network vs. asset module

[Albert Cervera i Areny]

Hi,
we just did the first commit of a new module named 'network' [1]. The
module is intended to allow describing the IT infrastructure with the
flexibility of having physical machines, virtual machines inside them,
applications, services, raids, hard drives and relate them easily with
the same mechanism provided by the party_relationship module. Things
are not always hierarchical: for example, a server can have two hard
drives but they are also shared by the RAID of the server so you need
links between all elements (RAID, hard drives and server).

It also allows the user to define attributes to each network item
acording to its type. For example, "eth0 from server X" will be of
type "Network Interface" and as such can have IPs, Card Model, Serial
number, whatever.. This' been implemented with the dict field (just
like product_attribute module).

The thing is that the resulting module is very generic and I'm
thinking that it might make sense to name it "asset" and use it to
define not only IT elements but any kind of asset of a company.
Indeed, I'd say it's very similar to the basic structure a CMMS [2]
provides. I'm thinking each asset could have (with an extra module) a
m2o to stock.lot and (with another module) a o2m to account.asset.

Thoughts?

[1] https://bitbucket.org/nantic/trytond-network
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computerized_maintenance_management_system

--
Albert Cervera i Areny
Tel. 93 553 18 03
@albertnan
www.NaN-tic.com

[cam....@azerttyu.net]

Hi

A simple question why to create a module as this ?
Is not more interessting to connect with others soft as racktable,
glpi, fusioninventory, ocs ?

Sorry for my english (it's a small nice question :)

Km

[Albert Cervera i Areny]

2014-07-10 17:19 GMT+02:00 cam....@azerttyu.net <cam....@azerttyu.net>:
> Hi
>
> A simple question why to create a module as this ?
> Is not more interessting to connect with others soft as racktable,
> glpi, fusioninventory, ocs ?

Well.. it's a very simple module (~300 lines of python code + ~300 on
XMLs) which correctly handles our needs and it's integrated with the
rest of the system which means that we can link it to parties and add
new features in the future (such as linking to invoices, for example)
without having to setup a new full system and keep it up to date with
new versions, etc.

If we were to use any of the solutions you suggest we'd either have to
use two separate systems or we should integrate/connect with them
which I'm pretty sure it's much more work.

Also we'll add some simple monitoring features in another module. I
know there are lots of monitoring solutions out there (we've been
using Nagios for a long time and recently tried Zabbix) but we're not
very happy with any of them. We don't need most features while we miss
others.

>
> Sorry for my english (it's a small nice question :)
>
> Km

[Jordi Esteve]

El 10/07/14 16:39, Albert Cervera i Areny ha escrit:

> Hi,
> we just did the first commit of a new module named 'network' [1]. The
> module is intended to allow describing the IT infrastructure with the
> flexibility of having physical machines, virtual machines inside them,
> applications, services, raids, hard drives and relate them easily with
> the same mechanism provided by the party_relationship module. Things
> are not always hierarchical: for example, a server can have two hard
> drives but they are also shared by the RAID of the server so you need
> links between all elements (RAID, hard drives and server).
>
> It also allows the user to define attributes to each network item
> acording to its type. For example, "eth0 from server X" will be of
> type "Network Interface" and as such can have IPs, Card Model, Serial
> number, whatever.. This' been implemented with the dict field (just
> like product_attribute module).
>
> The thing is that the resulting module is very generic and I'm
> thinking that it might make sense to name it "asset" and use it to
> define not only IT elements but any kind of asset of a company.
> Indeed, I'd say it's very similar to the basic structure a CMMS [2]
> provides. I'm thinking each asset could have (with an extra module) a
> m2o to stock.lot and (with another module) a o2m to account.asset.
>
> Thoughts?

I alsothink that the proposed network module is generic enough to handle
any type of asset, so it has sense to name it as asset instead of network.

An asset_it or asset_network module could be developed to add specific
features related to IT assets.

--
Jordi Esteve
Consultor Zikzakmedia SL
jes...@zikzakmedia.com
Mòbil 679 170 693

Zikzakmedia SL
St. Jaume, 9, baixos, 2a
08720 Vilafranca del Penedès
Tel 93 890 2108

[Cédric Krier]

On 10 Jul 16:39, Albert Cervera i Areny wrote:
> Hi,
> we just did the first commit of a new module named 'network' [1]. The
> module is intended to allow describing the IT infrastructure with the
> flexibility of having physical machines, virtual machines inside them,
> applications, services, raids, hard drives and relate them easily with
> the same mechanism provided by the party_relationship module. Things
> are not always hierarchical: for example, a server can have two hard
> drives but they are also shared by the RAID of the server so you need
> links between all elements (RAID, hard drives and server).
>
> It also allows the user to define attributes to each network item
> acording to its type. For example, "eth0 from server X" will be of
> type "Network Interface" and as such can have IPs, Card Model, Serial
> number, whatever.. This' been implemented with the dict field (just
> like product_attribute module).
>
> The thing is that the resulting module is very generic and I'm
> thinking that it might make sense to name it "asset" and use it to
> define not only IT elements but any kind of asset of a company.
> Indeed, I'd say it's very similar to the basic structure a CMMS [2]
> provides. I'm thinking each asset could have (with an extra module) a
> m2o to stock.lot and (with another module) a o2m to account.asset.
>
> Thoughts?

OK let's move the discussion to tryton-dev@ and start a blueprint.
Initial thoughts are there should be at least two modules:

- asset (probably with possible link with account_asset)
- asset_relationship

--
Cédric Krier - B2CK SPRL
Email/Jabber: cedric...@b2ck.com
Tel: +32 472 54 46 59
Website: http://www.b2ck.com/