Top 7 Open Source Applications for Enterprise

Sourceforge.net estimated that there are 230,000 open source projects on its site till Feb last year. Some of the projects are outdated, some of them do no not provide any support and others are in development phase. So, it is hard to find the right one for your need. I jot down 7 best open source applications after going through different news articles that can be used for enterprise environment.

• Network Monitoring with Zenoss: For enterprises, system administrator needs to monitor services and see that hosts are up and running. Zenoss is used for Availability monitoring and Performance monitoring, Event monitoring and Inventory Tracking. It is compatible with hosts SNMP, SSH, Windows WMI, Nagios agents, etc. The software is written in Python and uses mySql as the back end.
• Managing Identities with OpenDS: SUN’s OpenDS is a free, open directory service which is written in Java. It uses Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and related standards. As more and more enterprise apps are coming, identity management becomes very important for any enterprise. Access management and Directory services are the two main constituents for enterprise identity management.
  Now a days, it is getting more complex to deploy and manage identity management capabilities. The goal of OpenDS is to attract developers to build advanced directory services. It supports operating system ranging from Windows, Red Hat, Ubuntu Solaris, Open Solaris, etc.
• Manage your Network Storage with OpenFlier: OpenFlier is a powerful network storage solution that provides file based network attached storage and block based storage area network. It converts x86/64 architecture system into a full-fledged NAS/SAN appliance. The software lowers deployment and maintenance cost for network storage. It also provides scheduled snapshots, resource quota, and a single unified interface for share management and that makes allocating shares for various network file-system protocols easy. Some of the features include lock storage virtualization, extensive share management, accounts management, quota /resource allocation, full industry-standard protocol suite, UPS management support and built-in SSH client Java applet.
• Data Backup with Bacula: Bacula is an open source, enterprise level back up system. It is a set of computer programs that allows the system administrator to manage backup, recovery, and verification of computer data across a network of different types of computers. Bacula can also run on a single computer and can backup to various types of media, including tape and disk. Bacula can be used for backup from Open Source to Windows or other platforms. It supports mySql and PostGres Sql database.
• Open Source ERP and CRM solution: Most of the enterprises are compelled to cut down IT expenses due to the recession. Today businesses can not ignore the advantage of using ERP and CRM solution. That’s where the role of open source ERP and CRM solution comes. Organizations do not have to depend on any particular vendor, they can download the open source applications and customize them as per their need.
  You can use the open source application for ERP and CRM solution in two ways. One is that just mount them on a virtual machine and your ERP/CRM solution is ready to run. Just type in the address or intranet URL where ERP/CRM is running and your employees can access the application. The other is the packages installers that will set up database and web server everything for you.
  Some useful Open source CRM and ERP solutions include OpenBravo, Compiere, OpenERP, SugarCRM, Vtiger.
• Tools to Recover Lost data: Even though you follow best practices, you may lose the data on your hard drive at any time. Data Recovery is a very tricky part. The bottom line is that if you lose data in your hard drive,  don’t copy or install anything on it and leave it intact. Otherwise, the chances to recover the data later will become low. There are some useful open source data recovery tools as mentioned below.
  • Scrounge-ntfs: This is a data recovery program for NTFS file systems. Reads each block of the hard disk to and retrieves rebuilds file system tree on another partition.
  • Myrescue: In Linux operating system, myrescue is an utility to retrieve still-readable information from damaged hard drive. It attempts to quickly get out of corrupt area to handle undamaged part first. After extracting data from the undamaged area, the utility then returns to the damaged area and tries to fix it.
  • Recoverjpeg: This Linux system utility helps recover JPEG pictures from a file system image. The recovered filed are stored on the root directory
• Tools to Combat Hacking at your Network: The security of a  network depends upon how it is implemented and even if the system or network is implemented properly there remains the chances of some vulnerabilities. The cybercriminals use those vulnerabilities and get access into the system. There are several ways that hackers use them.  They scan for open ports and services with weak security and eventually make their way to  the network.  They start attacking the network by DoS, DDoS and SYN attacks.
  The reality is, even though you have tightly implemented the security practices,  newer and sophisticated attacks keeps on popping up every now and then. So how you will know what system is under attack and how you can prevent them? Here are a few open source tools that you can try out.
  1. ArpAlert: This tool watches who is connecting to your network. A network notify script for new devices allows the owner to know about  what is happening on his LAN.
  2. Arpwatch: Arpwatch is a tool that monitors ethernet activity and keeps a database of ethernet/ip address pairings. It also reports certain changes via email.
  3. Labrea: Labrea makes the hacker fool by creating virtual servers with lots of open ports which may attract a hacker. If  he is planning a DoS attack on your network , he will be routed by the fake servers .