By: Jane Curry >> The Zenoss Community has been around since Zenoss started - that's over 10 years now! In the early days, there was no product, no support, no documentation. There were no charges, no rules, no documentation.Today's products - and here I include both the paid Zenoss Service Dynamics and the open source free Zenoss Core - have benefited from vast amounts of goodwill and experience contributed by the original handful of entrepreneurs who created Zenoss and a large number of knowledgeable open source advocates. The result is a product with an unrivaled depth and breadth of managing IT systems and networks.
A major area where the Community has contributed has been creating ZenPacks. These Zenoss add-ons that my organisation needs but no one else has got around to implementing. Today, there are over 270 Community ZenPacks to be found at http://wiki.zenoss.org/Community_ZenPacks and the chances are that some kind soul already has implemented what you need - or at least something close.
Join the Discussion at Zenoss Community
Can't quite make Zenoss do what you want? Join the discussions on the Zenoss forum at http://www.zenoss.org/forum (having, of course, searched for previous answers first). This should be the first port of call as discussions are preserved and searchable, increasing the total body of Zenoss experience.
Have you found the Zenoss Community wiki? http://wiki.zenoss.org/Main_Page Under categories such as Tips, Troubleshooting and Transforms, the Community has donated short articles on a vast range of topics, often with code samples. We all need to be better at contributing to this effort!
Need a more interactive discussion? Try joining the Zenoss channel on IRC. Periodically we have senior Zenoss developers drop in to run a “DevChat” open session. No guarantees - but you may be lucky! Beside Zenoss developers, you may well find Zenoss Masters lurking there - Community experts that Zenoss have recognised as such and have a wealth of experience.
The “Community” is not just for Zenoss Core users; financially-committed customers can also benefit hugely from the knowledge out there and hopefully contribute back to increase the global Zenoss experience.
Zenoss and all of us in the Community have even written some documentation! Ask me more about it or join me at GalaxZ '16!
