Big Brother Server in the context of xymon

In the context of the Xymon monitoring tool, the Big Brother Server refers to the central monitoring server that collects and displays status updates from monitored systems. Xymon itself is a fork of the Big Brother monitoring system, which was one of the earliest network and system monitoring tools.

Role of the Big Brother Server in Xymon

1. Data Collection:

The server receives health and performance data from Xymon clients installed on different machines.

2. Status Processing:

It processes incoming status messages and logs events for alerting or reporting.

3. Web-Based Dashboard:

It provides a web-based interface displaying real-time system statuses using color-coded indicators (green, yellow, red, etc.).

4. Alerting System:

It can send notifications via email, SMS, or other methods when a system is experiencing issues.

5. Historical Data & Trends:

The Big Brother server stores historical data to analyze trends and detect anomalies.

Connection to Big Brother (BB) Tool

Xymon evolved from the Big Brother monitoring system, which had a similar architecture. The term Big Brother Server was used in Big Brother and carried over to Xymon to describe the central server managing the monitoring process.