ASLAN2023 brings together more than 7,500 professionals from the digital innovation industry, including Pandora FMS

by Pandora FMS team | Last updated Mar 28, 2023 | Community

The Congress & EXPO ASLAN2023, organized by ASLAN Association, took place last week at the Palacio de Congresos de Madrid – IFEMA, and brought together more than 7,500 professionals from the digital sector and cybersecurity in Spain.

And, after all the stuff we shared on social media surely you know that Pandora FMS was there!

Learn all about Pandora FMS’ success in ASLAN2023

The event had a whopping +100 exhibitors, each with its very own proposal of innovative solutions. In addition, the organization especially strengthened the presence of strategic vertical sectors at the exhibition.

Not to brag about it, but among the most outstanding solutions presented at the event there was MADE, a monitoring system for large amounts of data that uses Artificial Intelligence and automatically adapts to each management environment.

The tool has been developed by ourselves, in friendly collaboration with researchers from the University Carlos III of Madrid.

As we are restless minds in need of details, we had the courage to talk to Kornelia Konstantinova, CMO at Pandora FMS, and Sancho Lerena, CEO of the company.

Good afternoon, Kornelia!

Tell us, what impact do you think Pandora FMS’ participation in ASLAN2023 had and what was the response of those attending the event like?

It’s still early to talk about results in the short or medium term, but there’s something I can tell you: we exceeded our expectations in terms of the interest generated.

There was a huge flow of visitors and we were able to show our product to a wide audience. Also, to very relevant people!

We got to know some clients face to face, as well as partners with whom we usually communicate digitally.

We also came into contact with other companies in the sector, which we hope will open opportunities for collaboration and synergies.

What was the most difficult challenge to address when preparing your participation in this massive congress?

Without a doubt, the most difficult challenge, not only for us, I think for any exhibitor, is to develop an effective marketing strategy to attract the attention of visitors.

There are many exhibitors who participate and we must differentiate ourselves from the rest, whatever it takes. To that end, you have to be very creative of course and innovative, as well as develop a clear and effective message.

Then, of course, there is logistics, which is always a hustle and bustle.

What do you think is the marketing vision of Pandora FMS in terms of its role, in the long term, in the digital innovation industry in Spain and internationally?

We are the only manufacturer of Spanish Monitoring Software.

In the long term our goal is to consolidate ourselves as leaders in the industry in Spain and internationally.

To achieve this goal, our approach is based on developing and delivering advanced, customized solutions that meet the unique needs of our customers.

At Pandora FMS, we closely follow the latest trends and technologies on the market to stay always at the forefront of our sector.

Our commitment to continuous innovation. And it allows us to adapt to the changing needs of our customers, providing solutions that not only meet their current requirements, but also allow them to anticipate the future needs of their companies.

Therefore, we establish solid relationships with our customers, to understand their needs and offer customized solutions that fit their specific requirements.

We believe that close collaboration with our customers is key to our long-term success.

And now something lighter, any remarkable anecdotes of the days lived in ASLAN2023?

Actually, several. From the overflowing capacity of the first day, where many visitors had to queue to get in, to the amazement of everyone by the numerological studies of our beloved David! The mysterious magician we brought to our stand to predict, through his arts, the future of visitors.

Great, let’s go with Sancho!

How is it going, Sancho? Let’s get to the nitty gritty. We would like to know how the idea of creating the famous MADE system came about and what the development process was like.

There is a lot of techno chatter regarding Artificial Intelligence.
So we wanted to offer something useful, understandable and that could be implemented right away, without having to assimilate what runs underneath.

The truth is, it is a rather complex challenge to try to make easy on the outside what is extremely complex on the inside.

And what features make MADE a unique tool on the market and what advantages does it offer to companies?

Especially the fact that we had international Artificial Intelligence researchers from the University Carlos III of Madrid to create something different from the usual solutions on the market.

Made is a practical approach to a complex problem but has a basic approach:

How to detect anomalies on data that we can not give more information about.

Well, Pandora FMS can handle dozens of thousands of numerical series, all different, because they all represent the “soul” of each connected device.
Made studies each pattern separately, analyzes its behavior over time and like a data psychologist, is able to warn when something is not right.

You can’t diagnose the problem, but you know something isn’t right!

What was the collaboration like with the University Carlos III of Madrid in the development of the MADE solution and what did the university contribute to the project?

I think it was a very smooth process.

We had already tried to participate in other research projects and we really wanted to collaborate.

The university brings the state of the art of the world’s leading AI techniques.

Tell us, what impact do you think Pandora FMS’ participation in ASLAN2023 had and what was the response of those attending your presentation like?

I think Aslan is a good national showcase to show national and multinational companies who we are and the scope of our project.

In addition, thanks to the presentation, we were able to show face to face, what we do and how we can help all types of companies with Pandora FMS.

Any remarkable anecdotes of the days lived in ASLAN2023?

I met some people, senior managers from important companies, and I was pleasantly surprised (like, I really freaked out) because they had a technical profile even more geek than mine.

There is hope when large companies still look to technicians for their foundation to build business.

Thanks a lot!

What about you? Want to find out more about Pandora FMS?

It had to be said: Teleworking promotes productivity and employee satisfaction

by Pandora FMS team | Last updated Feb 27, 2023 | Community

The formula of teleworking, extended among many companies from the phenomenon of Confinement, caused by the pandemic, has given rise to a new model of labor relations.

A system already called “hybrid” because it combines teleworking with conventional physical presence.

Don’t feel guilty, teleworking works!

According to Microsoft studies on labor trends, it is advisable to keep flexible options for remote work. 

Surveys of 30,000 workers in 32 countries show that almost 73% want to work remotely, at least 60% of their time, while 45% consider changing to jobs that allow them to alternate commuting to their offices with working from elsewhere, through coworking, working at home or in the office itself.

In a technology company, specialized in monitoring systems such as Ártica PFMS, this situation has become an opportunity to significantly improve the work environment. 

We have managed to establish a flexible work system for employees, about 50, that is bearing fruit.

There has been an increase in productivity.

Rotation has decreased noticeably because no one feels overwhelmed. 

It is highly valued to avoid costs and transport time. 

No one is against it and most people are grateful for controlling their time and having options for conciliation and fulfilling their tasks.

Teleworking has been imposed spontaneously because employees have so desired and also because the company management has taken care to channel it and bring it to a successful conclusion. 

Both interests have been combined in search of work harmony, investing in a reconfiguration of the physical space and work procedures, in which each employee manages their own responsibility with the option of teleworking and attending to the office physically when deemed necessary. 

Meetings are scheduled every week and are carried out through a technological communication system that allows a telematic meeting where the company’s professionals, either as a whole or by department: 

• Commercial (Sales and Channel).
• Development.
• Testing and Quality.
• Support. 
• Projects. 
• Human Resources. 
• Administration and finance. 
• R&D. 

All contacts are made with a very defined agenda, thus avoiding wasted time. 

Each individual knows when to intervene and what to report. 

The chairman is fully involved and at each meeting sets the guidelines to be followed, answers questions and queries and makes decisions.

Another achievement that we appreciate is that everyone has adopted a greater teamwork spirit. 

Schedule and workplace flexibility, along with useful training, is the perfect combination to retain talent. 

Now we have noticed that in one year we have had “0” rotation due to this new system that we implemented.

Agile room

It is a room equipped with cutting-edge technology that allows combining simultaneously telematic meetings and face-to-face meetings. 

Agile, short meetings can be held, no more than 15 minutes, in which there is spontaneous conversation among the attendees.

Also, there is now a space designed for online training, so that we ensure knowledge updating, keeping the same performance standard we had in face-to-face mode. 

In the training room, the teacher can display screens showing the contents to be explained. 

Their image is combined with screenshots in which you can read texts with higher quality than the traditional power point. 

Students can interact by microphone with the teacher and other colleagues, without having to resort to written chat questions. 

We took an approach to what is called “learnability”, which is the curiosity and ability to learn new skills to stay employable in the long term.

Resetting the old workplace model

We have overcome the traditional model of massive in-person workplaces, a tradition from Taylorism, in which a huge room housed a myriad of aligned employees, who worked without looking up from their affairs and where it was difficult to communicate with the rest of the colleagues. 

That breadth of space has been transformed into a friendly environment. 

We have invested in connectivity to have high quality and safe telecommunication. 

We have overcome the idea that the private office was a privilege for bosses where there were all sorts of comforts for them. 

Now the office is a large office with sofas, armchairs, large windows where you can find the privacy for a call anywhere, warm lighting and screens to connect with whoever you want. 

There is a coffee room for a snack and where any professional of the company can come whenever they want it. 

That change implies a whole evolution in the way to communicate with each other and improve work performance because we all feel comfortably responsible for what we must do, with no additional pressures. 

We are the ideal place to work because employees can choose, according to their mood, their obligations and their tasks within the company, between teleworking or attending a nice environment.

Conclusions

All in all, this new teleworking structuring has allowed us to create a disruptive model where the employee enjoys their freedom of choice, while they allow the company to control the performance of each employee, settling down clear goals for work and measuring in real time their fulfillment. 

It’s a win-win situation for all of us!    

Will GPT-3 replace programmers writing code?

by Sancho Lerena | Last updated Feb 7, 2023 | Community

Although it has been developed very quickly in recent years, thanks to technological advances, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been around since the 50s.

Today this technology is being developed to do tasks that were previously only a matter for humans, such as programming.

What is GPT-3? Is your work as a programmer in danger?

AI is equipped with a set of tools, algorithms and techniques that allow it to learn on its own and improve its skills. 

This makes it an excellent choice to replace programmers writing code in the near future. 

First, AI is much more efficient than human programmers when it comes to writing code. 

AI can analyze patterns and information much faster and more accurately than any human, allowing it to write code much faster. 

AI is also capable of detecting and correcting errors automatically, which means the programming process is much simpler. 

In addition, AI is much less expensive than human programmers to write code. 

This is because AI doesn’t need to spend as much time learning programming languages, allowing it to save on working hour costs.

Well, you see? AI is not bad at all, after all, almost all the previous paragraphs have been written entirely by the ChatGPT.

Had you noticed? 

Don’t worry, don’t panic!

If you really believe that AI in the near future can replace programmers writing code, re-read the previous paragraphs a little more carefully.

GPT-3, the autoregressive language model that uses deep learning to produce texts that simulate human writing, writes well, of course, probably better than me, because it doesn’t make mistakes. 

But, again, read the first paragraph written by GPT-3 again to see if you find out what I’m talking about. 

You get it?

I’ll come and give you a hand.

AI can write better than a human, but it will never have a purpose

If we asked AI to write us a story, it would write something with correct syntax, even with meaning, but the text would offer no greater interest than that written by a good elementary school student. 

However, writing fiction literature or essays is an activity with a very large artistic and creative component. 

You might think, and I do not blame you, that many bestsellers could be written by Artificial Intelligence, and it is more than likely that the authors of the future will use Artificial Intelligence tools to find flaws in their texts, to round off their style and in some cases to add some filling content. 

Moreover, I would say that is already happening. 

In fact, Google is updating its algorithms to detect content generated by Artificial Intelligences as the Internet begins to be full of it.

However, I guarantee you that this article contains something outside the scope of an AI today: 

• Acid irony. 
• Even more acidic sarcasm.
• And why not? A certain melancholy.

*Damn it, this last paragraph was corrected by the AI, did I not tell you that it was possible?

But let’s go beyond that. 

Before talking about an activity like code, let’s talk about other disciplines affected by Artificial Intelligence. 

Are we talking about autonomous driving? 

Soon Google, Microsoft and Apple assistants will use the new algorithms and will be much, much smarter, they will even be able to help us answer emails while driving, and give us better guidelines. 

What’s more, I’m sure that in less than a decade, they will drive for us from point A (our garage) to point B (a public parking space). 

But wait… 

I live in Madrid… 

Have you ever tried to find a car park in the center of Madrid? 

Surely in Silicon Valley they do not have such hellish parking…. 

So, I withdraw what I said, that will still take some time, at least in Madrid. 

Let’s give it 20… 30 years, but it will come. 

I assure you, it will come.

The same will happen with text translation (but much, much earlier), the musical composition of the greatest hits, and with illustration, painting and graphic design. 

If I ask Dall-E2 (the interface for creating OpenAI images with GPT3) to create an illustration for me under the premise “marvel-style illustration of a Hungarian family celebrating New Year’s Eve” it will draw this:

I swear I’m not kidding. It did it for me, in no time.

Is your position as a programmer in danger?

But back to the subject of code. I have no doubt that sooner or later (10 years from now) there will be tools that help developers create, debug and test code as a functional part of software development suites, such as add-ons or additional utilities.

Artificial Intelligence is/will be little by little an assistant that will add tasks to its backpack, but in the near future, the creation of full applications through a simple premise does not make sense, since as in literary, visual or musical creation AI lacks context. 

Creating an application is an extremely complex process, where the code part is only one part, and it is not the most important part.

Context is much more important, and it includes answers to questions such as:

• How will it be used? 
• Who will use it? 
• What data inputs and what data outputs are expected? 

AI is good at giving answers, because what it does is study millions of existing questions and their answers, validating that learning process over billions of turns to the shaker we call Deep Learning, but… 

Is it capable of asking new questions? 

No, absolutely not.

Many will say that pure creation does not exist. That all stories have already been told, and that modern popular music does not come out of four chords repeated ad nauseam in different rhythms and melodies. They are right, but nuances are almost everything. 

In the world of software development, these subtleties are a universe full of very subtle nuances that we can not “put in a shaker” and expect the mixture of previous formulas to work. It is science fiction and if I may say it, bad one.

Maybe one day Formula One drivers like Fernando Alonso will compete on a circuit hand in hand with Artificial Intelligence. But it won’t be this decade, or the next. 

There are not only practical limitations, but ethical, moral, economic and legal limitations. 

A commercial airliner could land on its own, but no insurance company would insure the device. 

After all, who were we going to blame in the event of an accident?

The same applies to code generated by AI. 

Who would patch it? Who would extend it? Who would talk to the client to understand the requirements? Who would invent the text of the “tooltips” to help in the interface? Who would design the interface (UI)?

Let’s get even more risky. Why not buy AI as a company CEO? Why not buy AI as President? Why not buy AI as a partner or lover?

AI applied to everyday life has just begun, but companies like Google already see their business model in danger, because what an AI does very well is answering questions and simplifying the process of obtaining information and delivering moderately satisfactory results. 

Nowadays it is the ideal assistant, who does not stop observing and learning. And the time will come when it takes control over many activities, but as for software developing, it is still too soon. 

Although we shouldn’t relax that much, everything is a matter of time.

After all, I said that this text was not fully written by AI, 

but… 

Can you really be sure about that?

Pandora FMS Journey to the Middle East, Black Hat MEA 2022

by Dimas Pardo | Last updated Feb 26, 2024 | Community

At Pandora FMS we like to travel! Traveling, meeting people, bonding… And barbecues or country getaways are great, but there’s nothing we like more here than an event focused on technology!

That’s why we accepted the exceptional invitation to the latest Black Hat MEA edition held at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia last November. 

There we went, to the Middle East no less, with our stand and our roll up, to present our respects, and services, to the most cutting-edge community that exists out there.

Pandora FMS visits Black Hat MEA 2022, the event of the year

For those who are not aware of all this stuff: 

Black Hat MEA is a fairly iconic cybersecurity event, with year-round ethical hacking courses and offensive security classes that everyone wants to attend. 

A global event that pushes the secrets of data security to the limit.

The largest information security trade show held anywhere in the world in 2022, bringing frontline and technology-loving companies together annually in a professional and festive atmosphere.

But I will explain. 

We better talk to our lucky Pandora FMS colleagues who were able to attend this latest edition on behalf of our community. Alberto Sánchez, Systems Technician and Alexander Rodríguez, Salesperson. 

Alexander, what would you say Black Hat MEA was like for Pandora FMS?

I think the event was a great chance! 

Having a space within the booth provided by our exclusive partner in Saudi Arabia, LoopTech, was wonderful.

It allowed us several positive meetings with clients.

In addition, we had the honor to receive the visit of his Excellence Advisory Mr. Turki Alshikh. We were able to present him not only Pandora FMS, but the rest of the solutions in the field of Cybersecurity that our partner Looptech has. 

We were very happy to receive a lot of positive feedback from the product. 

Without a doubt, having participated in this event will help us achieve a better position in the Middle East market.

What did you learn from a place like Saudi Arabia and its people?

Saudi Arabia surprised me a lot. 

It is a country that is growing very fast. 

Although it still retains authenticity in the mud buildings in the middle of the desert and the spectacular sunsets on the dunes.

Its people are super friendly and are willing to help you in everything necessary to make your stay as pleasant as possible.

Most people speak English so it was very easy to communicate. 

And I was hugely impressed that everything there is “go big or go home”: great plates of food, huge malls…

I would go visit the country again, without a doubt, to continue finding out more about its culture.

And you, Alberto? What do you think Pandora FMS contributed to Black Hat MEA?

I believe at least that Pandora FMS contributed to difference and originality, compared to the rest of solutions that showed up to the event. 

As you already know, Black Hat MEA was focused in cybersecurity, meaning there were thousands aimed at email or mobile security, others focused in failure detection and there were those that avoid intruder access to devices. 

Well Pandora FMS, among all of them, proved to be the tool that better looked after device health. 

That its essential security feature is simply to prevent device malfunction thanks to monitoring, was something that stood out above the rest.

Any special memories of such an incredible journey?

It’s a tough question, because the whole trip was incredible. 

The kindness and “brotherhood” of the people was shocking.

It was surprising the diversification of cultures that we experienced with people from all over the world, and the number of students who visited us asking really difficult questions to answer…

But, if you insist, I’ll tell you a very funny moment that stuck with me. 

During a demo we could see that a group of students from the women’s university in Riyadh stared at us and laughed. 

When we finished the demo, we invited them to ask things about Pandora FMS and we took the opportunity to ask them why they were laughing during my demo, you know, in case we had failed at something… 

Their answer, while laughing, was that the word “Pandora” in Arabic is “Tomato”. 

For the rest of the event we struggled, at the booth, to say Pandora FMS without a smile on our faces.

Want to find out more about Pandora FMS?

Dear world, Pandora FMS wishes you Merry Christmas 2022

by Pandora FMS team | Last updated Dec 22, 2022 | Community

Christmas! That endearing time in which the streets are covered in lights, fallen leaves and warm couples holding hands. 

Children smile and the chimneys smoke. Gingerbread, nougat and homemade almond cake become our sweet treats and, if we are lucky, a friendly family member offers to give us the Christmas bonus. 

Yes! At Pandora FMS we love this time of year and we could not miss, for nothing in the world, to wish you a Merry Christmas 2022!

Merry Christmas 2022 from the whole Pandora FMS team

On these days we like to have sweets and for us there is nothing sweeter than each of the small and great achievements that we managed to unlock this year. 

A sometimes difficult year, but thanks to our team, our customers and users we managed to successfully get by. 

Pure product

Throughout the year, Pandora FMS has released a series of releases on a monthly and steady basis. 

They have included all the evolution, innovation and fixes that Pandora FMS workers have added to our tool. 

There have been so many improvements that it would be impossible to discuss them all in a single article, but we’ll leave here just a few:

Alert templates with multiple schedules

The possibility of including several schedules for both module and event alerts has been incorporated. With this new feature, different time slots can be generated within the same day or week, where alerts can be generated.

Support for MySQL8 and PHP8

We included support to be able to use MySQL8 without any type of modification or previous adjustment. We also prepared the console to work on PHP8 since the PHP7.4 support ended on 28 Nov 2022.

New report types

• Custom Render
• TOP-N connections
• Agent/module
• Agent/module status
• SLA services…

LTS started being implemented  

LTS versions are aimed at consolidating all changes of the RRR versions and offering maximum stability. Only two a year:

• LTS Akira
• LTS Hope

Sunburst, new service representation

The possibility of a new service representation has been added. 

This will be a centralized view where you may see the details of the tree node through a tooltip when hovering with the cursor.

Scheduled agent autoconfiguration application

Added the ability to schedule the appliance of Command Center agent auto-configuration rules automatically.

IPAM from Satellite

From Pandora FMS 764 RRR version it is possible to define IPAM network scanning from the Satellite server, indicating it in the Satellite server configuration file.

Improved network maps

Multiple changes have been made to network maps to improve the usability, performance and network map setup. 

• Map drawing and refreshing is automatic and dynamically reflects the changes in the network, highly improving the existing display in previous versions.
• The possibility of deleting “Pandora FMS” node as well as all its relationships has been added. Usability has also been improved in manual relationship management between nodes.
• Added linking between network maps. When there is a dummy node pointing to another network map, it will be possible to access that map from the dummy node options. 

Report sending by mail as an alert action

A new feature has been added to Pandora FMS alert system whereby it is possible to send reports by email in PDF thanks to its incorporation as new actions/commands within Pandora FMS.

Trap history

The possibility to generate a trap history in the history database has been added to improve this feature’s performance in the console and improve the main database’s performance.

Credential store: WMI and SNMP

Although the credential store already existed in Pandora FMS, the possibility of saving them to be used in WMI and SNMP modules has been incorporated.

Forbidden password list

Added a password exclusion list so that the system does not let users enter certain weak passwords, thus strengthening the system’s security.

Pandora FMS Roadmap 2023

We want to take a qualitative leap to make Pandora FMS not only the most flexible tool on the market, but an essential part for IT management and daily operation.

That’s why we’re working on process automation thanks to powerful Artificial Intelligence, the creation of a CMDB, security monitoring and automated deployment.

For more news

But, as you know, it doesn’t end here.

Pandora FMS does not take a rest on its evolution and development and so that you do not miss any news, we leave you this link here.

Follow our change log and you’ll always be up to date!

Our headlines

Pandora FMS and drought monitoring

As you know, this summer half of Spain was on drought alert. A consequence, without a doubt, of the extreme summer heat and the scarcity of rains. 

Thank heaven and science, technology experts already point out some solutions to reduce the impact of this type of phenomenon.

And we are very proud to say that among those solutions there is Pandora FMS.

Pandora FMS gets Red Hat Enterprise Linux software certification

Yeah, yeah, yeah! Thank you all! 

At Pandora FMS we are in luck, we now have Pandora FMS RHEL8 software certificate.

Some called it impossible, others the next step to take, however, we all received it with a round of applause.

Pandora FMS brings the Internet to 500,000 people in Brazil

We said it just like that but… 

More than 500.000 inhabitants of the working-class district of Povo do Acre, located in the northwest of Brazil, have Internet connection thanks to the collaboration of our company.

What a great work!

Pandora FMS becomes an M81 partner to make IBM i system monitoring easier

Well, well, look at that! This year we became an international benchmark in system monitoring by becoming a technology partner of the French company M81. 

As many of you may know, the French platform has extensive experience in the sector since its foundation in 1988 and is currently considered one of the great experts when it comes to monitoring IBM i systems. 

As a brand, we will now have the opportunity to transfer these types of solutions to Spanish companies to improve IT management and the efficiency of the different work areas.

Pandora FMS receives the Emerging Favorite mention in Capterra’s Shortlist of server monitoring software and APM

Prizes! Awards!  Medals! Honorary pins! 

Yes!

We are proud to announce Pandora FMS as the winner of the Best Usability 2022 badge in the Network Monitoring category. 

Apart from its mention as an Emerging Favorite in the 2022 Shortlist of Server Monitoring and APM Software from Capterra, the world’s leading software review platform.

Coastal municipalities monitor their beaches to measure the environmental impact of tourism 

This year the Spanish tourism sector has had a record summer. 

90% of foreign tourism that visited the country in 2019 was recovered this summer. 

Therefore, the administrations of the main tourist centers were reinforced with the technology necessary to control capacities. 

Yes, by “the technology necessary” we mean us. 

We loved helping to improve the performance of public services and minimize the environmental impact this summer.

The arrival of Pandora FMS in the United States thanks to the master’s degree of Rice University

Pandora FMS is an international entity and needs activity. 

And in search of that activity we set our eye on that great technological power, the United States.

In the end we managed to count on a native and capital team, with five senior professionals who helped us with their proposals and whom, in turn, we helped with their project.

Madrid improves EMT services by monitoring its bus data

The public service of buses of Madrid, the EMT, was one of the protagonists of Global Mobility Call developed between 14 and 16 June at the IFEMA. 

The company from Madrid exposed its future plans tracing the route to continue transforming the capital into a smart City where sustainable mobility and independent vehicles acquire great relevance. 

Nevertheless, executing this plan would be impossible without technology characterized by generating data on a steady basis. 

Therefore, the city went for data control through monitoring. (That is us!)

This is the secret of the success of the EMT, who has already established a monitoring system thanks to Pandora FMS.

Pandora FMS at the top of G2

G2, a platform that currently has more than 60 million visits a year, and in which users can read and write quality reviews on 100,000 software products and other professional services. 

That is why it is so important and honorable that Pandora FMS has become part of its Top 10 of the best Network Monitoring software.

Conclusions

And these are just a few small strokes of all the success we achieved throughout this 2022 thanks, we repeat, to all of our colleagues and to all our clients and followers. 

That is why we will not stop repeating it over and over again: 

Merry Christmas 2022!

May you have all your loved ones as close as the frozen bottle of champagne and the mix of chocolates, sweets and nougat! 

Would you like to find out more about what Pandora FMS can offer you?

Pandora FMS team will be happy to help you!

And if you don’t want to miss out on any of our new features and you are into IT, releases and, by all means, monitoring, we wait for you in our blog and our different social media, from Linkedin to Twitter, not foregetting Facebook of course. 

We even have a Youtube channel with the best narrator voices ever. Oh, and we also recently got our Instagram channel. Follow us! We still have a long way to go to match that of Billie Eilish!

You needed it and we bring it to you: New Pandora FMS Community!

by Pandora FMS team | Last updated Dec 13, 2022 | Community

Pandora FMS Community was first launched sixteen years ago. Today, it has more than 2.5K active members* that visit it to participate, learn, answer questions, and contribute everything they can and know.

*4.6K discussion threads and over 16K responses.

But the time for change has come!

The new Pandora FMS Community is here!!!

With the growth of the community, and the extensive scope of useful content available, we knew it was time to invest in updates to support our users and welcome new members with open arms.

We migrated to a new platform.

A platform for Pandora FMS Community that allows new user experience with categorized questions and answers as well as private and public groups. New knowledge base and integrated blog.

Because of that, the domain changed from https://pandorafms.com/forums/ to

https: //pandorafms.com/community/

But don’t worry, all the previous links are redirected to your new home!

The question is: Why are we launching a new community site?

Simply put, we want to help our whole community connect, collaborate, and share knowledge in every way possible. 

And this launch is our particular investment to provide you with the technologies and capabilities to enhance your experiences and increase support, education and contribution.

What new features await you?

1. Private and public groups

• Community pioneers

Would you like to contribute with your own ideas? What would you like to improve? This is your group, open to anyone who wants a better IT world.

• Power users

Restricted group for users who manage complex Pandora FMS configurations (Open or Enterprise) and want to contribute. Discuss the roadmap, usage issues… Access to unpublished material will be restricted.

•  Beta program

Pandora FMS Beta program helps to publicize what is currently being developed in Pandora FMS, both in the Community and Enterprise versions, accessing development versions generated daily. 

These versions can be used to test new features, evaluate bug fixes, and evaluate development progress in test environments. 

Since the group is closed and small, it is an excellent group to propose improvements, usability failure detection or non-contemplated use cases, etc.

To join the group, which is a restricted-access one, you must request access through our community website. 

In this group there are community users and Enterprise version customers alike, there is no need to give away any personal data or identify yourself in any way, all those who want to be part of the group and can contribute something are welcome.

• Community events and workgroups

Whether you are an IT company professional, a teacher of a technical course or an open source enthusiast, this group is geared towards helping coordinate Pandora FMS working groups and events.

2. Categories established with different topics

3. Range ranks and badges with karma system updates

4. Private messaging on the platform

Its main differences with the previous forum?

The previous forum was limited to questions and answers, a forum for pure and simple discussion. 

The new Pandora FMS online community, in order to enhance bilateral communication between users, integrates many more options apart from the forum:

• Its very own blog.
• A knowledge base. 
• Public and private groups.
• Q&A. 
• Resources. 
• Private instant messaging. 
• Online merchandising store. 

In short, we wanted to open a wide range of information, concentrated into a single place, to make it easier for all of our users to understand so much information, instead of just using it to their advantage.

Conclusions

The new Pandora FMS Community brings together in one place everything you may need to share, expand and improve knowledge about monitoring with Pandora FMS, both for Enterprise users and those from the OpenSource version. 

It is not just about bringing together people with the same interest, but about taking advantage of the knowledge of the team and the community so that members can achieve their goals in an integrated way in the same place.

Would you like to find out more about the new Pandora FMS Community?

Pandora FMS Named An Emerging Favorite In Capterra Shortlist For Server Monitoring Software and APM

by Pandora FMS team | Last updated Nov 15, 2022 | Community

The work is hard and there are high expectations, but we don’t give up! The fight goes on and every day we are happier with what we achieve and what we mean to our users.

For that reason, we are proud to announce Pandora FMS as the winner of the Best Ease of Use 2022 badge in the Network Monitoring category, apart from being mentioned as Pop-up Favorite in the 2022 Server monitoring and APM Software Shortlist, a free online service that helps organizations find the right software. The world’s leading software review platform.

Pandora FMS is always among the favorites. Capterra knows this

*As many of you may already know, Capterra Shortlist is an independent assessment that evaluates user reviews and online search activity to generate a list of market leaders in the software space that offer the most popular solutions. (Have a look at the Capterra Shortlist methodology here.)

**Capterra, which together with Getapp and Software Advice is a platform owned by Gartner, once a year synthesizes reviews in a given software category to recognize the best rated products by users.

What are these mentions and badges that Capterra grants?

Best badges awarded by Capterra are a great way to show how a product competes with its rivals, based on positive reviews and feedback from users. 

Reviews Badges serve as a strong element of trust for potential buyers when purchasing a product.

Best badges synthesize more than one million verified user reviews that span more than 750 software categories to recognize top-rated products.

Of course, the software companies and SaaS providers that get them often boast of these badges in social media, blogs, newsletters, press releases, websites and other marketing means. Of course that had to be our case too!:

As it could not be otherwise, our CEO and colleague Sancho Lerena has wanted to make some comments on this achievement:

“The first thing I would like to say is thank you. Sometimes it seems that one does not give enough thanks and there is much to thank, both to our coworkers and users, and even the Capterra platform itself. 

Especially because there are so many contributions and because it is absolutely always a huge honor to receive this kind of mention.” 

Here is a sample of our recognition in table format:

More achievements

Well, and that’s not all. 

Pandora FMS is also recognized as a Noteworthy Product in Capterra Shortlist for Application Performance Management Software. 

Our users have made it possible! 

With an overall rating of 4.6 out 5, we received some stellar reviews on Capterra:

“For a long time, we were looking for a monitoring solution that could ensure the resiliency of our web applications and finally, with the help of the Pandora FMS team, we found the right tool. 

Pandora FMS is an out-of-the-box monitoring solution that allows you to monitor your applications and systems and has a very intuitive interface that allows you to build your dashboards in no time. We can not wait to see what the future holds for Pandora FMS.”

[Kumar B.]

“Pandora FMS is a very handy monitoring tool for daily use. Accurate with metrics and useful reporting function for analysis of server performance. 

We are planning to widely distribute the agent across more servers for our customers.”

[Neil W.]

“Pandora FMS the perfect balance between price and quality.”

[Oskar R.]

The question now is, do you want to be the only one not to get on board with such a popular, effective and acclaimed product as Pandora FMS? As you see, you will hardly regret it! We’re counting on you!

IT monitoring reduces the workload of retailers by about 30%

by Pandora FMS team | Last updated Aug 29, 2022 | Community

Food retailers reduce the workload accumulated by their IT areas by almost 30% thanks to monitoring.

Controlling data and extensive information from the whole company, by controlling, supervising and ordering everything through the same system, allows to reduce the times of action in the face of possible errors and failures, improves resource management and organization and increases the effectiveness of the business activity.

In addition, monitoring saves costs.

IT monitoring and retailers, what you need to know

Large food distribution firms carry out continuous processes to guarantee the supply of products on the shelves, so the volume of information generated by executing these tasks throughout the day is remarkable. 

If you add to that amount of data the diversity of systems in the IT structure with which retailers work on a daily basis, the route to obtain valuable, clear and practical information becomes even more complicated. 

The difficulty is greater if, in order to analyze these data, there are unqualified personnel without the support of a reliable platform to make their work easier.

This situation highlights that the fact of not having a monitoring system multiplies the actions necessary to obtain information on the activity of the technological structure of the company or the state of each of its facilities:

This slows down a company’s power to act and its ability to react. 

That, after all, translates into a loss of value both economically and in terms of performance, especially concerning the area of human resources.

What do we achieve with monitoring in the retail sector?

Through monitoring, it is possible to access, even remotely, the entire IT structure of a company. 

That is, by means of a central console you may organize and control an entire technology park. 

This, despite being able to present a heterogeneous panorama with a wide diversity of systems that sometimes do not support each other, goes under the command of a monitoring system by which it can be accessed.

Monitoring makes it possible to replace an existing system and it is also capable of coexisting with others. 

The kind of flexibility that is essential in the sector, because it allows to integrate new stuff to the existing system. 

This observability implies the ability to bring together all data sources and provide useful information for the company. 

The more complex IT systems are, the more important it is to simplify their monitoring.

That way, servers from different operating systems can be monitored by the same controller. 

And in turn, every time an error is detected anywhere in the park, the information can immediately reach those responsible, shortening the reaction time and anticipating more serious internal operating situations.

Monitoring, in addition to making control and error anticipation easier within the company’s performance, it also helps to find out aspects as simple as the state of the toner of a series of printers, or the time workers clocked in. 

Monitoring companies ends up leading to cost savings and service improvement.

Thanks to appliying monitoring systems, retailers in the food sector acquire a tool that enhances the control of the technological infrastructure that guarantees the traceability of their products throughout the distribution chain; from its origin to its arrival to the final customer or to sales establishments. 

In addition, the implementation of this data technology allows monitoring the status of the systems from a centralized position and anticipating breakdowns and errors, saving workload and improving delivery times.

In the food market there have already been companies that have opted for this development of their structures. 

An example of this is Fripozo, belonging to the Fuertes Group, which implemented a monitoring system thanks to its agreement with the Spanish company Pandora FMS. 

As a result of this adaptation, it achieved higher responsiveness to any system failure that could affect the control and distribution of deep-frozen food.

In this particular case, one of the concerns for the company was to achieve some degree of flexibility. 

That is, that something specific could be monitored without this involving a large investment of time and local resources without external intervention. 

Fripozo, after this association with Pandora FMS, managed to reach that goal.

In addition to Fripozo, other distributors such as Salvesen Logistics have also confirmed operational improvements after monitoring their IT structure. 

The company, which like Fripozo took its chances on the Spanish Pandora FMS, came to reveal a reduction of 24% of the workload of its IT area. 

As revealed from their organization, the attention that was constantly paid to the health of the system was focused on improving services and products.

The sector, with more and more competition, is devoted to a necessary organization of the internal data that are produced throughout the same day in a company. 

Any mistake can lead to a chain failure, a misuse of their own resources and a point in favor of competition in the market.

“The monitoring carried out by systems such as Pandora FMS represents clear economic savings for companies that implement it in their IT infrastructure. Reaction times to any failure are shorter and therefore have less impact on the company. But, in addition, internal processes have also been improved as different business models have been discovered“,

explains Sancho Lerena, CEO and founder of Pandora FMS.

Coastal municipalities monitor their beaches to measure the environmental impact of tourism

by Pandora FMS team | Last updated Aug 11, 2022 | Community

The Spanish tourism sector is preparing for a record summer in which they hope to emulate the summer periods prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

The government has already advanced that 90% of the foreign tourism that visited the country in 2019 will be recovered.

That year, 84 million foreigners were received, a figure that is expected to be reached this year, taking advantage of the high temperatures and the national tourist offer.

For this reason, the administrations of the main tourist centers are being reinforced with the necessary technology to control capacity in order to improve the performance of public services and minimize the environmental impact.

Pandora FMS helps to monitor and manage our beaches

More and more municipalities are opting for the installation of monitoring systems that collect all the data in real time and allow them to be managed from a main console.

Monitoring, present in most companies to improve the management of their IT infrastructure, captures all the data that is constantly generated and manages it from this central system.

In this way, access to all the information collected is much simpler and immediate and the capacity to react to any anomaly detected is improved.

The importance of monitoring in companies has spurred the administration’s interest in improving the efficiency of their services and they are now applying this technology in the management of their beaches.

Municipalities in busy tourist areas are particularly interested in knowing the state of the busiest spots and are focusing on beaches, where systems are already being implemented to monitor the state of each sandy area and control the capacity.

Thus, in addition to measuring how many tourists visit a place in a given time slot, it is possible to minimize the environmental impact on the territory by establishing precise measures to improve the environmental protection of the beaches as well as the fauna and flora that inhabit them.

“Monitoring is a reality that is present in the private sector, and increasingly established in the public sector, which improves the control of tourist spots with large crowds of people.

With these systems it is possible to calculate how many people are on each beach at any given time.

In this way, the efficiency of health and safety services can be improved or the capacity of some of these areas can simply be restricted if the environmental damage being caused is alarming,

explains Sancho Lerena, CEO of the Spanish company Pandora FMS, which monitors systems of giants such as Rakuten or Toshiba, as well as public administrations such as Madrid Digital or hospitals.

Where can we find these monitoring systems?

These monitoring systems are being installed in various parts of the country.

For example, the Coastal Observation and Forecasting System of the Balearic Islands will be installed on the beaches of Mallorca.

With this mechanism, the administration will allow tourists to share photographs taken from the same point on the beach, allowing them to see the evolution of the landscape in order to control its pollution and to record the hourly capacity of the beach.

This same experiment based on monitoring will also be present in Galicia, specifically in Vigo, or on beaches in Valencia.

The two main objectives in all cases are to control the environmental impact and to know the approximate capacity of each beach in different time slots in order to manage public services in the most efficient way.

Gran Canaria has also invested 500,000 euros in a system to monitor very busy beaches such as Las Canteras, Alcaravanera and La Baja.

For its part, Barcelona will use drones, after investing almost 170,000 euros, to measure the capacity of each beach without the need to identify the population.

In both situations, monitoring will be essential to collect all the data and enable the authorities to act as appropriate.

“Monitoring processes are in our day-to-day life, it is normal for administrations and tourism companies to adhere to this type of systems,” acknowledges the CEO of Pandora FMS.

“Monitoring allows access to information by a single means .

In this case, a computer where all the data generated every second is concentrated and which, if the monitoring system did not exist, would have to be collected from each specific console.

Thus, if there is an alert in an area, action can be taken from the central console and the other areas can be alerted,” says Lerena.

Tourist wave

The summer of 2022 was set to be the summer of the return to full normality, also in the economic sphere.

However, the outbreak of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent inflationary wave led to fears of a new crisis from May to the present.

Despite this, the Government has reaffirmed that the Spanish economy is “strong” and has positioned tourism as one of the driving forces in the coming months.

The forecasts of the Executive go through to recover nine out of ten foreign tourists who visited Spain in 2019, a year in which 84 million people were received in the 12 months of the fiscal year.

At the moment, more than 20 million airline seats are already estimated to be booked for these months.

In addition, domestic tourism is also likely to grow by 3%, so the economy will not only be driven by the foreign population.