Hyperic released the source code for Hyperic HQ, the first open source platform for managing all commercial and open source IT assets, and also unveiled a new community portal to promote collaborative development of the application. Hyperic announced last month that it has moved to an open source license model after two years of deploying its previously commercial IT management solution in over 100 companies including several Fortune 100 corporations.

"Our experience as a management vendor has shown us that proprietary products have an inherent limitation: the rapid changes in the IT landscape create inevitable delays in their ability to support the management of new technologies," said Hyperic CEO Javier Soltero. "An open source strategy solves that problem through a simple plug-in development process that allows users to develop support for emerging and custom technologies while also offering the usual open source benefits of low cost, easy customization and community enhancements. This mix of features offers a compelling reason for using open source to manage enterprise IT infrastructure."

Effective immediately, the Hyperic HQ source code can be downloaded at no charge at both the Hyperic and SourceForge websites under Version 2 of the GNU General Public License (GPL V2).

In addition to offering code downloads and binaries, Hyperic's new community portal at www.hyperic.org offers a central resource for developers, ISVs, OEMs, system integrators and others who want to participate in enhancing and extending the capabilities of the Hyperic platform. The portal will host forums for each Hyperic HQ component and provide a location for submitting and obtaining developer contributions ranging from new plug-ins to functional enhancements, localized versions and documentation.

The source code is available for:

-- The Hyperic HQ management server that supplies the platform's core functionality. Access to the source code will enable developers to integrate Hyperic HQ with other IT systems, such as help desk applications to enable alerts to be sent directly to a trouble ticketing system, as well as to create enhancements to the platform itself.
-- The Hyperic HQ agent that is installed on every server managed by the Hyperic platform. Access to the source code will permit development of enhancements that increase agent functionality and optimize the agent's footprint and required operating resources.
-- The Hyperic HQ portal, the web-based user interface that displays all management metrics. Access to the source code will enable developers to build new ways to visualize the rich management data collected by Hyperic HQ.
-- Hyperic HQ plug-ins that offer built-in support for every major commercial and open source operating system, web server, application server and database as well as other technologies such as Microsoft Exchange Server and Cisco network devices. Access to the source code will enable developers to enhance a given plug-in to gather additional metrics for HQ reporting.

The Hyperic HQ open source management platform provides a suite of free inventory auto-discovery, monitoring, alerting and portal tools that can be deployed out of the box in less than an hour, using plug-ins for the specific commercial and/or open source IT assets used in the customer's network. Support for products without plug-ins can be rapidly added to Hyperic HQ through its free open source development kit.

Hyperic HQ Enterprise Subscription, available for a yearly fee per managed computer, adds technical support as well as advanced features including remote resource control, role-based security, log/security event tracking, policy-based management and problem identification.