pandorafms/pandora_doc/en/pandora_chapter1.xml

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<chapter>
	<title>Introduction</title>
	<sect1>
		<title>What is Pandora?</title>
		
		<para>Pandora is a monitoring tool that allows a system administrator
		to visually analise the status and efficiency of Operating
		Systems, Servers, Applications and Hardware Systems - such as
		firewalls, proxies, databases, Web servers, tunnelling servers,
		routers, switches, processes, services, remote access servers and 
		so on. All integrated into an open and distributed architecture.
		</para>
		<para>
		Pandora can be implemented over any operating system, with specific
		agents for each platform. Pandora can also monitor any TCP/IP
		hardware system, such as load balancers, routers, switches, printers
		and so on.
		</para>
		<graphic fileref="images/esquema.png" valign="bottom" align="center"/>
		
		<para>Pandora architecture is formed of four main components:</para>
		
		<para><emphasis>- Web Console:</emphasis>
		Pandora's user interface. The user controls and operates the system
		with it. Several Web consoles can be implemented in a single system.
		The Web console is written in PHP, and rests on	a database and 
		a Web server. It is compatible with any platforms - GNU/Linux,
		Solaris, Win2000, AIX, etc. However, the official supported platform
		is GNU/Linux.
		</para>

		<para>
		The console permits the user to
		control the status of the agents, view statistical information,
		generate graphs	and data tables, keep a system incident control, 
		as well as to generate reports and change the alerts, agents,
		and user profile settings.
		</para>

		<para><emphasis>- Core Server:</emphasis>
		The core server is the receptor of
		the data packages and generates the alerts - it is the brain
		of the system. Several servers can work alongside for larger systems.
		It has been developed in Perl and works over any platform, although,
		the official platform is GNU/Linux.
		</para>

		<para>
		The core server accesses Pandora
		database, which is shared with the Web server, and stores the
		processed data packages. The server is executed under the name of
		"Demonio", and processes the packages stored in its file system.
		The data is generated by the system agents. Despite the server's
		low system resources comsumption and simple installation and
		operation, the core server is the most critical element of the system.
		The	core server receives and processes the produced data, and fires
		the alerts and the events.
		</para>

		<para><emphasis>- Central Database:</emphasis>
		At the moment the system only supports MySQL. The central database
		keeps all the information Pandora needs to work - agent data,
		settings, user information, incidents, system settings, etc. The
		system can use a MySQL cluster to store the information, or a high
		disponibility solution for larger sytems.
		</para>

		<para>This database can work with any of
		the platform officially supported by MySQL. Pandora can be implemented
		with MySQL versions 3.0 and 4.0, although the latest is recommended.
		</para>

		<para><emphasis>- Pandora Agents:</emphasis> They collect all the
		system's data. They are executed in each local system, although
		they can also collect remote information by intalling monitoring 
		sytems for the agent in several different machines
		- called satellite agents. 
		</para>
		
		<para>
		They have been developed to work under a specific platform,
		making use of the specific tools of the used language: VBSCript/Windows
		Scripting for Microsoft platforms (Win2000, WinXP y Win2003) and 
		ShellScripting for Unix - which includes GNU/Linux, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX
		and BSD, as well as the	Nokia's IPSO. Pandora agents can be developed 
		in virtually any language, given its simple API	and being open source.
		</para>
	</sect1>
	<sect1>
		<title>Pandora Administration</title>

		<para>
		  The web console is the tool used to administrate
		  Pandora. It is written in PHP and doesn't need any
		  third party software to work, neither FLASH, JAVA,
		  nor ActiveX plug-ins. The Web console can be run
		  over any web browser supporting HTML and CSS (IE5+
		  or Mozilla 4+).
		</para>
		<graphic fileref="images/image001.png" valign="bottom" align="center"/>
		<para>
		  Pandora administration is divided in the following
		  main elements:
		</para>
		  <itemizedlist>
		    <listitem>
		      <para>Pandora users</para>
		    </listitem>
		    <listitem>
		      <para>Agents</para>
		    </listitem>
		    <listitem>
		      <para>Alerts</para>
		    </listitem>
		    <listitem>
		      <para>Incidents</para>
		    </listitem>
		    <listitem>
		      <para>Server configuration</para>
		    </listitem>
		    <listitem>
		      <para>Database maintenance</para>
		    </listitem>
		</itemizedlist>
	</sect1>
</chapter>