

- Raj Patel

With IT infrastructure advancing by the day, system management has become increasingly complex. Open source technology offers the flexibility, visibility, as well as control for system administrators to cope with such complexities.

Open source tools have now become the obvious choice for the modern technology team because they align well with the way the infrastructure is deployed and managed today. These tools do not bind the administrator to a certain way of working.

Why open source tools are a great choice for system administrators

Transparency and flexibility: Administrators are able to view and customise tools based on actual needs, as well as leverage community innovation.

High-end capabilities without the price tag: Open source tools provide reliability, scalability, and performance on a level playing field with proprietary technology.

Vendor independence and long-term control: Organisations are not locked into any one technology solution and have the flexibility to modify their infrastructure as technology changes.

Strong ecosystems and extensibility: Evolved open source tools come with strong plugin infrastructures, integrations, and thriving communities to keep up with the growing complexity of the environment.

10 open source tools for system and IT administrators

1 Nagios: Foundational infrastructure monitoring

Nagios is a leading tool for infrastructure monitoring, offering system or IT administrators real-time views into their servers, networks, or major services. This helps them to uncover problems in a proactive manner prior to end users or business activity being affected.

Nagios has been around for a while now, and its reliability is widely acknowledged in traditional IT environments. One of its attractions is that it provides status checks without any complexity.

Administrators use Nagios for the following reasons: