Umit, an open source organization that’s loosely affiliated with Google, is preparing Open Monitor, a free and open source tool that will allow customers and service providers to monitor Internet connectivity conditions from any part of the world. If Open Minitor works as advertised, I wonder if there are potential integration opportunities with traditional RMM (remote monitoring and management) software that many MSPs already leverage.

Open Monitor is part of the Umit Project Open Source Organization. So far Umit has four main projects:

An Open Monitor alpha test for selected trusted testers is expected to surface in the next few weeks, according to Google’s Open Source blog.

Andriano Marques, the Umit project leader, offered background on the Open Monitor strategy in this November 2011 presentation:

Side note: Sometimes my enthusiasm for open source gets the best of me. When we first launched MSPmentor in 2008, I blogged frequently about the potential of open source software in the managed services market.

More recently I’ve tried to offer a more balanced approach to our coverage — pointing out potential upsides of open source while also conceding that many commercial open source projects never really gain big backing.

So what does that all mean for Open Monitor?

The alpha sounds like it’s really close to launch. We’ll be watching.