Community, a byproduct of open source project adoption, is becoming a feature in many commercial management applications available today.

Companies such as Hyperic debuted a community-driven Web site to offer adopters of its open source management software a place to share experiences and ideas. Splunk, maker of IT management search software, developed its SplunkBase site as an IT knowledgebase of software that lets users of Splunk software share reports, dashboards and other configurations as well as exchange information about their IT problems. And the free software from Spiceworks can be discussed in the vendor's online resource center.

Now network and systems management appliance maker Kace is joining in on the community action. The company recently announced it had acquired AppDeploy.com and launched its AppDeploy Live feature that works with the company's KBOX family of appliances.

Kace linked the data contributed, supported and maintained on AppDeploy.com directly to its appliances so that when KBOX users have a question they will be routed directly to the site. The 10-year-old AppDeploy.com, owned by Kace but operating independently, gets more than 100,000 monthly visitors seeking knowledge on applications. More than 16,000 IT professionals contribute data, processes and information to the site that offers visitors insight into deploying, configuration and maintaining application files. Kace says by tapping AppDeploy.com to answer application management questions, its customers will avoid time-consuming searches on vendor sites, discussion boards and technical publications.

"This is like TiVo for systems management," says Kace CEO Rob Meinhardt. By coupling the free service of AppDeploy.com to Kace appliances, he says, customers will have application management answers at the ready. "AppDeploy.com will remain a free and open community available to anyone, but now Kace customers can get that information pulled into the KBOX console."

Denise Dubie is senior editor with Network World.