150 new open source distributions released today!

What am I talking about, you ask? I'm talking about the 150 finalist entries in the $200,000 VMware Virtual Appliance Challenge. (Ok, I admit that the title is misleading. Keep reading!)

What is a virtual appliance? VMware describes a virtual appliance as a "fully pre-installed and pre-configured application and operating system environment that runs on any standard x86 desktop or server in a self-contained, isolated environment known as a virtual machine."

You can browse these virtual appliances on the VMware site. There are many different types of appliances, so I am sure that you will find one that interests you.

While you are there, make sure you look at a very special one called NeDiVA (Network Discovery Virtual Appliance). This is special because I created that entry! I am very proud of it, and I hope it does well in the competition.

Here is the summary of what NeDiVA does:

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NeDiVA Features:

Automated Network Discovery
* Automatically discovers Cisco network devices and learns how they connect to each other (network topology)

Beautiful Web-Interface
* Simple to use

Device Management
* Quickly telnet to a device with just a few clicks
* Make bulk configuration changes to many devices at once
* Archive device configurations and report configuration changes

Reporting
* Location of users on the network (DNS-->IP-->MAC-->Switch-->Port)
* Show which IP addresses are being used, and which ones are available
* Report by device name, type, serial number, software version, vlans, and much more!

Monitor Performance
* Graph traffic statistics on every interface
* View the available memory and CPU utilization of network devices

Monitor Availability
* Poll network devices
* Send email or SMS alerts when a device goes down

Monitor Errors
* Receive and display SNMP Traps from devices
* Receive and display Syslog messages from devices
* Display error rates on interfaces

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NeDiVA was created by Tristan Rhodes.
NeDi (Network Discovery Suite) was created by Remo Rickli.

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