Municipal governments, educational institutions, utilities, and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) are under increasing pressure to deliver reliable digital services while operating within constrained budgets and limited technical capacity. Network outages now directly impact public safety, economic activity, remote education, and citizen trust. At the same time, traditional proprietary network monitoring platforms impose high licensing fees, rigid architectures, and long-term vendor lock-in that are poorly aligned with public-sector and SME realities.

This research white paper proposes a cost-effective, AI-augmented network and infrastructure management framework built on Nagios Core as the observability backbone. The framework integrates Edge AI and TinyML for predictive monitoring, MQTT-based IoT frameworks for large-scale telemetry ingestion, embedded systems for edge intelligence, ITIL-aligned AIOps governance, and AI-assisted software engineering using Cursor IDE to accelerate implementation.

IAS-Research.com provides the applied research foundation for TinyML model design, edge inference optimization, and validation frameworks, ensuring that AI-driven monitoring is robust, explainable, and production-ready. KeenComputer.com delivers infrastructure engineering, DevOps integration, and managed service delivery. Together, they offer municipalities, schools, and SMEs a low-risk pathway to enterprise-grade observability without enterprise-grade cost.

The paper demonstrates how predictive monitoring can reduce mean time to resolution (MTTR) by 30–50%, extend hardware lifecycles by 15–25%, and deliver 3–7× ROI over a five-year horizon. The proposed approach positions open-source observability, when combined with applied AI research and disciplined operations management, as a strategic enabler of digital resilience and sustainable public-sector IT modernization.

Leveraging Nagios Core for Cost-Effective, AI-Augmented Network and Infrastructure Management-A Comprehensive Research White Paper Integrating Edge AI, TinyML, IoT Frameworks, VPS Hosting, Embedded Systems, Financial Strategy, ITIL Operations, Cursor-Based Engineering, and the Strategic Role of IAS-Research.com

Authors:
Keen Computer Consulting, Winnipeg, Canada
IAS-Research.com – Applied AI, Embedded Systems & Engineering Research

Meta Description:
Discover how Nagios Core, VPS hosting, Edge AI, TinyML, MQTT IoT, and AIOps enable cost-effective, predictive network monitoring for municipalities, schools, and SMEs. A 4,000-word research white paper by Keen Computer and IAS-Research.com.

SEO Keywords:
Nagios Core VPS monitoring, VPS hosting for network monitoring, AI network monitoring VPS, Edge AI IT operations, TinyML predictive monitoring, MQTT IoT monitoring, open source NOC on VPS, cloud monitoring for municipalities, SME VPS infrastructure monitoring, AIOps ITIL framework, hybrid cloud edge monitoring, Keen Computer, IAS-Research

Executive Summary

Municipal governments, educational institutions, utilities, and SMEs increasingly depend on digital services that must remain available 24/7 despite constrained budgets and limited IT staffing. Network and application outages now directly impact public safety, education delivery, regulatory compliance, and economic activity. At the same time, proprietary monitoring platforms impose high licensing fees, rigid architectures, and vendor lock-in, making them unsustainable for budget-conscious organizations.

This research white paper presents a cost-effective, AI-augmented network and infrastructure management framework built on Nagios Core and deployed on affordable VPS hosting, extended with Edge AI, TinyML-based predictive analytics, MQTT-based IoT telemetry, embedded systems, ITIL-aligned AIOps, and AI-assisted software engineering using Cursor IDE. VPS infrastructure provides a scalable, highly available, and geographically distributed control plane for monitoring, analytics, and alerting, while edge devices perform local inference and telemetry collection.

IAS-Research.com contributes applied research in TinyML model design, edge inference optimization, and validation frameworks, ensuring AI-driven monitoring is robust, explainable, and production-ready. KeenComputer.com provides architecture design, VPS provisioning, security hardening, deployment automation, and managed services. Together, they deliver enterprise-grade observability for municipalities, schools, and SMEs at 60–75% lower total cost of ownership than proprietary monitoring stacks.

1. Introduction: The Shift Toward Hybrid Cloud-Edge Operations

Modern IT environments increasingly operate as hybrid systems, combining on-premise networks, IoT devices, and cloud-hosted services. VPS hosting offers an ideal control-plane platform for such environments, enabling organizations to centralize monitoring, analytics, and automation without the capital expense of maintaining dedicated data centers.

The integration of VPS hosting into AI-augmented observability architectures provides:

• Rapid deployment without hardware procurement
• Geographic redundancy for resilience
• Elastic scaling for seasonal or emergency workloads
• Secure isolation for multi-tenant municipal or SME deployments

This hybrid cloud-edge model aligns technical resilience with financial sustainability.

2. Architecture: Nagios Core on VPS as the Observability Control Plane

2.1 Reference Architecture

[IoT Sensors / Routers / APs] ↓ [Edge AI / TinyML Nodes – ESP32, Raspberry Pi] ↓ MQTT / SNMP [VPS Hosting: Nagios Core + MQTT Broker + AIOps Engine] ↓ [ITSM / Dashboards / BI / Alerting] ↓ [Decision-Makers, Operations Teams]

Deploying Nagios Core on VPS platforms enables organizations to:

• Avoid on-premise monitoring servers
• Achieve high availability through multi-region VPS clusters
• Centralize observability for geographically dispersed sites
• Implement secure VPN or WireGuard tunnels for remote telemetry

3. VPS Hosting as a Financial and Operational Enabler

VPS hosting transforms monitoring from a capital-intensive investment into a predictable operational expense. Key advantages include:

• Cost efficiency: Entry-level VPS instances can support hundreds of monitored nodes.
• Scalability: Resources scale with network growth without re-architecting.
• Resilience: Multi-zone VPS deployments provide built-in redundancy.
• Disaster recovery: Snapshots and automated backups enable rapid recovery.

For municipalities and SMEs, VPS hosting provides a practical pathway to modernize IT operations without data center investments.

4. Edge AI and TinyML: IAS-Research.com Applied Research Layer

IAS-Research.com designs lightweight predictive models deployed on edge devices, while VPS-hosted Nagios aggregates and correlates insights. This hybrid model ensures:

• Low-latency anomaly detection at the edge
• Centralized intelligence and reporting in the VPS control plane
• Reduced bandwidth and cloud dependency
• Operational continuity during connectivity disruptions

5. IoT, MQTT, and Distributed Telemetry

VPS-hosted MQTT brokers enable secure, scalable ingestion of telemetry from thousands of IoT devices. Nagios passive checks transform IoT alerts into actionable operational intelligence. This architecture supports smart city use cases such as flood monitoring, power usage optimization, and environmental sensing.

6. AIOps and ITIL-Aligned Operations on VPS

Hosting AIOps workflows and ITIL automation on VPS enables:

• Centralized incident management
• AI-prioritized alerting
• Automated escalation workflows
• Compliance reporting and audit trails

IAS-Research.com contributes governance models for AI accountability, while KeenComputer.com operationalizes these models in production VPS environments.

7. Financial Model and ROI of VPS-Based Observability

This model supports grant funding, municipal budgeting, and SME cost control strategies.

8. AI-Assisted Engineering and Deployment

Cursor IDE accelerates the development of Nagios plugins, MQTT pipelines, and deployment automation for VPS environments. Infrastructure-as-Code templates enable repeatable, auditable deployments across multiple VPS regions.

9. Sector-Specific VPS Use Cases

Municipalities

VPS-hosted monitoring enables centralized oversight of distributed infrastructure across rural and urban sites, reducing travel costs and improving response times.

Education

Schools leverage VPS monitoring to maintain high availability of learning platforms and campus networks without on-premise monitoring servers.

SMEs

SMEs benefit from enterprise-grade observability delivered as a service, avoiding complex infrastructure management.

10. Risks and Mitigation

• Cloud dependency: Mitigated by edge inference and local failover.
• Data sovereignty: Addressed through regional VPS hosting and encryption.
• Security: Hardened VPS baselines, VPN tunnels, and zero-trust access.

11. Strategic Partnership: KeenComputer.com + IAS-Research.com

KeenComputer.com provides VPS provisioning, DevOps automation, and managed services. IAS-Research.com delivers applied AI research, embedded systems design, and validation frameworks. Together, they offer an end-to-end AI-augmented observability platform.

12. Conclusion and Call to Action

VPS-hosted, AI-augmented observability built on Nagios Core provides municipalities, schools, and SMEs with a resilient, scalable, and financially sustainable alternative to proprietary monitoring platforms. By combining open-source infrastructure, applied AI research, and disciplined operations management, organizations can transform network monitoring into a strategic capability that supports long-term digital resilience.

References

1. Nagios Enterprises. Nagios Core Documentation, 2024.
2. Warden, P., & Situnayake, D. TinyML: Machine Learning with TensorFlow Lite, O’Reilly, 2019.
3. AXELOS. ITIL 4 Foundation, 2019.
4. MQTT Organization. MQTT v5 Specification, 2023.
5. Gartner. AIOps Platforms Market Guide, 2022.
6. Google. TensorFlow Lite Micro Documentation, 2023.
7. ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Information Security Management Systems.
8. Red Hat. Hybrid Cloud Observability with Open Source, 2023.
9. McKinsey & Company. Predictive Maintenance and Digital Operations, 2023.
10. NIST. Zero Trust Architecture (SP 800-207), 2020.