Fource

Inspiration

It is really embarrassing when a customer says, "You are Down" and we don't know about it. Sometimes, customers build their own service heath checks to monitor our API's. Some customers are even ready to pay extra for a status page.

How it works

We made it very simple. Define the service in easy YAML files. Start the docker container. Done.
It will automatically perform the checks every 5 mins (configurable) and update the status page. Sample link: http://www.fource.in/, http://shinken.fource.in/ (admin/admin)

Challenges We ran into

There were many technical challenges. It included, but was not limited to:

• Creating a modular design. Every component in this product is pluggable.
  
• Integrating many open source technologies to meet the final objective. Some examples:
  
  • Shinken
    
  • Graphite
    
  • Thruk
    
  • Stashboard
    
  • Docker
    
  • Jinja2
    
  • MongoDB
    
  • REST API
    
  • Google AppEngine
    
  • OAuth Authentication
    

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

We completed the version 1, well before time. Post this, we worked upon fixing bugs, adding good to have features and working on documentation.

What I learned

It was the first hackathon for all of us. We learnt how to keep calm when brain stops working and #GetShitDone. The meaning of 'built with #love & #caffeine'.

What's next for Fource

Taking this to next level. We plan to add more modules, protocol support and present it in conferences like PyCon 2015 - submission deadline: 31st May. A blog post and online promotion is a something, we plan to do immediately. This may help us get more contributors :-)
The project is already opensource. Link: https://github.com/fource/fource

Built With

• docker
• google-appengine
• graphite
• jinja
• mongodb
• oauth-authentication
• python
• rest-api
• shinken
• stashboard
• thruk