.. _overview:

********
Overview
********

The **Centreon Plugin Packs** are a set of **standardized** **templates** that are 
**preconfigured** for rapid deployment of monitoring in your IT infrastructure.

These templates (commands, hosts and services templates) are attached to 
the **monitoring plugins**, which can either be:

* existing community plugins selected and validated by Centreon as being fully functional and optimized, or
* plugins written by Centreon that are distributed as free software under RPM or available on `Centreon Plugins <https://github.com/centreon/centreon-plugins>`_ project

The added value of **Plugin Packs** is the **pre-configuration** of monitoring 
in the Centreon software. During installation, **the Packs import** 
**pre-configured objects** into the Centreon software such as **commands**, **host templates** and 
**service templates**.

After you install the Plugin Packs, the next step is to install the monitoring plugins used by the 
Plugin Pack commands. Refer to the documentation in the pack in case any features have to be configured or activated, and then create the required hosts 
and services based on these models.

====================
Inside a Plugin Pack
====================

A Plugin Pack contains:

* a description of the pack contents and the indicators that can be monitored.
* Centreon preset objects (commands, host templates, service templates) packaged and validated.
* documentation for a simple and quick deployment. It is available once the pack is installed. 

==========
Connectors
==========

The Centreon Plugin Packs subscription gives you access to specific connectors:

+------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|     Connector          |         Description                                                                     |
+========================+=========================================================================================+
|      JMX               | Centreon Plugin based on Jolokai to monitor an application server through JMX           |
+------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|      NRPE              | NRPE server, packaged by Centreon, with patches required to comply with Plugins Packs   |
+------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|      NSClient++        | NSClient++, packaged by Centreon, ready to use with embedded Centreon Plugins           |
+------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|      VMWare            | Perl daemon using VMware SDK to monitor VMware platforms                                |
+------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|      AS400             | Java-based connector allowing you to execute checks on an AS400                         |
+------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

.. note::
    For JMX monitoring, the previous Java connector has been deprecated and replaced by a Centreon Plugin based on Jolokai technology.
    The source code is available as with other Centreon Plugins.

    For VMWare monitoring, the previous ESXD connector was available until version 1.5 but has now been deprecated and replaced by Centreon VMWare 2.x.
    The change of name and version is due to major technical refactoring, and there is no direct upgrade from version 1.5 to 2.0.

Please refer to the `associated documentation <https://documentation.centreon.com>`_ in each project for more information.